Monday, February 19, 2007
Managing Authenticity: The Paradox of Great Leadership
December 2005 Issue
Reprint # R0512E
Harvard Business Review
Leaders and followers both associate authenticity with sincerity, honesty, and integrity. It's the real thing--the attribute that uniquely defines great managers. But while the expression of a genuine self is necessary for great leadership, the concept of authenticity is often misunderstood, not least by leaders themselves.
They often assume that authenticity is an innate quality--that a person is either genuine or not. In fact, the authors say, authenticity is largely defined by what other people see in you. As such, you can to a great extent control it. In this article, the authors explore the qualities of authentic leadership. To illustrate their points, they recount the experiences of some of the authentic leaders they have known and studied, including the BBC's Greg Dyke, Nestle's Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, and Marks & Spencer's Jean Tomlin. Establishing your authenticity as a leader is a two-part challenge. You consistently have to match your words and deeds; otherwise, followers will never accept you as authentic.
To get people to follow you, though, you also have to get them to relate to you. This means presenting different faces to different audiences--a requirement that many people find hard to square with authenticity. But authenticity is not the product of manipulation. It accurately reflects aspects of the leader's inner self, so it can't be an act. Authentic leaders seem to know which personality traits they should reveal to whom, and when.
Highly attuned to their environments, authentic leaders rely on an intuition born of formative, sometimes harsh experiences to understand the expectations and concerns of the people they seek to influence. They retain their distinctiveness as individuals, yet they know how to win acceptance in strong corporate and social cultures and how to use elements of those cultures as a basis for radical change.
Sunday, February 18, 2007
The Discipline of Teams
Jon R. Katzenbach, Douglas K. Smith
July 2005 Issue Reprint # R0507P
Harvard Business Review
Abstract: Groups don't become teams just because that is what someone calls them. Nor do teamwork values alone ensure team performance. So what is a team? How can managers know when the team option makes sense, and what can they do to ensure team success? In this groundbreaking March 1993 article, authors Jon Katzenbach and Douglas Smith answer these questions and outline the discipline that defines a real team. The essence of a team is shared commitment. Without it, groups perform as individuals; with it, they become a powerful unit of collective performance.
The best teams invest a tremendous amount of time shaping a purpose that they can own. They also translate their purpose into specific performance goals. And members of successful teams pitch in and become accountable with and to their teammates. The fundamental distinction between teams and other forms of working groups turns on performance. A working group relies on the individual contributions of its members for collective performance. But a team strives for something greater than its members could achieve individually: An effective team is always worth more than the sum of its parts.
The authors identify three kinds of teams: those that recommend things--task forces or project groups; those that make or do things--manufacturing, operations, or marketing groups; and those that run things--groups that oversee some significant functional activity. For managers, the key is knowing where in the organization these teams should be encouraged. Managers who can foster team development in the right place at the right time prime their organizations for top performance.
July 2005 Issue Reprint # R0507P
Harvard Business Review
Abstract: Groups don't become teams just because that is what someone calls them. Nor do teamwork values alone ensure team performance. So what is a team? How can managers know when the team option makes sense, and what can they do to ensure team success? In this groundbreaking March 1993 article, authors Jon Katzenbach and Douglas Smith answer these questions and outline the discipline that defines a real team. The essence of a team is shared commitment. Without it, groups perform as individuals; with it, they become a powerful unit of collective performance.
The best teams invest a tremendous amount of time shaping a purpose that they can own. They also translate their purpose into specific performance goals. And members of successful teams pitch in and become accountable with and to their teammates. The fundamental distinction between teams and other forms of working groups turns on performance. A working group relies on the individual contributions of its members for collective performance. But a team strives for something greater than its members could achieve individually: An effective team is always worth more than the sum of its parts.
The authors identify three kinds of teams: those that recommend things--task forces or project groups; those that make or do things--manufacturing, operations, or marketing groups; and those that run things--groups that oversee some significant functional activity. For managers, the key is knowing where in the organization these teams should be encouraged. Managers who can foster team development in the right place at the right time prime their organizations for top performance.
Sunday, February 11, 2007
When to Ally and When to Acquire
Jeffrey H. Dyer, Prashant Kale, Harpreet Singh July 2004 Issue Reprint # R0407H
Harvard Business Review
Abstract: Acquisitions and alliances are two pillars of growth strategy. But most businesses don't treat the two as alternative mechanisms for attaining goals. Consequently, companies take over firms they should have collaborated with, and vice versa, and make a mess of both acquisitions and alliances. It's easy to see why companies don't weigh the relative merits and demerits of acquisitions and alliances before choosing horses for courses. The two strategies differ in many ways: Acquisition deals are competitive, based on market prices, and risky; alliances are cooperative, negotiated, and not so risky.
Companies habitually deploy acquisitions to increase scale or cut costs and use partnerships to enter new markets, customer segments, and regions. Moreover, a company's initial experiences often turn into blinders. If the firm pulls off an alliance or two, it tends to enter into alliances even when circumstances demand acquisitions. Organizational barriers also stand in the way. In many companies, an M&A group, which reports to the finance head, handles acquisitions, whereas a separate business development unit looks after alliances.
The two teams work out of different locations, jealously guard turf and, in effect, prevent companies from comparing the advantages and disadvantages of the strategies. But companies could improve their results, the authors argue, if they compared the two strategies to determine which is best suited to the situation at hand. Firms, such as Cisco, that use acquisitions and alliances appropriately grow faster than rivals do.
The authors provide a framework to help organizations systematically decide between acquisition and alliance by analyzing three sets of factors: the resources and synergies they desire, the marketplace they compete in, and their competencies at collaborating.
Harvard Business Review
Abstract: Acquisitions and alliances are two pillars of growth strategy. But most businesses don't treat the two as alternative mechanisms for attaining goals. Consequently, companies take over firms they should have collaborated with, and vice versa, and make a mess of both acquisitions and alliances. It's easy to see why companies don't weigh the relative merits and demerits of acquisitions and alliances before choosing horses for courses. The two strategies differ in many ways: Acquisition deals are competitive, based on market prices, and risky; alliances are cooperative, negotiated, and not so risky.
Companies habitually deploy acquisitions to increase scale or cut costs and use partnerships to enter new markets, customer segments, and regions. Moreover, a company's initial experiences often turn into blinders. If the firm pulls off an alliance or two, it tends to enter into alliances even when circumstances demand acquisitions. Organizational barriers also stand in the way. In many companies, an M&A group, which reports to the finance head, handles acquisitions, whereas a separate business development unit looks after alliances.
The two teams work out of different locations, jealously guard turf and, in effect, prevent companies from comparing the advantages and disadvantages of the strategies. But companies could improve their results, the authors argue, if they compared the two strategies to determine which is best suited to the situation at hand. Firms, such as Cisco, that use acquisitions and alliances appropriately grow faster than rivals do.
The authors provide a framework to help organizations systematically decide between acquisition and alliance by analyzing three sets of factors: the resources and synergies they desire, the marketplace they compete in, and their competencies at collaborating.
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