Team Leadership Insights from the Business Adventurer - January 2009 Newsletter

Very Best New Year Wishes - 2009 has arrived and its time to wish good fortune and safe ventures to all!

2008 was a rollercoaster of a year which had me traveling the length and breadth of Europe delivering keynotes, development programmes, partnerships were formed and the Team Siberia website was launched. The diary for 2009 is already looking busy and my ongoing work with Louise Ennis Marketing looks to deliver some exciting developments - keep visiting my website to keep up with the transformation.

With so much uncertainty around my first Newsletter of the Year shares insights from Shackleton (a master at leading through uncertainty), my third winning top tip - Expect to Encounter Setbacks and details of how to order my book on the crossing of Iceland. This journey was the first in history and before we achieved success was deemed impossible!

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5 Leadership Insights from Polar Explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton

1. He recognised the importance of team moral.

He understood his crew, he knew what motivated them and when he could, he gave it to them. He gave them the best equipment and resources he could afford. He encouraged them, held them accountable and set realistic objectives.

2. He was accessible to his crew.

He made time to be available and spent lots of time with his crew. He connected with, spoke and respected the individual differences of his crew.

3. He had fun.

No matter what challenges he faced, he always encouraged social activities when the work was done. He created an environment in which his crew felt good in spite of their circumstances.

4. He remained optimistic.

He maintained an absolute faith that he would prevail while recognising the reality of the situation, remaining optimistic that they would find a way to overcome it.

5. He kept troublemakers close.

He kept troublemakers close so that he knew what they were doing, kept them from contaminating the rest of his crew and had some direct influence on their actions.

Winning Top Tip # 4 : Expect to Encounter Setbacks

My father taught me to ‘plan for the worst, hope for the best, but take what comes’. Only a fool goes into a business issue, an acquisition, a restructuring, and so on, expecting a smooth ride. Business life just isn’t like that.

Having realistic expectations and planning to encounter setbacks means that the leader is far more likely to succeed in his venture. This is particularly relevant when dealing with change. People will come up with very good reasons why the status quo should be retained.

These should be expected and, rather than taking a top-down authoritarian approach, the wise leader will recognise that this is something he anticipated, with the result that he will take the time and make the effort to communicate and explain the reasons behind the decision, thereby ensuring that barriers are removed, and progress is made.

To get over setbacks you need two things: confidence and courage. Confidence is like one of those perfumes that react differently with each individuals body chemistry to produce something unique. The only point on which everyone agrees is that without confidence, nothing happens. Not every act and decision you make will be supported 100 per cent. In fact, there will be times as a leader that you may feel very alone. Courage is integral to leadership because it is what keeps you moving forward on your plan and direction.

10 Golden Rules for Polar Explorers

These rules were written by a team of successful polar explorers.

"Greater than the victory, the ice taught us lessons to carry with us into our life."

1. Go for both poles - We didn’t manage to even reach the South Pole the first time. But we never lowered our goal. Our final success was so much greater in the face of it.

2. Seek out the winners - We wouldn’t have made it without the aid of polar veterans, and they in turn learned from veterans before them. Every true success is a mankind joint venture.

3. Don’t cut food and fuel - In the short run, dropping food and fuel increased our speed. In the long run, it killed our expedition. Don’t undercut your survival.

4. Face the storm - Hiding out in a tent waiting for the sunny days steals crucial time. A storm always looks the worst from inside the tent. Face the storm.

5. Get out each morning - Get out there, every single day. There are so many reasons not to: Repairs badly needed, fog and whiteout. The winner moves when the others rest.

6. Keep moving - In temperatures of -50C, we wore only thin layers of clothing. In this situation, to stop was to die. When times are rough and you are the underdog, keep running.

7. Don’t think - Skiing thin ice commands swift and determined steps. Too much doubt in times of pressure kills the power of action. Don’t think, just go.

8. Be brutal - If you want to reach the impossible then you must continue where others stop. Tear down walls with your bare hands, crawl on your knees. But never stop.

9. Say only positive things to each other - Their single, most important advice. Out of their advice, one turned the most important to us: “Say only positive things to each other.

10. You don’t have to believe to win Faced with the facts, we could not believe in our success. Yet it arrived. You don’t have to believe in success. Just do the right things, and go.

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Winning Top Tip # 3 : Venture into New Territory

The business world is full of examples that demonstrate the value of trying something new. As business leaders, each one of us is an entrepreneur at heart, and we love the challenge of trying something new.

Leaders of the future need to have the stomach for conflict and uncertainty, both among their people and within themselves. That's why effective leaders need to have an experimental mind-set.

Some decisions will work, and some won't. Some projects will pay off, and some won't. But every decision and every project will teach you and your organisation something about how the marketplace is changing and about how your company compares to its competitors.

Think beyond the horizon and look for pathways that may be hidden from view. Look at what your competitors are doing.

Five Ordinary Businessmen Reach the South Pole

Five ordinary businessmen from Canada have successfully completed a last degree ski to the South Pole in aid of local children's programmes. 'The South Pole for Kids' team say they are relieved to have completed their expedition, but now they just want to come home! Currently they’re sitting in their tents at the South Pole, waiting for the plane to pick them up.

To discover how you can undertake a journey of a lifetime visit http://www.seanchapple.co.uk/IntroPoles.html

Winning Top Tip # 2 : Develop an Apetite for Risk

Risk is a fact of business for a polar adventurer. When you wake in the morning and the blizzard is howling outside and the temperature is 40 degrees below zero do you venture outside and start hauling your sledge? When you encounter the crevasse fields do you get out the ropes and tie everyone together so that if one person falls in the others can help pull him out again? In both of these scenarios, which I have encountered many times, the answer is always different. Its about qualifying and managing the risk.

In business taking and managing risk is part of what we must do every day to create profits and shareholder value. But the sudden and cataclysmic corporate meltdowns of recent years suggest that many companies neither manage risk well nor fully understand the risks they are taking. “Who dares Wins” is the SAS motto however, as with the SAS, the risk needs to be qualified and managed. We are not talking here of betting the company or taking unsubstantiated risks.

There's no such thing as a safe risk. None of it is safe. Rather, it is about reviewing the various scenarios and going into areas others are less likely to go. What's a stupid risk and what's a calculated risk (i.e. a good one)?

We can all come up with daily life examples. Taking your entire pay cheque and betting it on a roulette table in Las Vegas is dumb risk. Investing your retirement savings in mutual funds in the stock market when you’re young is a smart risk.

But what is risk in business? When it comes to your business and/or career, ultimately only you can determine that. People and books can only give you advice about various directions. With risk we always get in the question of risk appetite. Clearly, a standout employee, entrepreneur, and a leader all need a healthy appetite for risk and a hearty helping of self-confidence to overcome all that. But how much is enough? Is there a point at which confidence and risk tolerance become liabilities? And though it's common to mix the two (after all, you need confidence to take risks), do they really go hand in hand?

The Risk Options

Accept Risk
Risk is related to gain; normally, greater potential gain requires greater risk. The goal of evaluating risk is not to eliminate risk but to maximise the likelihood of success.

Accept No Unnecessary Risk
Being prepared to identify and accept risk does not equate to the willingness to gamble. Take only risks which are necessary to achieve goals.

Anticipate and Manage Risks
Risk are more easily controlled when they are identified early in the planning processes.

Decide at Appropriate Level.
Decisions should be made by the leader responsible for the task. Prudence, experience, judgement, intuition and situational awareness of leaders directly involved in the planning and execution of the task are the critical elements in making effective risk management decisions.

October Newsletter Posted

My newsletter for October has just been posted. Highlights include:

Decision-Making
Success Insight Guest : Conrad Dickinson
Leading Extreme Teams Case Study

Read the latest issue and review archives at:
http://www.seanchapple.co.uk/tenttime.html

The Leaders Art of Decision-Making

For the effective manager the art of effective and timely decision-making is a key role, particularly with regard to major decisions that impact on organisational strategy. Minor decision-making should be delegated to the lowest level possible in line with requisite experience, capability and capacity of the junior manager.

New leaders need to learn very quickly they cannot do everything themselves. Part of effective decision-making is letting others implement your decisions. It would seem obvious at the entry manager level that this lesson should be the first learned in business management. Yet surprisingly it isn’t. A leader is someone who utilises people and brings out the best in them, so delegate away. Trust your people to do what you trained them to do.

Even if it is a critical task, they will not learn to be leaders themselves without going through the same trials as you did as a leader. Guide them and coach them, but never believe you cannot delegate every task you have.

Tough choices are also a daily requirement of decision-making. Leaders have to hire and fire, to sign off on new strategies, and to risk investments - all of which can lead to stress and guilt. The presence of guilt is not a result of making the wrong choice but of choosing itself. And that is the human condition: you are a being that chooses. However, to make a proper decision, one has to be well-informed.

Here is a simple model for decision-making that I have used on my adventures both during the planning and preparations stages and on the ice. It should be thought of as a mental checklist which should be followed when considering a course of action.

• What do I want to achieve and why
• What could go wrong if I take no action
• What have I assumed
• What resources are available
• What constraints are there
• When do I need to take action and where
• What is my fallback option