Leader’s Kitbag – continuing the new format…
Welcome to the March 2020 edition of Leaders’ Kitbag.
We’ve had some positive feedback following our change of format – moving to group content in alignment with our 4 I’s of Imagine, Ignite, Immerse and Inspire, so we’ll roll with this for the time being at least.
I hope you’ve been well since our last note and that the new decade of leadership is treating you well so far.
We’ve had a hectic schedule, lots of new work and interest in our work, and more to follow we hope as we’ve pushed our message out across all the social platforms for the first time. If you’d like to keep a more frequent view on our work and recommendations, you can follow us now via these links to facebook, instagram, twitter and our company pages on Youtube or LinkedIn
As always, we hope that the content we’ve created and curated for you this month will be conducive to inspiring you to be a better leader, increase your leadership impact and make the world a little better each day through your leadership. We love hearing your feedback on the articles we’ve recommended, and if there’s anything you’ve come across to watch, listen to or read that you’d suggest we include in future editions, please feel free to reply back to his note with your idea.
Scroll down to find this month’s content,
Be well, lead well, and build a better world,
Tim and all at 4i.
Imagine a better world built by better leadership (including yours).
This content is visionary, strategic or futuristic in nature, looking at the road ahead for leadership.
An interesting READ from Kellogg School of Management (6min read) on corporate culture, essentially emphasising the importance of really investing in culture and living a consistent set of values. Lip service to the ‘words on the wall’ just won’t cut it. Examples from Google and Goldman Sachs set up a theme which I’ve seen becoming more and more prominent, that having a high integrity culture should be valued as an economic asset, reducing risk and increasing both customer and employee engagement.
Given the recent issues at We Work, I was drawn to re-LISTEN to a podcast (Rich Roll, 2h40min total) with one of the Co-Founder’s, Migeul McKelvey last year. Despite the issues with his peer Adam Neumann, it’s well worth a listen to review the ethics, values and life-style enabling impetus for this ‘unicorn’ start-up. Given the recording pre-dates the recent stock crash, it’s worth recalling that those same values must be maintained by leaders at the very top at all time, otherwise sharp and steep is the fall from grace that awaits.
Maybe if the aforementioned We Work Founders had LISTENED to this podcast with Reid Hoffman (45mins), they might have avoided the doldrums they find themselves in. Or perhaps not. Either way, I certainly found this insightful and interesting that Reid, who primarily focuses on start-ups and rapid growth enterprises, presented one of Italy’s oldest companies as a great example of how to persevere, maintain values and focus and build a company to last and endure the disruption that is inevitably around the corner.
I’d first heard about the concept of the circular economy a few years ago, but on a series of flights in January I had the good fortune of sitting next to two leaders who are working in this field in Australia today. One works for the Salvos, who are working with recyclers to develop new textile products from the donations they can’t sell in their stores. The other was a recycler from Melbourne who has moved into producing commercial grade compost from food waste. These meetings led me to begin exploring the circular economy in more detail. If the term is a new one to you, this READ on Medium (5min) is be a good place to start your familiarisation of this vital evolution of our economic mode of production and consumption.
Ignite your potential to lead to your utmost ability.
This content is intended to be pragmatic, actionable and applicable to your leadership today.
A little addition from me here if I may. I’ve just launched a daily leadership broadcast, Time with Tim. The title pays homage to some comments made by a couple of my coaching clients, that in between coaching sessions they miss their ‘time with Tim’. So I’m offering anyone with access to Youtube a little time with Tim on a daily basis. By the time you read this, the introduction week will have been broadcast, and at least the first day of the main schedule. Each day you can WATCH (usually 3-5mins per day) me sharing my insights, advice and experience on leadership. The first week is on defining values, as one of four main pillars required to develop your leadership philosophy. Feel free to check out the posts. I’ll look forward to your comments and feedback if you’d care to leave any!
An engaging READ (8mins) from Atlassian on their interpretation of the vital skills you will need to develop to succeed in the workplaces of the near future. They highlight Emotional Intelligence, as well as quotients for Decency, Curiosity, Adversity and Openness. The article here covers both why each of these areas is critical but also provides some high level recommendations for how to develop each of these areas and some tools you can use yourself and share with your team.
How to make your team’s work meaningful. Now that’s worth some consideration I’d say. McKinsey certainly agree, and in this article cover the main bases they believe can help do this in this helpful 10min READ, providing both a framework overall and some implementable actions you can take into your team immediately.
Immerse yourself in our deep exploration of a focal leadership topic.
Month by month, we at 4i are examining a key area of leadership’s impact and contribution. This month, Leading High Performance Teams.
During February, we have been focusing on leading high performance teams. Dr Tom Alan-Livernois and I have written articles you can READ here on why leadership is the key factor determining high performance outcomes, as well as specifically on Goals, Roles, Processes. As we move into March we’ll go into more depth on the transformational skills of Adaptability, Resilience and Connectivity.
Dr Tom and I have also launched a weekly conversation, TimTomTalks, where we will discuss a topic related to the overall monthly focus. You can WATCH the first of these here, and hopefully by the time the next Kitbag comes around, I’ll be able to steer you towards a podcast feed if audio is your preferred content mode.
Inspire yourself or others who you may share this with.
Examples of great leadership, in particular what I call ‘Better World Leadership’ from the world at large.
A great interview from Forbes to READ (8mins) with Patagonia’s CHRO describing their people strategy with fascinating comparison to sustainable agriculture practices as an analogy for how to develop, sustain, retain and enhance your people.
Rarely do I find an example from Investment banking or fund management of Better World Leadership. But times they are a changing as the song goes. In this 5 min READ on The Conversation gives a compelling balanced overview of BlackRock’s recent decision to move away from coal stocks across all of their $7trillionUSD of funds under management. The article does not shy away from discussing the potentially negative affect this will have on the local economy here in Australia, although for me could have gone further to set the stage for how we, as well as other fossil fuel centric economies, could begin the transition into the post-Carbon fuel phase. That having been said, it’s great to see leading market forces moving towards the action on climate that is in my view so desperately needed.
A little abstract perhaps from explicit leadership references, but this is one of the very best depictions of the extent of the recent bushfire’s impact on Australia, including the area I live (Nowra) – ABC News (10min read, scroll down and visuals and article will unfold. Also by way of an interesting coincidence, the Binna Burra Lodge, one of the first structures impacted by the fires last year, was being run at the time by a GM i know well, David Smith. He and I spoke whilst we were in the midst of the fires here about the role of leaders preparing for these events, and what role we can play moving forward. If you’re interested in this event as an example of the scale and severity of these events as a prompt for a discussion at home or work, I highly recommend this article for both it’s factual quality and visual portrayal.
