The Leadership Pipeline | Book Review

“To create a leadership pipeline requires
more than words and diagrams.” (p. 225)

Ram Charan, Stephen Drotter and James Noel’s early (2001) “shot across the bow,” subtitled How to Build the Leadership-Powered Company, abandons Taylor-esque thinking which treated people more as machinery than human, forecasting disruptive e-commerce trends. There’s a good chance this work paved the way for future works such as Lead From The Heart and the culture engine.

A common organizational mindset is to view jobs as “work to be done” and not as developmental assignments (p. 4). Consider two decision making models: A time-driven model using decision quality, implementation and cost as criteria; and a development-driven model using decision quality, implementation and development as criteria. During Effective Decision-Making workshops, most attendees share the overwhelming majority of their decisions are time-driven fostered by a project oriented corporate culture.

Using a typical (p. 7) large and hierarchical organizational structure (Self, Manager, Manager of Managers, Functional Manager, Business Manager, Group Manager and Enterprise Manager), much of the book focuses on transitions, or passages between managerial levels. This review aligns the authors’ Leadership Pipeline Model with an Academy Leadership workshop toolbox and additionally offers contemporary comments for several other vital leadership topics such as coaching and use of one’s Personal Leadership Philosophy (PLP).

Pipeline Passages

Ask anyone in a technology company what the primary basis for promotion is? It’s probably individual technical competence - focus on self. Not surprisingly, first-time managers overpower their direct reports with their expertise (p. 33). Making things worse, subordinates often discount managers because “they’re not smarter than I am.” The authors condense first-time manager achievements into three areas (pp. 36-37):

•  Defining and assigning work to be done.
• Enabling direct reports by monitoring, coaching, providing feedback, acquiring resources, problem solving and communicating.
•  Building social contracts through establishing relationships… 

Setting expectations (of team members and of the leader) in a written PLP, combined with aligned goal setting are two terrific workshops helpful for the new manager. Proper use of the three forms of feedback: appreciation, evaluation and coaching will greatly assist the new manager, especially when the latter two are genuinely distinct activities.

The authors summarize five leadership issues for managers of managers as (pp. 54-55):

•  Difficulty Delegating.
•  Poor Performance Management.
•  Failure to Build a Strong Team.
•  A Single-Minded Focus on Getting the Work Done.
•  Choosing Clones over Contributors. 

Self-evaluation scores are frequently very low in Leveraging the Power of Conflict workshops. Yet one of the best uses of an accommodation (conflict) strategy is delegating tasks, even if the subordinate may struggle or fail at first. Distinguishing responsibility as an internal force from accountability as an external force introduces a powerful tool for team formation -- a leader requirement that all team members will hold each other accountable (Accountability workshop).

The best functional managers are the ones who think strategically and manage with the whole function in mind (p. 69-72) by:

•  Longer-Term Thinking (Three Years).
•  State-of-the-Art Awareness.
• Complete Understanding of the Business Model in Detail and Long-Term Strategic Direction and Goals.
•  Factoring All Aspects of the Function into Strategic Thinking.
•  Ability to Make Trade-offs within the Function that Support Business Strategy, Profitability, and Competitive Advantage. 

A leader that begins making PLP-based daily decisions on behalf of the functional unit, aligned (or realigned) with the overall enterprise, defines this stage. A “Where we are going” vision statement, found early in the leader’s philosophy helps unify all functional team members. Likewise, sharing one’s PLP with superiors and peer leaders will foster valuable feedback expanding business model knowledge.

Conceptually, the business manager’s challenge is making connections among diverse people, functions, and processes (p. 86). As with the first management promotion, focusing solely on results is tempting.  Matt Lieberman’s Should Leaders Focus on Results, or on People? Informs us:

• If a leader was considered strong in social skills, the person was seen as a great leader 12 percent of the time.
• If a leader was perceived to be strong in focusing on results, the number increased to 14 percent of the time.
• For leaders who were strong in both results and social skills, the likelihood of being seen as a strong leader skyrocketed to 72% 

Very few actually do both, so it’s a great practice for the business manager. Additional challenges the authors foresaw (think internet) include (p. 89):

• Every business is immediately global.
• Brand is more important than ever before; it helps users sort through what seems like an infinite number of choices. 

Upon becoming group managers, [we’re] going from the leadership position [we] found the most fun to the least fun (p. 99). Why is that? Maybe being a coach hasn’t been enough of a priority. Not just focusing more on developing people, but building a talent pipeline for the organization. In the Leader as Coach workshop, we discover genuine performance coaching (not just evaluation or critiquing) may free us to focus more on (p. 105):

• The how, in addition to the what.
• Capital allocation.
• Strategic differentiation. 

At the enterprise manager level, successful CEOs exhibit sound judgement on people matters and execute well deep into the organization (p. 115). Think of this as a natural extension of focusing on people and results creating a rich web of talent. Recall Tony Hseih’s Zappos story, Delivering Happiness. Hseih eventually concluded “Our Brand, our Culture, and our Pipeline are the only competitive advantages that we will have in the long run.” 

The authors mention five significant leadership challenges at this level. Let’s look at two: Setting Enterprise Direction (p. 117) and Shaping the Soft Side of the Enterprise (p. 118). At this stage, similar to Hseih’s findings, we should ask “Are our daily decisions rooted in the values of the organization and are all decisions made about people?” Or how about hiring or firing based on the culture of the organization?

Gold Nuggets | Application

After the results of 360 degree feedback were in, it was clear that these rising stars were coming up short in values and skills for their leadership levels. There was very little inclination to develop talent or coach (p. 141). One of the best uses of a 360 evaluation is comparing what a leader does, or technical competence, with who a leader is, or leadership character. It shouldn’t come as a surprise, especially in organizations lacking a performance coaching culture, for managers rewarded and promoted for job competence to neglect their subordinates.

What [the authors] are saying is that the boss is the place to start if you want to increase full performance throughout the leadership pipeline (p. 156). A significant portion of Leadership Excellence Course attendees, at a variety of professional experience levels often comment “My boss needs this course even more than I did, but would never enroll.” Why is that? Maybe it’s that you can’t just do succession planning for one leadership level. All levels must be included (p. 167). When we don’t everyone else knows they don’t matter – they’re not part of “leadership” – the noun. In Coaching to Develop Leaders workshops, it becomes evident that what we do with the average performer is our ultimate report card over time.

A significant issue in latter leadership transitions is failure to seek or listen to feedback (p. 189). This is an especially acute problem for senior executives. Specifically, they’re not interested in hearing how they’re leading or how and why they should do things differently (p. 189). Our PLP must include sincere requests for feedback, lest we become the “professionally busy” executive telegraphing that people don’t matter.

Summary

Chapter 13 – Coaching, is a gem. The authors start with a career-focused coaching (pp. 214-215), but we can go further. We can learn about and address personal and professional hopes and dreams as well. The best leaders/coaches keep journals (pp. 221-222) facilitating reflection (p. 222):

Coaches need to communicate that for their own careers and for the company’s future, they need to sit down and think about what type of leader they are and what type they want to be. 

Thank you Stephen Drotter for the first edition hard cover book for review.