VUCA. It sounds like a cross between a Star Trek character and a Hawaiian dance. Though it sounds alien, VUCA is something with which we are all too familiar: the Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous business environment.
Forum interviewed futurist Bob Johansen for his take on what lies ahead. (Spoiler alert: More VUCA.) Click on the link below for the condensed interview.
“Do scorecards and metric trackers enhance or detract from strategic speed? Sometimes I feel we place too much emphasis on tracking.”
A participant in our June 17th webinar on strategic speed asked this great question. We hear this question a lot from clients and other business leaders. Scorecards and metrics play an important role in strategic speed. They relate to the “future state” of the organization and provide leaders with vehicles with which to communicate that direction throughout the company. They also provide a concise display of the impact of the strategy on the business. Mostly, though, scorecards and metrics define miracles.
“A hippo in a tutu is still fat and slow.”
This is just one of the more colorful quotes we heard in our case study interviews on Strategic Speed. This quote, along with 18 other quotes like it, are in this slideshow. Which quote is your favorite?
“We’re shifting from teaching content, to teaching teaching.”
This quote illustrates one of two main themes in a recent panel discussion, in which our clients came together to discuss the changing role of learning and development in strategy execution. In the rapidly changing financial services industry, for example, one L&D leader helps her workforce stay current on technical knowledge by providing the company’s subject-matter experts with teaching and coaching skills. The “leader as teacher” theme is not dissimilar to the second theme discussed by the panel …
Last week, in “Are Your Motives Dangerous?” we wrote about three primary motives, or needs, identified by David McClelland (need for achievement, need for affiliation, and need for power) and how they can intersect—sometimes dangerously—with four types of leadership transitions identified by Forum.
The McClelland motives, often abbreviated as n Ach, n Aff, and n Pow, are a classic framework for understanding what drives different people’s behavior. Based on our recent explorations of learning theory (part of a project to update our research report “Principles of Workplace Learning”), we got to wondering: Could there be a fourth motivational need … the need for learning?
Three questions for you:
1. What do you love to do outside of work?
2. How do you get better at it?
3. Now, how can you apply that technique to your work?
Transitions at work can be exciting times. And yet, heightened work motivation and enthusiasm can actually backfire and cripple the chances of a successful transition.
Harvard’s David McClelland identified three primary motives, or needs, that drive behavior: Affiliation, Achievement, and Power. Likewise, Forum identified four main transition types (or PATHs) – Place (New job or greater scope), Assignment, Team, and Heading (organization changes strategy or structure, even if one’s role does not change).
When we overlay these two frameworks, “dangerous” combinations of motivation and transition type emerge:
There are many more possible combinations, but you get the point. Most of us have a mixture of these motives, with one generally being dominant. How about you: which motive most drives you? Any blind spots to avoid in your next job transition?
For more on the PATHs model and our program on Transitions, here’s a webinar deck we recently presented. To hear more detail on the case example, or the decelerators and accelerators, please listen to the webinar replay.
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