Saturday, February 20, 2010

Collected wisdom on Leadership and Management Development

Developing executives is a lot different from developing others in an organization. That's my proposition ... but I recommend the whole of

Gower Handbook of Leadership and
Management Development
FIFTH EDITION
Edited by Jeff Gold, Richard Thorpe and Alan Mumford

Even better, friends, as you red on you can receive a valuable discount if you order before June 30, 2010.

This is how the publisher describes it ....

On few occasions in the history of modern management
have leadership skills been in such sharp focus as
they are now. The ability to direct often very large and
diverse organizations; to make sense of the complex
and turbulent markets and environments in which you
operate; and to adapt and learn seems at an all time
premium.

In the 14 years since the fourth edition of this classic
book, very much has changed. But the need for this
Handbook is as strong as ever and the Fifth Edition
of Gower Handbook of Leadership and Management
Development is set to become a definitive read for
senior managers and those who develop them and an
essential reader for the management students aspiring
to become the next generation of leaders.

The premise behind the fifth edition of this influential
Handbook is that leadership, management and
organizational development are all parts of the same
process; enhancing the capacity of organizations,
whatever their size, and the people within them to
achieve their purpose.

To this end, the editors have brought together a who’s
who of current writers on leadership and development
and created the definitive single volume guide to the
subject. The perspectives that the text provides to
leadership, learning and development, embrace the
formal and the informal, cultures and case examples
from organizations of all kinds; and offers readers a
rigorous, readable and, where appropriate,
ground-breaking book.

Hardback 602 pages February 2010
978-0-566-08858-2 £90.00 £58.50

Murray Dalziel, writer of Chapter 6: Strategies
for Leadership and Executive Development.

is Professor of Management and Director of
The University of Liverpool Management
School (ULMS). Murray’s current research
interests focus on innovation strategies and
leadership development. Previously, Murray
was Group Managing Director of Hay Group
and has worked with large global clients in
every continent on their key leadership and
organization development issues.

About the Editors:

Jeff Gold is Principal Lecturer in Organisation
Learning at Leeds Business School, Leeds
Metropolitan University and a member of the
Northern Leadership Academy.

Richard Thorpe is a Professor of Management
Development at Leeds University Business School
and Deputy Director of the Keyworth Institute.

Alan Mumford is Visiting Professor of
Management Development at Interactive
Management Centres.

Contents: Preface, Alan Mumford; Preface to the new edition, Jeff Gold and Richard Thorpe; Part 1 LeadershiP and
ManageMent deveLoPMent in the 21st Century: Leadership and management development: the current state, Richard Thorpe
and Jeff Gold; National and international developments in leadership and management development, Kai Peters. Part 2
strategiC Work in LeadershiP and ManageMent deveLoPMent: Crafting a leadership and management development strategy
I, John Burgoyne; Crafting a leadership and management development strategy II, Tim Spackman; Developing the board
through corporate governance reform and board evaluation, Terry McNulty; Strategies for leadership and executive
development, Murray M. Dalziel; Leadership, management and organisational development, Richard Bolden; Leadership
and management development in small and medium-sized enterprises: SME worlds, Jeff Gold and Richard Thorpe;
Leadership and diversity development, Beverley Metcalf; Leadership ethics, Simon Robinson; Evidence-based leadership
and management development, Bob Hamlin. Part 3 BasiCs: Measuring and assessing managers and leaders for development,
Jeff Gold and Paul Iles; Talent management and career development, Paul Iles and David Preece; How leaders and managers
learn, Jeff Gold, Richard Thorpe and Alan Mumford; Choosing and using exceptional events for informal learning, Lloyd
Davies; Evaluation, Lisa Anderson. Part 4 advanCed ProCesses and tooLs: Neuro-linguistic programming for leaders and
managers, Paul Tosey; Leading reflection: developing the relationship between leadership and reflection, Russ Vince and
Mike Reynolds; Feedback and 360 degree development, Peter Holt, Suzanne Pollack and Phil Radcliff; Building quality into
executive coaching, David E. Gray; Intuitive intelligence, Eugene Sadler-Smith and Erella Shefy; Critical action learning,
Kiran Trehan and Mike Pedler; Mentoring for leaders and managers, Bob Garvey; E-learning for managers and leaders, Jim
Stewart. Part 5 Widening horizons: Leadership and management development in the voluntary and community sectors,
Alison Trimble and Becky Malby; Leadership and management development for the environment, Alan Murray; Leading and
managing in global contexts, Kim Turnbull James and James Collins; Conversations and learning: narrative and development
in practice, John Lawler and Jackie Ford; Public sector leadership and management development, Jean Hartley; Developing
leaders as futures thinkers, Pero Micic; Index

Order form
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Tel: +44 (0)1235 827730; Fax: +44 (0)1235 400454; E-mail: gower@bookpoint.co.uk;

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Saturday, November 21, 2009

One more time ... why Emotional Intelligence is important for Leadership

We had Dominic Murphy who is lead partner for KKR to talk with our MBA students last week. Dominic is a superbly clear communicator and his way of thinking about business and how to create value would serve as a useful précis for what the whole MBA should be about.

But what caught my attention was his response to what he actually is doing during the deal discovery phase and then in subsequent management. He made various references to understanding the "chemistry" between investors and management team. This discussion of chemistry was a great lead into the next day’s “Career Navigator" workshop on Emotional Intelligence and Leadership.

In preparing for this I noticed that when I describe the "emotional" or "social intelligence" competencies proposed by Goleman I often move quickly to the rather prosaic behavioural indicators. These are useful descriptions but if you array them all out then it is no wonder that critics will often claim that Goleman's definition of EI is too generic to be useful.

I tried to find what the "emotional" element in each of the competencies actually is. Of course, this is not hard for the ones with that label (for example, "emotional awareness", "emotional self control"). But what is the emotional content in the others? I found thinking about this for the other competencies very instructive and helpful to understanding how to use the "chemistry" of our feelings and the "chemistry of our relationships".

Here's a quick run-down of some of the elements for attributes where the "emotional content" might not be so obvious:

Achievement: core construct is desire to excel or beat standards; emotional content is where this desire is located; in people who are intensely achievement focused it is not an intellectual striving but much more at the centre of themselves. This is why there is a "efficacy" and "achievement" often go together.

Adaptability: core construct; to understand the emotional content it is better to think of the definition that comes from ecology, namely the ability to cope with unexpected disturbances in the environment.

Organizational Awareness: the core concept is around understanding the power relationships in an organization or group. This is often seen as a very rational and analytical act but it is enhanced by a particular emotional component I would call "organization empathy". The meaning of the power relations comes to life by "feeling" what it is like in an organization or group.

Influence: core construct is ability to convince others often to change or move in a particular direction; the emotional element is doing this synchronously. As social psychologists Reicher, Haslam and Platow put forward leadership is the "ability to shape what followers actually want to do, not the act of enforcing compliance using rewards and punishments".

This is important because I feel that many organisations use competency models in a very one dimensional way. I've observed CEOs of large Fortune 50 companies themselves write their own company's competency model. Rather than being descriptions of what underlies real performance that should drive selection they are used to communicate the behaviours senior management would ideally like to see. These are more often completely disconnected from any strategic intent and more related to prejudices and biases of the CEO.

But leadership is a relational activity. In other words, you cannot be a leader unless you are involved with other people. Therefore, the core behaviours that describe behaviour need to deal with how we relate to people and the emotional content that drives these relationships. That's why emotional intelligence is important.



Goleman, Daniel. Social intelligence: the new science of human relationships. New York: Bantam Bools, 2006.

Reicher, S, S A Haslam, and M Platow. “The New Psychology of Leadership.” Scientific American Mind, August/September 2007: 22-29.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Social Enterprise Leadership

Inspiring review by Jacqueline Novogratz (whose book The Blue Sweater I highly recommend) from the Stanford SocialInnovation Review:


I remember meeting John Gardner as if it were yesterday. It was 1989 and I
was an MBA student at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. I was
sitting in a preview session of upcoming classes when a tall, graceful,
elderly man in a gray suit and a fedora stood…

Read the rest:
http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/1422/

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Are we really focussing on the root causes of current economic crisis?

“The dispersion of credit risk by banks to a broader and more diverse set of investors ... has helped to make the banking and overall financial system more resilient ... improved resilience may be seen in fewer bank failures.”
IMF annual report 2006

Maybe we should take a time out from castigating these awful bankers who created this shadow system for their own interests and really try to understand what is going on. Policy makers including central banks encouraged this system. But what are they really trying to do now? Dismantle it? Probably not since they did not really understand how it was created in the first place? Regulate it? There are clear signs of this but not clear exactly what the effect of this will be. Finance it? This is what central banks are doing. They are standing in for the securitisation markets but they cannot do this forever. Either we find a way to return and manage securitisation or captital will be seriously rationed.

Saturday, December 27, 2008

Best time to start a business

I've recently seen a number of articles that this is the best time to invest in early stage companies. The theory is that the ones that can get going and survive in this economy are going to be the strongest. This is an interesting article on the topic. The big issue is whether there is sufficient capital to support these kinds of endeavors.
Issue Date:  December 15, 2008, Posted On: 12/23/2008

At MIT VC powwow there is no time like the present

Experts: Despite slowdown startup jump is good move



By MARK CONNORS

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. â€" Is starting a new business in the middle of what may prove to be the most severe economic downturn since the Great Depression a good idea? Surprisingly, experts at a recent MIT conference in Cambridge said the timing may be perfect.

The nation lost 533,000 jobs in November, the 11th consecutive month the U.S. economy has shed jobs, according to Department of Labor statistics. The unemployment rate currently stands at 6.7 percent â€" a 15-year high â€" and the Dow Jones Industrial Average index has lost about 40 percent of its value in the past year. And many economic forecasters say the worst is yet to come. 

Nevertheless, the consensus among experts at the Sloan Venture Capital Conference, held on Dec. 6 at the Charles Hotel in Cambridge, is that the timing couldn’t be better to start a new business.

“You’ve got a great deal of people from tech companies who have been laid off, so you’ve got a great pool of talent out there, and costs for things like office space and supplies and even salaries are down. So from an entrepreneur’s standpoint, it’s a great time to start a business,� said David Fialkow, a speaker at the event and managing director of General Catalyst Partners in Cambridge.

The conference, hosted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and now running in its 11th year, featured more than 40 speakers, including a slew of venture capitalists, regulatory officials, MBA students, industry veterans and startup entrepreneurs. Gitika Srivastava, a former technology entrepreneur who now advises Boston-area startups, co-chaired the conference. Indians are active in the Boston area’s venture capital scene and were well represented at this year’s event. Of the conference’s 32 organizers, 10 were of Indian origin.

Jamshed Irani, director of Tata Sons, a massive India-based business conglomerate that owns over 96 companies spread across six continents, delivered the conference’s luncheon keynote address. 

Irani, who was recently honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Indian government, spoke about the healthy state of startup capital in India.

“It used to be that you had to be in Cambridge or the Silicon Valley [to get venture capital funding], but I’m happy to say that is changing,� Irani said. “India is very much fair game.�

Several United States-based venture capital firms have launched India-specific funds, including industry giants Matrix Partners, Sequoia and Canaan Partners.

MIT alumnus Eran Egozy, co-founder and chief technical officer of Harmonix Inc., the Cambridge-based company behind the wildly popular video games “Guitar Hero� and “Rock Band,� delivered the conference’s closing remarks. TIME Magazine recently named him one of its 100 Most Influential People in the World.

But Egozy, a bespectacled, skinny figure who sports a thick head of curly black hair and dresses formally, does not exhibit a typical rock star appearance. He acknowledges his musical history consists almost entirely of playing the clarinet.

“People ask me all the time if we are going to come out with ‘Clarinet Hero,’� Egozy said. “They think it’s hilarious. Well, the answer is there will never be [a ‘Clarinet Hero’] because I don’t think anyone would buy it.�

Egozy told the story behind Harmonix and the company’s 12-year road to commercial success, one that Egozy termed “a wild ride.� At one point, the company was about to go out of business before a well-timed round of venture capital kept the business alive.

“People think of ‘Guitar Hero’ as this overnight success story,� Egozy said. “Nothing could be further from the truth.�

Harmonix was launched in the media lab at MIT when Egozy and his partners toiled away at building music improvisation technology â€" a primitive precursor to the company’s Guitar Hero game.

“When we saw the joy that [the technology] brought to people, when we saw the twinkle in their eyes when they played it, we knew we were on to something,� Egozy said.

But the early going was a tough road for Harmonix. Egozy and his partners decided to try to market their innovations as a music improvisation licensing technology. Egozy asked the audience for a show of hands of those interested in such licensing rights. Only two people raised their hands. “Well, in 1995, it was more like zero people,� Egozy said to laughter. The business saw no revenues in its four years.

Undaunted by their initial stumbles, Egozy and his partners decided to try to harness the technology in the form of video games in 1999, eventually leading to the release of “Guitar Heroâ€� in 2005 and “Rock Bandâ€� in 2007. Egozy’s story was a welcome one for the hordes of startup entrepreneurs at the conference, with many looking to find the same commercial spark Harmonix found. 

Thirty startup companies, selected from a pool of more than 100 applicants, showcased their business plans at the conference’s “Entrepreneur Showcase,� where they competed for the attention of dozens of venture capitalists who attended the event.

The startups represented a broad and sometimes eclectic range of industries and platforms. Participating businesses included: Free Flow Power, a company that harnesses energy from the natural flow of water; YouCastr, an online sports network for fans of ‘non-mainstream sports’; Promethean Power, developers of a solar-powered cold-storage system for the preservation of perishable foods; and AugmentRx, a pharmaceutical startup behind a new “tissue bulking agent� for the treatment of urinary incontinence.

“For companies like us, this is the place to be,� said Bharat Nair, a representative of an online security startup.

Friday, December 19, 2008

Innovation in Executive Development

I'm on a quest to find what is new and innovative in Executive Development. I have to admit it is not an easy search. So with that in mind I was quite pleased to see this report done by Ashridge on Innovations in Executive Development:

http://www.ashridge.org.uk/website/IC.nsf/wFARATT/Innovation%20in%20Executive%20Development:%20A%20case-based%20study%20of%20practice%20in%20international%20business%20schools/$file/InnovationInExecutiveDevelopment.pdf

It's long but if you are interested start backwards and review the cases. Each one is interesting in its own right but I wondering what is really new. There are new twists like using social networking software design to create learning groups but I don't see the innovation.

There is a lot of referencing of Experiential Learning and John Dewey and David Kolb. There is a clear view that building dissonance and challenge into programmes is important. Certainly, there is an overriding view that what happens between participants is just as important as what knowledge is transmitted by instructors.


There is also a lot of incorporating readily available package training into "custom programmes". These are run under the auspices of Higher Education. Maybe, HE is only discovering how adults actually learn ... Scary since this sector now dominates educating executives!

Comments? Also any innovations you would highlight?

Thursday, December 4, 2008

New business model for financing pharmaceutical development

This is an interesting development to track. Will this business model really bring returns? Is this a bigger opportunity for university or independent researchers?
GOLDMAN UNVEILS PLANS FOR PHARMA RESEARCH FUNDING
By Andrew JackPublished: December 3 2008 02:00 | Last updated: December 3 2008 02:00
Goldman Sachs is in talks to provide hundreds of millions of dollars of funding to a large pharmaceutical company, in the first evidence of a new business model for the sector that will see financing shifted away from funding companies and towards targeted co-development of specific medicines.
Jon Symonds, managing director at the investment bank in London and former finance director of AstraZeneca, the Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical group, said a first deal to create a new hybrid model of research and development should be finalised early next year.
This article can be found at:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e92f9d3c-c0db-11dd-b0a8-000077b07658,_i_email=y.html
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Copyright The Financial Times Ltd 2008