Interview with Martin Barrett

In this short video, Martin Barrett, Managing Director of Turner & Townsend Suiko, talks to Lesley Lindberg about some of the leadership challenges he has observed through the UK lockdown.

Despite optimism that a vaccine for Covid-19 is likely start to roll out in early 2021, if not sooner, remote working remains as the standard for business in 2020 and looks increasingly likely to be widespread in early 2021.

In countries like Australia Covid-19 cases recorded are close to zero and hybrid working is part of the new Covid-19 business norm across many organisations. Leaders have no choice but to learn how to overcome the challenges of operating and succeeding in this new way, in order to get the most from themselves and their teams to generate maximum impact.

Given these circumstances, how are individuals and teams continuing to make an impact, what does high performance look like? And how can organisations ensure they continue to grow and transform in an increasingly disruptive world?

Constant change and unpredictability in the business world means that the only certainty for leaders currently is yet more uncertainty. It isn’t just services, products and organisations that are having to be reinvented but leadership skillsets, too. As well as analysis of the factors affecting organisations like multi generational workforces, digital transformation, constant disruption and the shift towards automated and remote working workforces, redefining leadership requires imagination and creative thought on the part of today’s leaders. To help equip leaders to face these future challenges, Rialto is continuing to research the future capabilities and skillsets that are important based on the experiences of Leaders across multiple organisations on current and predicted market trends. The research feeds into the Rialto Accelerated Leadership Index (RALI), which enables leaders to benchmark their capabilities and skillsets. Our latest findings have highlighted the following leadership requirements

Be a visionary strategist

Leaders must never lose sight of the importance of being able to devise a strategy and vision and effectively communicating it to the workforce so everyone is aligned behind it. In todays’ remote working setting, the language and frequency of communications used to achieve this is extremely important. Leaders must ensure that what they say and the tone of voice is both inclusive and engaging for every segment of the workforce. In an era of multi-generational workforces, this is all important. Much has been made of the importance of the authentic leader in recent years and this continues to gain traction. To believe in a strategy and vision, employees need to have trust in the leader putting it forward. Leaders must be who they claim to be and this means upholding the corporate values and behavioral standards both in person but now more than ever from afar. In the current operating environment, it is highly likely that the vision and strategy will be underpinned by transformational change and communicating this brings additional challenges. Employees can be fearful of change, especially if it feels enforced.

Employees want their leaders to be visionary and charismatic but there must also be substance and pragmatism behind both the strategy and the vision. In the complex and unpredictable operating conditions that exist, there is no room for leadership rhetoric and vision and actions really must speak louder than words.

Become a digital Navigator

Digital navigators don’t have to be technological whizzkids but do need to understand where the organisation fits into the digital revolution and how to make sense of new and emerging technologies to ensure they hold credibility and can stay a step ahead of the competition. They will have closely observed what has happened in the era of digital transformation to date and gleaned what works and what doesn’t. They will have an enthusiasm for technology but are not blindsided by it. Digital navigators do not have all the answers and understand the importance of keeping an open mind because when new technology emerges, it isn’t always apparent how it can be best deployed. Digital navigators are also important because they can help embed a digital mindset into the leadership team. Some boards have failed to connect with digital transformation programs and absolved responsibility for them. In the current climate, that simply isn’t an option.

Delivering the ‘X’ factor

The past 12 months has continued to see heightened importance placed on both customer (CX) and employee experience (EX) and the two are increasingly seen as intrinsically linked.

What is really building momentum in this area though is the recognition that delivering a great employee experience is critical to business success. Ensure that your people want to work and love doing their jobs and it will translate into a great customer experience.  With the Covid-19 pandemic, it’s time now to reset the employee experience to create a more meaningful and lasting emotional connection between the employee and employer.  Despite this being a technological age, with increasing levels of automation within many organisations, people will continue to be the real differentiator and their actions will have a direct impact on the bottom line. An employer which understands the correlation between an exceptional employee experience and the customer’s experience of the organisation, its products and its service will be the winner.

Develop the three A’s of agility, adaptability and acumen

Future leaders must be able to think on their feet to react and adapt to the constantly changing business conditions that have become the norm. It’s no surprise then that agility and adaptability feature on nearly every leadership hot skills list. Agility enables a leader to adapt, flex and respond to new business opportunities or, conversely, change course if they see danger/problems ahead. The speed of technological change has shortened product lifecycles and business lead times, increasing pressures for any organisation that is trying to compete in the digital economy. Agile and adaptable leaders create agile and adaptable organisations that can respond and reinvent themselves to keep pace with the competition. There is another ‘A’ that needs to be added to the list though: acumen. Needless to say that leaders need business acumen but not only is it required for boardroom decisions and business deals but to manage the increasingly complex set of multi stakeholder relationships that organisations find themselves forging.

Adopt a game-changing mindset

It’s imperative for organisations to constantly innovate and reinvent themselves to stay ahead of the curve. Leaders must be able to spot the talent in their organisation who can change the game and in some cases the course and fortunes of the company.  While not everyone has the personality traits of true game-changers, everyone can be encouraged to adopt a game-changing mindset and it is paramount that leaders recognise its importance. Game-changers can disrupt entire industries and create news ones. In a world impacted by both the global pandemics and economic downturns, they are even more vital to have in an organisation.  With the right people and blend of skills and characteristics to support them, their full potential can be harnessed with minimal downsides for the organisation or those around them. Business leaders must therefore make certain that senior colleagues and board members understand the role of the game-changer and their purpose as those who are resistant to change or risk averse may struggle to tolerate them. Indeed, game-changers can be risky individuals who enjoy living outside of comfort zones and breaking the rules. But at a time when many organisations are seeking daring new ways to set themselves apart from the crowd and win new customers as well as retain existing ones, game-changers hold the key. And it is only those leaders with an understanding of game-changing mindsets that will be able to translate ideas into workable new products, services or solutions for the organisation to elevate itself above the competition

Doubtless we will see the future leadership capabilities & skillsets continually added to as Rialto progresses through its 10-year project. Certainly, some of those skills highlighted today like agility and adaptability will continue to be highly significant for several years to come.    Equally, softer qualities which we haven’t highlighted today, for instance, a high level of collaboration and emotional intelligence will also be required so leaders can empathise with how the workforce is feeling as we embark on transformational change.

COVID-19 continues to impact the world of business in ways we never imagined and so too must our approach to leadership development.

Senior leaders have a twofold challenge: ensuring their own skillset is up-to-date and relevant and ensuring that the organisation’s future leaders are equipped with the skills and capabilities that will be required  to transform, grow and prosper in the future.

Rialto Consultancy has been reviewing the key trends emerging as a result of Covid-19 including the greater need for even more digital business change, the continuation of remote working, changes in customer mindset and behaviour, changes in employee expectations, including greater wellbeing focus  as well as specific industry issues. More than ever, our teams are advocating that people and commercial strategies must be aligned if companies are to stimulate innovation, increase efficiencies and agility  to respond to further and ongoing changes.

Nurturing and encouraging the best contributions and impact from all talent is a priority, including further investments in upskilling digital skills.

Identifying and developing a deep pool of next-generation leaders is essential in order to compete. Successfully delivering effective leadership development programmes, increasingly requires organisations to scan market trends to see the bigger picture on  how future developments in the world of business and work will impact on their organisation and sector.

So as we move into the third quarter of 2020, how can you ensure leadership development has maximum impact? Rialto has identified key areas of focus.

 1. The upskilling/reskilling imperative

The pace and scale of change means leaders and their teams must be at the top of their game and ensure they have the knowledge and capabilities to manage it. But this will be the bare minimum requirement if UK firms are to tackle the biggest skills challenges they’ve ever faced.

Leaders must elevate their focus on the impact disruption and remote working is having on workforces and ensure the right learning programmes are in place. These must go beyond traditional development programmes. They must recognise the importance of brokering learning experiences as well as connecting employees to learning experiences across the organisation.  Technologies like AI and machine learning are continuing to displace, change and create new ways of working and jobs at all levels with a new premium being put on soft skills to ensure the human-digital workforce works to optimum effect.

Rialto will be partnering with business leaders over the coming months to help them maintain the right balance of emerging, existing and legacy skills to help drive transformation and respond to disruption. We believe it is important for organisations to develop these skills in-house as competition will remain fierce for critical talent segments. 

2. The art of managing change

The requirement for leaders to be agents of change and ensure their teams can effectively implement transformation programmes (operational, digital or otherwise), will continue to be a priority throughout 2020 and beyond.

Rialto has observed that many leaders are ill-equipped to deal with such change while others simply aren’t prepared for the shorter timeframes in which it must be effected. They also lack clarity on how to ensure organisational design supports the faster and more agile work practices that are required in the current climate. Employee experience is also a key factor in successful change management and this is still being overlooked.

In our experience, many of these problems stem from change management not being accurately reflected/represented in leadership development programmes. The need for change will be ongoing in the next decade so organisations must identify what skills and capabilities will be needed for future transformation programmes and find ways to impart them. 

3. Authentic leaders who create space and time for meaningful conversations

Employees have even higher expectations of their leaders and are keen to see accountability and transparency in both actions and behaviours. In short, they want authentic leaders who they can trust and who set the standards bar high for others to follow.

In the connected, always-on world in which we are bombarded with information and messages, it will be the leaders who are able to create time and space for meaningful and honest conversations about real issues that are impacting their team and the organisation. Rialto has also encountered more organisations building this type of approach into their leadership development programmes. They want to empower leaders to be able to have consequential conversations to those above and below them to help drive decision-making. 

4. Building resilience and agility across organisations

Many of the problems that leaders face today and in future cannot be solved with traditional approaches so they must be able to quickly adapt their thinking and actions.

Resilience, agility and adaptability have been a pre-requisite part of a leader’s make-up since the global recession more than 10 years ago. Current changes and development will continue to place a premium on these traits. Leaders must be able to challenge their own thinking as well as that of others. They need to be able to adapt to work in ecosystems as these will be a source of new thinking that could lead to solutions.

The future will not only be about leaders building their own resilience and agility though but ensuring it is embedded across their workforces. The ongoing transformation organisations face can take its toll and lead to employees hitting a point of diminishing performance which prevents them from delivering on goals.

Leaders must help teams to become more resilient  but also ensure the environment created is supportive to create and implement transformational strategies and initiatives.

In this white paper, Rialto examines four areas which we have identified as critical to organisational growth: enabling innovation; becoming customer-obsessed; forming strategic partnerships and alliances; and reskilling and upskilling the workforce with 21st Century skills.

Business leaders and their organisations will continue to face some tough times throughout 2018 and beyond. A great deal depends on them and a great deal will be demanded of them. To identify the key leadership challenges and the changing leadership profile, capabilities and attributes required to deal with them, Rialto surveyed attendees of its ongoing Leadership Lunch events which have been held for over a decade.

This white paper explores the findings which are based on the top five challenges that were identified as most critical to be successfully addressed to achieve future business success and the five personal leadership attributes that were deemed most important to take their organisations forward.

The accelerated pace of technological change is posing significant challenges for businesses in the shape of digital transformation and digital disruption which demands new specific capabilities from leaders.

Yet research undertaken by Rialto for its Supercharge your leadership skills for the future report revealed that one quarter of executives surveyed didn’t feel confident in having the skills required to move their organisations forward in the complex operating environment that exists.

Follow our five tips to help ensure you have the leadership skills and capabilities necessary for today as well as the organisation of the future.

1 Benchmark your skills

Undertake a skills assessment on yourself and examine your strengths and weaknesses. Elicit input from peers for a more 360-degree approach. Make use of tools such as the Rialto Accelerated Leadership Index (RALI) which will enable you to benchmark yourself against others in a similar/comparable position. Based on these findings, analyse where the skills gaps exist or where you fall short in terms of experience in specific areas compared to others and devise a development plan to address these shortcomings.

2 Build agility and adaptability to change

A key capability required by leaders in the current climate is to be able to adapt and respond to ever-changing market conditions. It requires an agile mindset and the ability to identify where and why change might be required and then to drive that transformation forward. The Rialto research found that almost half of respondents ranked agility as a top capability as a transformational leader. Crucially, leaders must also be able to engage the workforce with that transformation and remove any fear factors associated with it.

3 Learn to manage complexity

While organisational structures have become flatter and less hierarchical internally, companies are having to form more strategic partnerships externally to help access new markets and create new business opportunities. They also find themselves having to play their part in ecosystems – sometimes alongside competitor companies – to advance their own or a new sector. This means leaders must be able to manage complex stakeholder relationships and ensure that these partnerships deliver value for the organisation.

4 Connect with customers

Half of those respondents in Rialto’s research ranked customer centricity as one of the top capabilities required for the future. In the past, some leadership teams have appeared remote from their customer base but this situation will not be tolerated in the future. Customer experience is being touted as the new battleground. Forward-thinking leaders are putting their customer’s needs and experience at the centre of their strategies and this is evidenced by the increasing number of companies which are appointing customer experience (CX) managers.

5 Become an innovation champion

Innovation has always been the lifeblood of any organisation but any company which doesn’t prioritise it in the future runs the risk of stagnation. Visionary leaders recognise that innovation can come from anywhere in an organisation and instil a culture that ensures it flows freely. They also recognise that innovation isn’t only about developing new products and services but devising new processes and methods of working, too.

As the global economic crisis rumbles on with continuing uncertainty and no light at the end of the tunnel, many employees are weary, worn down, battered and bruised.

They may no longer be inspired by their job but trapped by the economic environment, creating mixed feelings towards their employer resulting in them operating below their potential.

The motivation they feel is negative – pushing themselves out of a fear of what might happen, terrified of losing their job if they do not achieve targets and results. This type of motivation is unsustainable and leads to under performance, burnout and eventually the loss of skilled workers.

The challenge facing leaders is how not only how to engage workforces and get the best out but how to keep them focused, motivated and, ultimately, in the right mindset.