Leadership lessons from World Business Forum 2019 session on Leading Your Organization Through the Complexities of Change
My key takeaway from the session by Ian Williamson is that the most pressing question is relevance. In an age of disruption, which Mr. Williamson defined as 'shift in the external environment that has the potential to render existing organizational strategies ineffective or irrelevant' the question is not is your strategy great, rather is your strategy relevant. The questions is not is your service or product great, rather is the service or product relevant.
"Disruption is a shift in the external environment that has the potential to render existing organizational strategies ineffective or irrelevant" Ian Williamson
Disruptions could be a result of technology, competition or social issues. Regardless of how disruptions come though, growth in an age of disruption requires innovation, and innovation is influenced by leaders.
Managers and leaders have more pronounced impact on radical innovation since they are the ones who have a say in resource allocation. Leaders should recognize that growth comes from their people, and that's why leaders who focus on talent management will set a stage for success in this age of disruption.
Leaders should recognize that growth comes from their people, and that's why leaders who focus on talent management will set a stage for success in this age of disruption.
Mr. Williamson gave us three areas leaders should focus on and key questions leaders should ask
1. Workforce Composition
Innovation is more than just a good idea. Innovation is a two step process. (1) invention of new ideas, and (2) harnessing of the new ideas to create valuable process, products and services. However, invention and harnessing new ideas requires different skills that may not co-exist in an individual. Hence, organizations need to focus on developing diverse workforce with complementary skills. To do so, leaders should ask and answer these three questions
What are the knowledge, skills and/or abilities the organization needs to implement its innovation strategies?
What type of people are likely to have this knowledge, skills and/or abilities? and
How can the organization gain access to these people?
2. Enabling Environment
Innovation can either be enabled or blocked by the environment. Leaders should focus on creating an environment that enables innovation. Here are questions Ian asked us. Given the disruptions faced by your organizations, what behaviors are needed by your people to drive strategy execution? How can you change your people management practices to encourage these behaviors?
Given the disruptions faced by your organizations, what behaviors are needed by your people to drive strategy execution? How can you change your people management practices to encourage these behaviors?
Realize that nothing happens overnight, but slow and incremental changes will get you results.
3. Enlarge the Talent Pipeline
The talent pipeline starts at attraction/identification stage, then development and then utilization. A leaky talent pipeline can lead to negative growth. Make the development of your employees' capabilities your priority and work on utilizing those skills. Disruption will not make your employees incompetent, rather it will make their skills irrelevant.
Disruption will not make an individual incompetent, rather it will make the skills irrelevant. Talent development should then focus on developing relevant skills.
These are my notes from the World Business Forum 2019 session on Leading Your Organization Through the Complexities of Change.
Lastly, these are my takeaways and they way I understood his concepts, which I want to come back to and re-read :) If you want to learn more about his work and concepts, which I highly encourage you to, here is more information: https://www.victoria.ac.nz/vbs/about/staff/ian-williamson
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