(I highly recommend you read the full research report Women leaders are better fighting a pandemic. )

I read this research as a call for diverse styles of leadership. The context we live in today is highly complex, and the problems we face increasingly so. As such the best leadership style is usually one that has the fewest blind spots. This way of leading necessarily means the ability to source and use a diverse set of skills, perspectives and styles. Even though this research clearly shows a better outcome for countries led by women during the pandemic, I hope the message that we need more diversity in styles of leadership in general is not lost.

In reading the findings of this fascinating research, a couple of caveats are important to keep in mind. First, it is still early days in the pandemic life cycle; and second, we can only really measure one type of impact at this juncture - lives saved or lost. The economic impact will need to play out over time.

Two main findings in their research:

There are clear gender differences in risk taking behavior. Many earlier studies have reported more risk-averse behavior in women compared to men. However, what’s new here is that women leaders are selective in their risk approach. The women leaders studied chose to take less risks when it came to human lives, while being ok with taking more risks with the economy. And what that looked like is this - swift decision to lockdown in order to prioritize safety, while being ok with the possible unknown impact of such actions on the economy.

The researchers compared the women-led countries with peer countries (countries matched by similar population, average age, GDP, health expenditure, etc.) and the data show that the peer countries with male national leaders waited much longer to order a lockdown. Possibly using that time to weigh the severity of losses on both sides – human lives vs economy.

Interestingly, even though it is generally believed that women are more risk-averse than men, several studies show that the reverse is true when it comes to money! Men display much more risk-averse behavior than women when they have to make decisions in situations that are framed to highlight financial losses. (Schubert et al. 1999, Moore and Eckel 2006).

The other finding in Kambhampati & Garikipati’s research confirms what has been much discussed - which is that women leaders during Covid tended to be clearer and more empathetic in their communication.

The question we need to ask ourselves is this –

What if in the longer term, data shows that countries with women national leaders who took a more aggressive stance on Covid (locked down early), actually resulted in greater (or longer lasting) negative economical impact compared to the less aggressive actions of their peer male-led countries, BUT they saved more lives. What then? How will we judge their actions?

Although my personal assessment is that the economic result of clear and decisive early lockdown will be positive. Early lockdown means you get to “no new cases sooner” which means business and schools can re-open sooner. As already evident in New Zealand, which is the first country where life is essentially back to normal.

But just for argument sake – let’s say, longer term, we see more negative impact on the economy in countries with women national leaders who took an aggressive stance and locked down early, compared to the economies of their peer male-led countries. What would we conclude? How will we judge their actions? Will we do some slick calculus to weigh number of lives saved vs rate of inflation/deflation? Will we revert to the classical economic argument that the value of a person is measured in the goods/services they produce that can be exchanged for money and that the sum of that is the GDP (aka worth of a nation)? Will we continue to maintain that the value of any service or experience is only equal to the amount that we’ve been paying for them, i.e., low paid jobs such as childcare, teachers, community organizers, companioning and support for the elderly or others in need are of low economic value, while high paying jobs such as lawyers, investment traders, and business leaders are of high economic value? Will we then downgrade the achievements of these women leaders because even though they saved more lives, they slowed down the economy? Or will we be wise and bold enough to challenge our outdated assumptions and consider a different model for building a thriving society.

My hope is regardless of what the longer term data will show about the economic impact of lockdown, we will come to realize that we, humans, created the economy - which is an artifact, nothing more than a bunch of people behaving according to some agreed norms of what has value and what does not. If we were able to do that, then surely, we are able to create a new version that corrects the gross imbalances and optimizes new insights and values we now have. (There is a Forbes article about this research but it didn't focus on this central question of the potential to transform the way we think of the economy and value.)

Undoubtedly, COVID19 has had a significant impact on the HR / People functions in organisations globally.

Entire workforces have been transitioned to remote working with no prior warning and in many cases with little impact on productivity. This has demonstrated HR’s ability to “just do it” and push through a major change without total alignment and with less than complete clarity on the desired end product.

Will HR be up to the task of caring for overall wellness for the workforce?

The pandemic has also highlighted the importance of mental wellbeing alongside physical wellbeing, individuals have been faced with the challenges of the virus itself, as well as the broader impacts of living in lockdown. There has been a blurring of lines between work and home lives, with personal factors now playing a major role in work-related decisions more than ever before.

As we begin to emerge from this crisis and look to the return to the office, it is not helpful to think of versions of the past that many are unfortunately calling the “new normal”. HR needs to step up to its responsibility of guiding the organization’s future. COVID19 has created a (liminal) space for organisations to take stock, recognize what needs to be left in the past, acknowledge what we have learnt through this experience, and make clear choices to chart a new path in the organisational culture and ways of working. Don’t be in a rush to take action. The gift of a liminal space is that the past is gone but the future is not yet set. Take advantage of this to pause, observe and ask the right questions, for that is what will give us better answers, and better insights from which we can make bold and wise commitments.

How do we balance this difficult polarity?

• Employees need for stability and certainty increases, with
• Organisations’ need for flexibility and agility increases. With shrinking budgets and a smaller permanent workforce, will there be a need for more flexible workers/contractors?

Over the last few months, the pandemic has highlighted our need to adapt and be flexible in the highly complex environment in which we are operating. The impact we have seen in our traditional supply chains and medical services has demonstrated the weakness of seemingly robust systems which cannot adapt to changing needs.

Moving forward, organisations need to be even more agile and, in turn, more resilient. Many organisations have become over-optimized, often for the sake of efficiency. As a result, we have optimized ourselves to the point of fragility – rather like “over-inflated balloons”, which we have to handle with great care and which are too rigid to adapt and survive when conditions change. Organisations must learn to operate as part of a complex adaptive system, in which multiple independent parts can interact with, and impact, all other components, adapting as needed, in order to function effectively in changing conditions.

So how can organisations shift their culture to operate successfully in such an ambiguous and fast-moving environment?

The answer could be to strip away much of the rigidity we have developed around ourselves in the form of processes and structures.

If we reduce HR to its most basic level and consider ‘what is the most minimum version of HR - HR’s MVP (minimum viable product), that can still enable large groups of people to succeed as part of a team? What would be the minimum structure and people/management processes needed? The first crucial component could be a shared purpose – one that is truly used in decision making and can be felt in the daily lived experiences of everyone. In fact, in the face of so much complexity, purpose has never been more important. A clear purpose at an organisational, team and individual level is the fastest way to cut through the clutter and create autonomy and cohesion almost at a magnetic level, instead of relying on rules and instructions, all crucial in maintaining motivation and productivity.

We often see organisations go through functional transformation where the traditional HR building blocks such as talent acquisition, learning, employee relations, etc, are reorganized in various combinations. Perhaps what is required is to completely reimagine the function, stripping it back to its minimum viable version, and to ask what is the primary purpose of HR?

We discussed the purpose of the HR function with our guests and agreed that HR’s purpose was to unleash potential, creating an environment in which people and businesses can thrive. If this were true what would be the minimum set of HR practices? Where the constraints that exist are there to enable, empower and to create cohesion.

In a context of heightened uncertainty and instability, as we emerge from this pandemic, this will be a complex cultural shift to manage. Leaders need more than ever to instil a sense of stability amongst their teams, whilst encouraging a culture of flexibility and agility. This will not be easy to achieve, but those who bravely forge a new path at this juncture could be the ones to thrive.

In order to unleash this potential as we move forward, organisations need to be open to this type of thinking and be able to look at things in completely different ways in order not to be left behind.

I was sparked by a little post today by Trendwatching.com to write this article. In the post they stated that “the more time people spend in the virtual realm the more they will expect from them.” And I agree with that.

My goal here is to start the conversation of how we might create more joy and meaning from working (and living) in a blend of the virtual and the real worlds because I feel what we’re seeing now is a trend that will persist.

Even though most organizations are doing what is required as a response to this disruption, many, in my opinion, are not really embracing, the potentially permanent impact this virtual-real mash-up reality will mean for their employees and customers in the near future.

In their post, Trendwatching shared stories of how brands are providing innovative services to enhance experiences while they spend time in the virtual world. Olivia, a home decor place is providing interior design services for your virtual home in Nintendo’s Animal Crossings game. You can hire them for 40GBP/hr to turn your virtual home into a space worthy of envy:) Fortnite is of course known for hugely popular live events in their virtual world. The recent Travis Scott virtual concert, offered in-game, drew a record 12.3 million viewers/players.

And an example closer to home, Zoom’s popularity soared when they offered sleek new virtual backgrounds, solving the problem of help-me-hide-clutter-in-my-kitchen while on a zoom session with my team.

And this example from Tesla (I’m not sure if it is offering value in a virtual or real world… I’m going to settle for a mash-up world). Tesla has just announced that it will soon be possible to do video conferencing using the native in-car computer system and the cabin facing camera (standard on Model 3). So, I’m imagining a road trip with family members and friends, some of whom are not physically in your car?!? Or a flotilla of Teslas (motorcade?) with their occupants all chatting away using the 21st century version of a CB radio? Full disclosure: I am a Tesla owner and a Teslaphile so I think this is quite cool :)

Many of the above examples are in the virtual world, and might carry a bit of sci-fi tinge to them but they exist and real people use them. And since so much of the real world is now off-limits to us, how much is the virtual world becoming our real world?

Think of work. How “real” are our colleagues to us? With the exception of those who are veteran remote workers, for many of us, we had to switch to WFH this March. We know our colleagues are real people but our experience of them lately has been only virtual. What makes your friend Alice Alice, is now transmitted through the image of her face on the screen, her voice through the speakers/headsets, the texts/chats/emails she sends with the cleverly placed virtual hugs/gifs/emojis…and… the outline she started on Google docs for you to pick up, the tasks she checked off on Trello, the images she posted on Slack, and of course, the dog videos she shared. So much of what we do now is experienced and evaluated through this virtual lens. Are we able to show our best selves this way? Which parts of us are not seen?

In addition to that, our personal effectiveness has to translate across the mix of both these worlds. Even though the lock down will not last forever, it has most likely changed the world of work forever. Many of us will be returning to a work reality that is a blend of the real and the virtual with no way of knowing which half will be the greater. The way we work with our teams might have also changed forever, now that we know asynchronous working is possible and even desirable in many cases. How do we re-invent ourselves to be effective in this mash-up world? How might we learn where our strengths will help us? How might we get more enjoyment and meaning out of working this way? How do we show our unique gifts and discover new gifts?

My big takeaway is this - the more time people spend living in the different worlds (#InEveryWorld) the more value they will expect to derive from every world.

So my 2 questions to companies and the people who lead them:

1. What are you doing to create meaning and joy #InEveryWorld that your customers spend time in?

2. What are you doing to create meaning and joy #InEveryWorld that your employees have to work in?

And my second big takeaway is that we can't do the above by merely replicating what we do in real life in the virtual world. Moving your team happy hour to Zoom gets old for a reason. It does not add value to the work and time we are already required to spend in the virtual world. In fact, some might say it just takes an hour away from the real world. A friend of mine has a small fabric arts company and last year they started a line of animal inspired designs. Since COVID19 their great idea of creating new value and increasing meaning and joy while working virtually is to introduce the Wild Earth Virtual Safari video streams to run continuously showing real (many are live streams) animals going about their lives in their natural environments. This has brought so much joy and meaning to the designers and not to mention stirring creative juices in their design.

Let’s start this conversation. Share the hashtag #InEveryWorld. The mash-up world is here to stay.

This is just my humble musings on a Tuesday, stuck behind too many virtual sessions, wondering when I will find more joy in doing a version of what, in many ways, is work I love, but somehow is still missing that little je ne sais quoi.

It would be great to see what perspectives and ideas there are out there.

#InEveryWorld #Covid19 #WFH #innovation #futureofwork

Photo credit: Dave Webb

How many articles have you read about investments in leadership development programs not producing any real impact? Unscientifically and idiosyncratically I can recall well meaning colleagues forwarding these (often great) articles (McKinsey, Deloitte/Bersin, HBR — I’m looking at you) to the HR team at least 2 to 3 times a year for the last 10 years… And they were all well-researched, well-written articles, often full of strong data and practical suggestions to improve. So, I want to say a whole hearted “thank you y’all!” There is honestly no sarcasm in the above. The problem is not the articles. The problem is this. When we try to measure the impact of a leadership development program it is often limited to one learning event: a week long program (possibly even world class in its ability to engage and inspire!); a 2 day workshop; a 3 module virtual class, etc. Trying to capture real behavior change as a result of these events is like trying to measure how much we recover from our illness by going to see the doctor. The analogy actually works quite well, so bear with me. And there is hope!

Imagine this. One day you don’t feel well, so you go to see your doctor. During the visit you have a very helpful and illuminating conversation with your doctor where you learn about your illness, it’s relationship to your habits, your prognosis and the actions you need to take to fully recover. You leave feeling educated, insightful and well cared for. But after the appointment, you don’t fill the prescription, you don’t take the recommended medication, you don’t make any diet or exercise changes, you don’t communicate the doctor’s advice to your family members, and you decide not have the recommended surgery. A few days later you assess if your symptoms have subsided as a result of speaking to your doctor… and unsurprisingly, you find “no, I still feel sick”. Therefore you conclude that your doctor is not effective in making you better.

Many organizations make the same mistake when trying to measure the effectiveness of their flagship/hi-profile leadership development program. The main event by itself should understandably have limited impact in changing and sustaining the new behaviors and mindsets you were hoping for. The event may have been exquisitely designed and delivered to provoke, awaken, provide insight, inspire, spur action, and build a cohesive spirit of “yes we can!” But no matter how hot and bright that flame burned during the event, it will quickly subside without the right support and follow through. I have seen even the strongest personal will to change succumb to the vortex of BAU (business as usual) and SOP (standard operating procedure) within mere weeks, if not days, of that moving learning experience.

I’m reminded of this really great and practical article about how to develop leaders better and faster. 4 Things that Develop Leaders Faster, written by James Eyring from Organisation Solutions, a researcher and expert in leadership and organization effectiveness whom I think very highly of. He pointed out that Insight alone is not enough. Leaders also need practice, challenge and support if they are to really change and grow. Additionally, if we are to see real payoffs from efforts to develop leaders we need to look at the whole thing using a systems lens. The reality is never a simple cause and effect — increase leaders’ skills causes rise in share price or NPS scores.

In order for leadership development programs to produce the results we want (and were promised by the program designers) we need to think of leadership development as an integrated plan of linked actions that could be anchored or kicked off by one keystone event; but crucially followed by the long tail of really hard and meticulous implementation work to ensure that leaders get the practice, challenge and support they need for the new behaviors to take hold. To do this we need to identify other aspects of the organization that impact whether our leaders can (opportunity) and want to (motivation) practice what they’ve learned. This work is not splashy or sexy. It will be slow; often one person or one team at a time. And the rewards, though humble, in the form of small wins and minor breakthroughs, are truly meaningful. If we persevere, we might actually see meaningful returns from the huge sums invested regularly by corporations in shaping leader capabilities.

So the next time we plan to measure the impact of a leadership development program, in addition to ensuring the program provides the relevant Insights, always also measure ourselves how well we do the following things:

For Practice:

How much did we help the leaders to practice what they learned?

What did we do to change the environment so that it motivates our leaders to try out these new mindsets, skills and behaviors?

For Challenge:

How effectively did we challenge our leaders to take their skills to the next level on a regular basis?

How clearly do we communicate the safe-to-fail sandbox to invite brave experimentation by everyone?

For Support:

Do we provide easy access to a broad array of robust and personalized support mechanisms to help each leader continue to learn, reflect and make sense of their experiences in their own way and at their own pace (e.g., coaching, mentoring, feedback, job taster, unique/passion project, personalized learning plan)?

So to get an “all thumbs up” rating for your leadership development ROI, you’ll need an “all thumbs up” for your next leadership development main event, PLUS an “all thumbs up” rating for each of the questions above.

Photo by Javier Allegue Barros on Unsplash

Q&A: Mandy Chooi We’re excited to be working with Mandy Chooi, a world-class expert in leadership development, to help put authentic and purposeful leadership at the heart of mission-driven businesses.

Mandy Chooi has spent over 20 years in global leadership roles, most recently as ING’s Global Head of Strategy & Innovation for People, where she helped the bank pivot to an agile, innovative and digital culture.

As a leadership coach and consultant, Mandy has partnered with Fortune 500 companies, including technology, professional services, manufacturing, banking and FMCG firms, to help their top leaders dare to be authentic, drive transformational change, build capability and bring out the best in their teams.

Purpose caught up with Mandy to talk about how leaders can overcome the barriers to embedding a truly inspiring and transformative purpose in their businesses.

Q. Why do leaders sometimes struggle to make purpose work?

It’s very common to get stuck in the “know/do gap”. This happens when an organisation knows why purpose is important, but somehow can’t make it take root.

It’s all about context and opportunity. As a business, your purpose has to live in soil where it can grow. This means building an environment where people genuinely have opportunities to make decisions based on purpose: where your purpose affects whether you choose strategy A or strategy B, and whether you invest in X or Y. If your purpose isn’t part of that day-to-day decision-making, it’s not a real purpose.

The “know/do gap” affects individuals in the same way. You can learn something, but unless you have the capability, motivation and, most of all, the opportunity to apply it, you’re not going to change your behaviour.

Q. How do you help people overcome that “know/do gap”?

You really have to look closely at the systemic context. Are you building a work environment where people are encouraged to live and act according to the purpose? Are they being allowed the space to ask tough questions, to create healthy conflict?

Because if you put a changed person into an unchanged context, nothing will change.

Leadership is about setting the context and being the role model for what you want to see in others. The more the top leadership walks the talk, the more quickly the whole organisation starts to pull in the same direction. Leaders’ behaviour is a large part of the culture recipe.

Q. How do you create those opportunities for real change?

It’s a tough nut to crack — people are often reluctant to try new things, either because it’s uncomfortable, risky, or because they’re not already good at them.

Organisations need to create not only the right space and environment, but also the pressure to experiment. As part of the leadership development process, I try to push people to create behavioural experiments over the course of several weeks. It’s especially effective if they then invite people to observe that new behaviour and feed back (and there are some great digital tools for that).

Q. How did you develop purpose-driven leadership at ING?

At ING, we gave all of our leaders the opportunity to discover their personal purpose and create a life plan — a holistic, integrated plan that goes beyond work. Because if you want people to bring their whole selves to work, you in turn need to respect and support their whole lives, including all of their interests. Companies must start to embrace this — don’t just look at someone’s current role, help them develop holistically as a person.

Q. What do these life plans look like?

If you were to live your purpose for the next five years, what would that look like? Who would support you? What do you want to do more of, what do you want to do less of? What are the milestones in the years in between? That’s what the plan captures.

We’ve taken over 7000 people through a weeklong, offsite programme to develop their purpose and plan. And after that, we continue to support them with living that plan. The plan doesn’t just gather dust, we go back to it every couple of months, interspersing support, coaching, and establishing the expectation to revisit it within their own teams regularly, to keep it going.

Q. Do you ever encounter any resistance during this process?

Not in general. Although, there have been the small handful who struggle with the concept. If you’ve spent a long and successful career totally compartmentalising your life and your work, it can be a struggle to think and plan in terms of a single holistic purpose. And of course, since it’s an immersive, introspective process that you share with other people — this means that you have to allow yourself to be vulnerable and trust people.

Q. How do you achieve this?

The environment and setting design helps us get over any initial reluctance. For the first hour or two you sense some hesitation in a few people, but very quickly, people drop their guard and feel safe.

The key is really to design learning experiences that are experiential. People have to really feel it.

The experience takes people from “realise”, to “confront”, to “reframe”, to “commit”. If you confront people with their own assumptions and beliefs, you can cause a real paradigm shift in which people commit to doing things differently. But people have to feel that shift, they have to feel that reframing.

All of these needs to be carefully nurtured and reinforced by putting the right practices and systems in place. In other words, how people work, make decisions, collaborate, receive recognition, etc. must all be tailored afresh to nudge and strengthen this new purpose-led way of being.

Q. Let’s take a step back — what do leaders actually gain by focusing on purpose?

It’s three things really. First, today’s leaders are constantly being expected to make difficult decisions with very little data. When you’re confronted with unprecedented dilemmas in a fast-changing environment, purpose gives you that rudder and North Star.

Second, purpose de-clutters. It stops a changing business from drowning in new initiatives. A clearly articulated purpose helps you choose what you do, what you do first, and what you don’t do at all.

Third — to stay ahead these days, you need to constantly innovate. And to do that, you need to ask your people to create magic every day. You’re asking them to bring their whole self, their ideas and their passions to you. They simply won’t be prepared to do this until you foster a sense of excitement around a shared and aligned purpose.

I always believed that a good leader knows that who you are (and how you show up) is more important than what you know or can do. Especially in situations of increasing complexity and uncertainty, people need to know that they are following someone who is guided by a good purpose, one that feels aligned to their personal values.

Q. Just to wrap up — I know that everyone at The House is very excited about working with you. What are your hopes for the partnership?

When I met Steve at the THNK School of Creative Leadership and learned about The House, I immediately sensed that there was a natural partnership here.

The House has great expertise and capability in terms of thinking through a purpose-driven leadership development approach and communicating and embedding it into a company in a creative, immersive way. What I bring is the experience and ability to identify and drive the real business changes that come with that — helping organisations figure out the next steps towards building skills in their leaders and helping other parts of the company create the right context and systems change to support a purpose-led transformation. I’m looking forward to it.