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\nBy Lionesses of Africa Operations Department<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
The pressure on the leadership of the company is already enormous as we navigate Cash Flow, Regulatory issues, Laws, Covid, HR, Supply Chain\u2026. the list is endless. But having built the company that is producing good results, how do you move your company from \u2018Good\u2019 to \u2018Great\u2019.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
We must warn here that those of a nervous disposition should perhaps skip the next page as it questions so many assumptions that we have held dear for many years.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to give you a lobotomy about change. I want you to forget everything you\u2019ve ever learned about what it takes to create great results. I want you to realize that nearly all operating prescriptions for creating large-scale corporate change are nothing but myths.<\/em>\u201d so wrote Jim Collins (about<\/span><\/a>) in his article based on his book, \u2018Good to Great\u2019, here<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n
He continues:\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u201cThe Myth of the Change Program: This approach comes with the launch event, the tag line, and the cascading activities.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/li>\n
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The Myth of the Burning Platform: This one says that change starts only when there\u2019s a crisis that persuades \u201cunmotivated\u201d employees to accept the need for change.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/li>\n
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The Myth of Stock Options: Stock options, high salaries, and bonuses are incentives that grease the wheels of change.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/li>\n
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The Myth of Fear-Driven Change: The fear of being left behind, the fear of watching others win, the fear of presiding over monumental failure\u2014all are drivers of change, we\u2019re told.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/li>\n
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The Myth of Acquisitions: You can buy your way to growth, so it figures that you can buy your way to greatness.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/li>\n
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The Myth of Technology-Driven Change: The breakthrough that you\u2019re looking for can be achieved by using technology to leapfrog the competition.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/li>\n
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The Myth of Revolution: Big change has to be wrenching, extreme, painful\u2014one big, discontinuous, shattering break.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Totally wrong!\u00a0<\/p>\n
Here are the facts of life about these and other change myths:\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cCompanies that make the change from good to great have no name for their transformation\u2014and absolutely no program. They neither rant nor rave about a crisis\u2014and they don’t manufacture one where none exists. They don’t \u201cmotivate\u201d people\u2014their people are self-motivated. There\u2019s no evidence of a connection between money and change mastery. And fear doesn’t drive change\u2014but it does perpetuate mediocrity. Nor can acquisitions provide a stimulus for greatness: Two mediocrities never make one great company. Technology is certainly important\u2014but it comes into play only after change has already begun. And as for the final myth, dramatic results do not come from dramatic process\u2014not if you want them to last, anyway. A serious revolution, one that feels like a revolution to those going through it, is highly unlikely to bring about a sustainable leap from being good to being great.<\/em>\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The secret according to Jim Collins is in what he termed \u2018Level 5 Leadership\u2019 as shown in our Title photo (from Harvard Business Review – \u2018HBR\u2019 here<\/span><\/a>).<\/p>\n
If we look closely at the Levels, we begin to recognize the upward path of some of our employees as they have risen up through the company from \u2018Highly Capable Individual\u2019 to \u2018Contributing Team Member\u2019, to \u2018Competent Manager\u2019, taking on more leadership responsibility, until they get to Level 4, a level we must admit we have always thought as the highest. \u201cCatalyzes commitment to and vigorous pursuit of a clear a compelling vision;\u2026<\/em>\u201d sounds like many leaders we know and respect, \u201c\u2026stimulates group to a high performance standards<\/em>\u201d (ditto!) and to be fair Jim researched 1,435 organizations, and found only 11 leaders who made the Level 5, so we are not perhaps totally wrong in this.\u00a0 As HBR say: \u201cPeople generally assume that transforming companies from good to great requires larger-than-life leaders\u2014big personalities like Iacocca, Dunlap, Welch, and Gault, who make headlines and become celebrities.<\/em>\u201d, but no, it was the ones who quietly went about their business, knowing with an almost religious fervour the route to take, yet with incredible humility, that make the cut into Level 5 Leadership, that take companies from \u2018Good\u2019 to \u2018Great\u2019. This Level 5 Leadership:\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cBuilds enduring greatness through a paradoxical combination of personal humility plus professional will.<\/em>\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n
\u2018Enduring Greatness\u2019<\/strong>. The human mind never fails to surprise when backed into a corner and so we recognize that we can all (if pushed) reach for the stars and become great, as has been shown all too recently in 2020 and sadly still in 2021 across Africa as Covid forces so many to reach into the inner depths of their self to help others, to keep their businesses alive against all odds, to ensure continuous employment for their staff or even to simply survive. But \u2018Enduring\u2019? That is something completely different.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018Enduring\u2019 results in a legacy, as with a muscle memory for great sportswomen, so as such a legacy becomes the norm, one doesn\u2019t have to think each morning how to stay great, it is simply there as we wake and builds upon itself. That is when \u2018Level 5 Leadership\u2019 has created the Culture from which everything flows and grows.<\/p>\n
This leads us onto \u2018personal humility\u2019<\/strong>\u2019. All of the Level 5 Leaders talk of luck. – \u201cWe were in the right place at the right time\u201d, \u201cI was lucky to have a great team around me\u201d. They give praise to their team when successful and look in the mirror for blame when something goes wrong without a moment\u2019s hesitation.<\/p>\n
\u2018Professional will<\/strong>\u2019<\/em>? They have decided where they are going, what the route is and who will be on the ride with them. Indeed the last of those is where they always start.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Their team is always the starting point.<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n
They ruthlessly find the right people. As Jim says: \u201cUnlike the traditional method of building strategies and then looking for the right people to carry them out, they take a different route. It\u2019s about getting the right people on board and then deciding on the destination.<\/em>\u201d That is not as daft as it seems. Firstly, we are now in a fast changing world, we must have agile people with us. They have to be able to adapt when things change. This is more important now than ever. You also cannot stop to spend time motivating them – the A-Grade people you want with you are self-motivating and more so if they see other A-Grade people on the ride with them. When things go well, they \u2018ride the wave\u2019 aggressively and gain serious momentum. When things go wrong they row in the same direction to get the company out of trouble. If however you have the wrong people with you within your Team, nothing will help. As Jim says (here): \u201cGreat vision with mediocre people still produces mediocre results.\u201d <\/em>and indeed when things go wrong or a speed bump is hit, in-fighting often takes the entire company down.<\/p>\n
Our Level 5 Leaders also accept the brutal truth of what data, numbers and the issues at hand bring, but always believe that there will be light returning as they force the company through the difficult times. This is called the \u2018Stockdale Paradox\u2019 after Admiral James Stockdale, a POW during the Vietnam War who survived by telling himself that \u201cLife couldn\u2019t be worse at the moment, and his life would someday be better than ever.<\/em>\u201d One can also see this in Voltaire\u2019s classic book \u2018Candide\u2019 although to be fair, the hero of the book, Candide (who followed the Stockdale Paradox 200 years before Stockdale was even in Vietnam) turned away from this in the end – clearly not cut out to be a Level 5 Leader!<\/p>\n
Level 5\u2019ers do not look for instant and dramatic results, but instead demand consistent efforts towards the end goal. Jim talks of a huge flywheel and how that takes tremendous effort to start the movement, but once momentum gathers, so the efforts required to keep it moving or even to speed it up, drop dramatically. Again – you certainly need the right team behind you for that.<\/p>\n
Finally in the top three of factors that \u2018make\u2019 a Level 5 Leader – sits the Hedgehog Concept, based on a fragment of a verse by the 7th-century BC Greek poet Archilochus and turned into an essay on Tolstoy by the philosopher Isaiah Berlin (apologies, the HoF has been overdoing the Caffeine a bit!). In the essay, Foxes are characterized as knowing a little about a lot of subjects, whilst Hedgehogs know a lot about a single thing. Collins believes businesses that act like hedgehogs are more likely to achieve greatness. As Lesley University, USA state (here<\/span><\/a>):<\/p>\n
\u201cHedgehog behavior means understanding three things:\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n
What a company is capable of being best at. <\/em>[So be careful about chasing the latest fad if it is not totally within your area of expertise and be ruthless in cutting out non core businesses.]<\/p>\n
How its economics can work most effectively. <\/em>[inc of course something we constantly go on about, keep your Cash as fit as possible by directing it with pinpoint accuracy (not a scatter-gun approach where any project gets cash if it gets to you first) and ensuring that it \u2018turns\u2019 fast.]<\/p>\n
What best makes its people passionate.\u201d <\/em>[through this you will get the best out of your personally chosen A-Team].<\/em> <\/p>\n
By keeping to these three central questions this will allow you to see \u201cthe\u00a0 unnecessary and unprofitable\u201d and as we all know \u2018There be Dragons!\u201d – avoid at all costs.<\/p>\n
Remember, just because you don\u2019t make Level 5, not all Level 4 Leaders have to have a massive ego, these are just the ones we read about, see on the front covers of the Business Magazines and on talk shows (did we mention they have egos?). Ultimately we must do what we must do, not value our efforts on others – (\u2018Stay True To Ourselves!\u2019 see here<\/span><\/a>). Indeed even if we simply follow the central rule that keeps on shining through – build the Team that you want to be around as you drive the company to the highest level you can, we would suggest that would be a huge success in itself.<\/p>\n