“Bob, I’m a little shocked!” This is how my executive coaching client, Danny, the Vice-President-Production Operations with a large energy firm in the oil patch responded at the beginning of our conversation when asked, “How are things back at the ranch?” He went on to explain that when he had been nudged by their Human Resource function to get a sense of forecasted turnover over the next few years through retirements, attrition, etc., his people had collectively come to the conclusion that 70% of the staff in Danny’s division would turn over in the next 3 years. “Well, what are you planning to do to prevent the potential adverse consequences?”, I asked.

In response, Danny stated, “We clearly have to start identifying successors to the key Production Operations leadership positions, and in parallel with this identify and accelerate the development of High Potentials.” “What are your other glimpses of the obvious?” I asked him. “That’s a darn good question. I guess we’ve got to review other critical roles and specifically any flight risk staff!” 

“What generally would be the outcomes you and your leadership team would likely look for by doing this?” I asked again. He quickly responded with increased energy, “Well for one, identify key talent at the senior levels of our division, get a solid sense of our bench strength, get those we identify to be clear on their needed development activities, and agree with our senior team as to what exactly the key succession management metrics should  be!”. Danny had quickly created excellent strategic direction around this challenge that’s common to most private and public sector organizations.

When asked, “What’s really driving all of this?”, Danny said “That’s another great question. We’re anticipating continued strong growth once the economy gets back on its feet and obviously anticipating turnover of our key people. The increased challenge of filling these key roles along with our questionable current bench strength and readiness to backfill are clearly wanting, as well as our lack of being able to identify HiPo’s right now and having them ready to step into senior leadership roles when we need them to surface. I think these are the real concerns here.”

“How do you feel about all of this?” I asked. “Quite frankly, I’m disappointed, mad as hell for allowing ourselves to get into this position, and I’m damned anxious about what might happen if we don’t get on top of it . . . and yesterday! It’s now one of our top priorities!”

“So, what do you want to do about it?” I asked him. “Well, it’s clear that we’re engineering experts and not Human Resource experts so we’ll need to get together with HR and soon. I’ll put this at the top of the list at our next Production Ops executive leadership team meeting this coming Tuesday.”

“If you thought you knew what needed to be done in terms of the overall process for moving this forward quickly, what might that be?” Being the quick thinker he naturally is, Danny stated, “OK, do you just make these questions up? Well first, I would think that we need to scope out what actually needs to be identified through our succession management initiative. Second, we would no doubt have to assess and review our current engineering talent for levels of performance and potential. Third, we’d obviously have to start figuring out what key leadership and individual-contributor engineering roles need to be replaced and when. Last, I’m thinking it’s about making sure we have a top notch development action planning process in place that can be quickly designed and implemented. Does that make sense?”. “More importantly, does it make sense to you?” I responded. “You know, it does. Thanks.”, said Danny.

“So what’ll your next steps be given what you’ve said so far?” I asked him. “Again, the questions Uncle Bob!”, Danny said jokingly. “Well let me see. I’m thinking we start right away by initiating a succession planning meeting between us and HR early next month to agree on role expectations, determine critical roles in the Production Operations division, identify high impact engineer flight risks and begin a talent review to develop a list of HiPo’s.” “Then what?”, I asked. “OK”, Danny said, “Later in the month, we’ll make sure we have a talent replacement plan in place. In the following month we can shoot for having a development plan nailed down, and the month after that have our succession metrics in place with a solid progress plan established. Yeah, that’s sounds like it would do it.” 

Lastly I asked Danny, “So how will we know you’ve done what you’ve said?” “Again, with the questions!” he responded tongue in cheek. “I’ll send you a one page copy of our general plan for making this happen with target dates. I’ll send you an email once I believe each of the key milestones have been achieved. We can also carve out a small portion of some of our future executive coaching calls for us to discuss what’s happening. Will that work?” “It’s sounds like a plan my friend.” said I.

What insights in the foregoing were there for you? What one word captures your reaction? How do you feel about the subject of talent management and succession planning. What do you want to do with it? I would love to receive any gems this may have conjured up for you. For those interested, a wonderful book on this subject is ‘The Leadership Pipeline: How to Build the Leadership Powered Company’, by Ram Charan, Stephen Drotter and James Noel. Take care and have a great day!

“I’m responsible for Strategy.” said Mike Payne, General Manager – Strategy & Portfolio with Shell Gas & Power, while on a Continental flight from Houston, Texas to Seattle, Washington. We just finished introducing ourselves and had an interesting discussion about organizational strategy, employee loyalty and corporate cultures and how they positively or negatively affect organization performance, particularly during these white water times. The whole concept of corporate strategy, its development and implementation have always fascinated me. Having led and facilitated strategic change both in organizations in executive roles and as an executive coach/consultant, I’ve always believed that strategy development, which of course is critical, is really where “the rubber hits the sky.” Strategy implementation on the other hand is where “the rubber hits the road”! The latter is where real management change takes place. I’ll come back to this shortly.

Strategy development is critical, but my experience and observation is that most senior leaders would simply rather chew through their left arm than spend the usual inordinate amounts of time working through a long laborious strategic management process facilitated by high priced consulting firms over many months (even years). The end result is a strategic document so massive that one could hit a moose between the eyes with it and drop him right on the spot. Typically, along with the other ‘pressing demands’ that await them back at the ranch, the participants never truly want to revisit these documents no matter how well initially intentioned.

So what’s the alternative? Most will agree that organizations have to have a clear vision and supportive strategy! In these turbulent times being faced with imperfect organization systems, people and the world around us, there are truly no right answers. But there is a way to accelerate the development of powerful strategy with the foregoing imperfections. By utilizing full involvement of the whole organization from top to bottom you will be able to maximize understanding, ownership, commitment of the people that have to make it happen (not the executive) and quickly increase the probability of the organization’s strategic advantage and success.

This means moving forward in a way that fully involves the organization’s people while driving up the collective dissatisfaction of all involved with the organization’s current state of affairs and producing substantive clarity around what improvement would look like. Collectively determine the first steps toward moving quickly and powerfully forward on that vision and clarify the capabilities that need to be developed to accelerate the changes needing to take place rapidly thus resulting in the organization overpowering the ever present inertia that resists any planned change.

Now that your organization has a quick and well developed strategy it’s ready to move forward! Whoa Nellie, not so fast. Remember that inertia piece previously referred to. Well it has been temporarily disabled and if you don’t exploit it quickly it will solidly re-establish its dysfunctional presence. You must start to quickly redesign your organization to assure you successfully achieve your organization’s new dream: the strategic plan. The focus now is on redesigning and changing your organization in ways that will enable it to quickly realize the new strategy. This requires you to revisit your organization’s current structure, systems, staffing, competencies, leadership style and the way we do things around here (often referred to as your organization’s culture, those principles that guide how people are expected to work with each other and the organization’s customers/clients).

These key areas must be revisited and fundamentally changed creating full alignment with and producing the strategic results planned for. Otherwise, as Edward Deming put it, every system is perfectly designed for the results it produces! So if you want different results, i.e. achieving the organization’s new strategy, then by definition you must change each of the foregoing components of your organization or it will simply continue to create the results produced to date and perhaps further deterioration of same. Oh, the dangers of being an executive in this day and age! No wonder these positions are affectionately known as ulcer jobs!

Here’s a small insight, the most important aspect of the foregoing is not the strategic planning, strategic management and change in management processes, but rather having the ‘leadership cajones’, courage and confidence to make it all happen! This requires a very unique leader and these are truly a very rare breed, thus being paid the big bucks as they say. However, if the desire is squarely there, then surrounding oneself with the right team who first prepare to invest in themselves working from the inside out, rather than the outside in (i.e. strategic planning, management and change) then you have a fighting chance of success.

This is really all about the CEO and his/her team being different individually and as an executive leadership team as opposed to simply doing things differently. Otherwise, as was previously inferred, the probably of bringing about needed change will be minimal. If anything it will probably become worse. Being different at both the individual and leadership team levels necessitates having the courage to work with highly seasoned executive coaches, being ready to engage in quick and powerful diagnostics, and preparing to first make the personal changes necessary to assure that the new strategy truly sticks to the wall and doesn’t just slide away. Otherwise the whole strategic management process will be an enormous waste of time, money and organizational energy. And if this is the case, it will clearly contribute to executive candidacies for transfer outside the organization!

What feelings surface for you on this subject? What to you think about it? What is it that you want to do with the information? I’m most interested in hearing from you: the good, the bad and the ugly!

“Those guys just don’t get it!”, “I’m thinking of going elsewhere given the new assignment they’ve forced me to take!”, or “This place is a zoo and no one knows which way is up or down!”. Often when engaged in coaching these and a myriad of other perspectives get voiced loudly and clearly. Although many of these clients don’t know it, being ‘stuck’ in a particular perspective or point of view is more common than not. They’re simply stuck because of his/her not being able to see ‘the blinding glimpse of the obvious’. With commitment from the client to ‘want to break through this’ (usually because of the associated pain and discomfort) and powerful coaching they typically make strong breakthroughs quickly and effectively.

So how’s this done? It’s simply a matter of coaching the client to step back and begin looking at the same situation but from different perspectives. Reviewing and clarifying these perspectives, and then making a choice that is ‘integrative’, that is taking in the needs of those significant other stakeholders and his/her own needs, creates a ‘win-win’ resolution and then ‘makes it happen’ as Kathy Dannemiller and Jake Jacobs would put it. Easier said than done, but then that is where a highly experienced senior executive coach comes in, particularly for senior executives, individual contributors and hi-potentials constantly wrestling with those organizational concerns where there is never a ‘right answer’.

A universal phenomenon that exists for us all is that we’re always in choice no matter the circumstances that face us. We’re in choice in the morning when we wake up. “What will I wear?”, “What will I have for breakfast?”, “How will I get to work?”, “Do I want to go to work?”, “How do I want to feel right now, today, tomorrow?”, “What attitude do I want to take toward my organization, boss, peers, sub ordinates, team members, customers/clients, family members, etc.?” The list is simply never-ending.

Another universal phenomenon (oh, they’re limitless), is that for every choice there is a consequence . . . good, bad or ugly! That is why knowing this information is key to our true success and fulfillment as children, parents, team members, employees, leaders and community members. Always consider your thoughts, wants and feelings (in equal amounts) before choosing. If the results impact others, always share with them what the foregoing are for you, and then also ask them what they think, want and feel about the same issue and use this collective information to make choices that satisfy.

Heck, even our dogs are in choice. Say that again! OUR DOGS ARE ALSO ALWAYS IN CHOICE! Let me give you a for example. In June of 2008 we adopted two new rescue Brittany Spaniels through the American Brittany Rescue Association. I drove Skya in from Nebraska, and drove Woody from Montana. Both were to replace two rescue Brittany’s who had passed away from old age a few months prior. Back to being in choice. Skya had been picked up off the street and was about to be euthanized in a Kill Shelter. Fortunately, someone stepped in at the last minute who rescued her turning her over to the American Brittany Rescue Association, and we picked her up a month later. In the interim, in that she came off the street and no one knew her real name, she ended up being called Sidney.

Of course, when I picked her up she did not respond to her assigned name. So on the drive back to Vancouver, BC from Nebraska I called Bev, my wife and fearless CEO of RWBA, and asked that she set up a meeting with Jerry Wong, a well known human and animal psychic. Jerry had worked very closely with Beau, our previous male Brittany who had passed away of cancer. The objective: have Jerry connect with Sidney.

Well to make a long story short, he did it. Initially, after some preliminary work with her he was not able to get a specific name from her. He worked hard at connecting, but to no avail. Then Bev said, “Why don’t you ask her what she wants to be called?” so Jerry went back to work with her. He simply put her in choice! She responded by showing Jerry a huge night sky with a plethora of stars throughout. Bev and I immediately shouted out the obvious: “Star! “ Jerry asked her and she communicated no. You’ve no doubt already guessed that she had chosen and communicated through images to Jerry that her name is Skya! When this was actually said out loud she immediately reacted by jumping up excitedly and running around our family room. I’m getting ‘verpluncked’ just sharing this with you. Yes, even our sweet Skya was and is always in choice. Thank you Jerry for coaching our little gal!

So there you have it, we, all of use, are always in choice! So what was the blinding glimpse of the obvious for you, your team and your organization in the above? I would love to hear your thoughts and gain your perspective. Thank you for taking the time to read this.

 ”For some reason when I tell them what I want accomplished, I simply don’t appear to be getting the results!” stated Barbara, my executive coaching client. “So how do you feel about that?”, I asked. “Frustrated as hell, impotent, and powerless to make things happen!”, she replied. She went on, “I thought I understood this leadership and power stuff, but I think I’ve missed the boat somehow.” We engaged in some solid discussion and coaching around what power is and is not for her. From this Barbara mined some great insights and confidently identified what she needed to start, stop and continue doing as a leader to improve her ability to enhance her relationships and dramatically increase her group’s strategic contribution to both her Division’s and the organization’s success.

As we coached, she quickly became more aware that she can’t just power someone, she can only influence them. However, she also realized that she needs power in order to effectively influence others to do want she needed done. She noted in our coaching discussion that power for her was in fact an essential leadership resource. She also quickly ascertained from our exchange that there are basically two sources of power that are available for her to tap into: organizational position power that came with her role, and her own personal power.

As we explored sources of position power, Barbara concluded that this came from her access to the formal power essentially her right to command. She also noted that with her role came the ability to use rewards, be they financial or non-financial rewards. She quickly added to the foregoing her ability to use coercion to get want she wanted from others, be they threats, denial of rewards or even the use of punishment. Although she tried not to use these, she felt some folks may have seen it more often than not. After further discussion, she concluded that other sources of her position power might also include her control of her function’s business processes, access and control of key information, and the power to represent her strategic business unit. Although, all legitimate, she was very clear that these should be used with considerable forethought, sparingly and by exception. Unfortunately, in hindsight she confided that she was concerned about her inappropriate use of some of the foregoing and wanted to modify related behaviors.

We continued with our discussion around those sources of power. She emphasized a desire to increase her ability to get results through others, whether they reported directly to her or not, and assure that they would also be highly satisfied with their working relationship with her. She felt if she could achieve this the result would probably be higher motivation on their part, resulting in generally increased effort to make things happen and thus support successful achievement of her and their overall performance  targets.

This then lead to more coaching around Barbara’s sources of personal power. These tended to include her expert power such as her specialized knowledge, experience and judgment that the others needed access to because they didn’t have it themselves. Another source was her ability to rationally persuade others that the goals she wanted achieved were desirable and the way to achieve them reasonable. And last, but not least, was what we both agreed was absolutely one of her greatest sources of potential power and that was her ability to influence others because they genuinely like her and want to identify with her. Barbara knew that would be possible only if she takes the time to invest in relationships with key others and allows herself to withdraw when needed to get critical results accomplished.

It became obvious that for her to achieve important results through not only her people, but also through her peers, boss and key others, personal power was the most critical area for her to continue to develop and enhance. She felt the focus would now be on developing her likeability—referent power. This is one smart lady and I know she will become even more powerful and influential in advancing her organization’s strategic advantage.

Based on the foregoing, what would you have added that could enable her to be a more powerful leader? What was the gold nugget for you in Barbara’s situation? Oh, the places she’ll go when she gets on top of this one!

I’m quite excited to share a recent newletter created by Jake Jacobs, a global leader in the field of organization development, specifically in the area of large-scale, real-time system change. It’s a pleasure to share with you his comments on ‘Collaborating to Create More Value: Leadership Coaching and Large Scale Change’. Enjoy!

“Given my focus on collaboration, I wanted to share with you one way in which my clients and I have benefited from partnering with others. I have known Bob Benwick for 15 years. We first worked together on a Real Time Strategic Change effort at a bank where he was the senior HR executive. Now he and his wife Bev have a global corporate coaching practice based out of Vancouver.

I recently had the opportunity to sit down with Bob and Bev to talk about synergies between their coaching practice and my large-scale change work.  Bob, Bev and I share the same goal: people and organizations achieving their full potential. The difference is in how we do it.  Bob and Bev (and other coaches) focus on individual leaders’ development. I (and other large-scale change consultants) focus on the overall organization’s development. When we partner, our clients get the best of both worlds.

Bob explains, “I had exposure to the RTSC approach many years ago. It helps businesses that need to turn on a dime (competitively) like the bank I worked at. It is absolutely crystal clear to me how much coaching and large-scale change complement each other.”

Bev continues, “A goal of our coaching is for leaders to bring greater depth to their relationships. Organizations that use us a lot want to make big changes and make them fast. We often get asked to help leaders work together across departments.”

It’s tough to tell whether Bev is talking about her coaching practice or my large-scale change work.

Bob adds, “We contract with leaders for a minimum of six months. There has to be serious commitment or it won’t work. Leaders (and all of us) have taken years to develop our current habits. It will take time to change them. The more people change, the easier and faster it is for the system they work in to change.”

My take on Bob’s comment: the more the system changes, the easier and faster it is for the people in it to change.

Putting leadership coaching and large-scale change together is a “win-win-win.” Leaders can make big changes happen faster – and sustain them over time. And we do a better job for them than either of us could do  alone. “

Jake Jacobs is co-founder and partner of Winds of Change Group — a consulting firm specializing in fast and lasting change.

What are your feelings about change and coaching? What intrigues you the most about Jake’s comments?  What are the possibilities?