Costa Concordia & Culture Change

I don’t know about you, but I think Leadership is about taking charge, giving direction and leading by example, not about ‘self preservation’. I have to ask myself how many management teams are adopting the Costa Concordia Management Style by default - taking to the life boats and hoping that things will get better by accident.

This fast breaking news story will tell us a lot about the organizational effectiveness of that business and how personal values and fears drive Leadership and management style in that organization.  Perhaps it is worth examining some of the horrendous practices witnessed by passengers and then think of our own businesses and how well we cope with situations which are a lot less life threatening.

New Shoots & Rationality

January is the month for new beginnings, appraising what worked in the past and what to refresh and what to dump.  Its about ‘casting ‘off’ the old and committing to the new, and drawing up tangible and credible plans for the future.  This is true in a the corporate world as well as in personal circumstances.  Corporately and individually we all have our challenges that we think we will never get through, but thinking rationally and sequentially, take small steps and appraising logical forms of action, will beat anything and everything.

It will beat the recession; it will solve the issues with retaining existing and migrating Clients, ineffective team work and poor leadership style.  It will also move us on psychologically with our own personal challenges whether they are bad habits, poor motivation, procrastinating, being apathetic and being directionless in our career.

Really Be Brave, Be Incredibly Brave

Now, more than ever we require a new resilient management style – no longer can the default laissez-faire and risk adverse style meet the challenges that we face in the next few years. We need a deliberate leadership style that is focused on changing those things which have maximum impact for the security and prosperity of the business. We need courage to address those things should be fixed that we have not dealt with before but sooner or later we know that.  How many things practises, processes and behaviours are holding you and your business back from achieving all you could do, be and have?

Fire-Walking, Courage & Leading by Example

I am not a big fan of walking on burning coals but did it 20+ years ago at a Tony Robbins ‘Awaken the Giant Within’ weekend.  There were ten rows of burning embers and 1,000 people about to walk these coals in ten straight lines.  We had been well prepared for the experience with lots of visualisations and exercises allegedly putting us in control of what we were about to experience - but I think we all had a nagging doubt whether the mantra ‘cool moss’ would get us through the ten metres of the fire-walk that lay there burning bright in front of us.

I was standing next to a woman in her early 60’s who I could see was probably thinking the same as me - wondering whether she should take those first steps on the burning coals.  I remember turning to her and asking her name – she said ‘Jean’.  I remember saying, “Jean this is probably easier if we both hold hands and walk together – why not give it a try.”   

We did and before we knew it we were at the other end of the fire-walk splashing through the spraying hose pipes.  We hugged and Jean said how she appreciated my courage.  I told her it was not courage. I was probably more frightened than she but we got through it together – whereas, separately, we may have turned back as did many of the other participants.

The analogy here is that individually it can be difficult to demonstrate our courage but, together, we can work together and walk where ‘angels fear to tread’.

Fire-walking and Strong Leadership

I am not suggesting a fire-walk experience for management teams wanting to drive change, unless you like that sort of thing.  What I am suggesting is that the behaviours and actions of certain people in your business make the difference.  I state that the behaviour and actions of the top 5% of the business will do more than developing the bottom 50% of people in your business.

ROI Change Management Top Down

Working with clients on interventions around Quality Improvement and Client Acquisition strategies,  I focus very much on Pareto results of 20/80.  Eighty+% of business results arise from working with a minority of people at the top.  Better to work on the top 5% of a 300 person business than 150 staff at the lower tiers.

ROI of Change Management is sustained ‘top down’ not ‘bottom up’.  Still, Management Teams need to address where ROI on Change Management will have most impact.  Realistically, if the top team occupy more roles of account management and nurturing existing relationships then the best way forward is to install major change within the direct reports and a select few of the top team.

Certainly the Captain of the Concordia and his team will impact results more than staff running around on the decks.  We don’t know the full story of the Costa Concordia yet – but the fast breaking new story will emerge sooner or later.  It would be surprising ‘performance management’ wise if this was the first instance of poor performance with this team.  It would also be interesting to see how their performance management system works.  I think it might be a long time before I book a cruise – well, not until I have seen the company’s staff performance policy and practices!