Hiring managers can be prone to think vertically when trying to fill a capability gap. They think in terms of specialist skills and alignment with existing or hypothesized silos. Despite a common requirement to collaborate and operate in a cross-disciplinary fashion, historically, a search for these important skills and behaviours has been given less attention than it deserves.

About ten years ago, Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO, resurrected the notion of the T-shaped person and embedded it into IDEO’s recruiting and talent retention culture. He asserts that innovation needs T-shaped people and I agree with his sentiment although I also feel that it is a bit more complicated than that.

PostedFebruary 3, 2015

AuthorTrevor Lindars

CategoriesBehaviour

TagsT-Shape, Stalactite, Synergies, Skills, Experience

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One of the key responsibilities of both managers and leaders is to encourage and enable peak performance in our teams. From time to time the journey towards this goal will undoubtedly founder upon the rocks of incompetence and low commitment. When this happens the problem is quite likely to be rooted in matters of alignment, accountability and the supporting ecosystem. However, there will often be times when an individual will benefit from, or simply need, focused personal, coaching or counseling. Tackling this early is critical. Doing it right even more so.

“The test of an organisation is not genius. It is its capacity to make common people achieve uncommon performance.” – Peter Drucker

PostedDecember 16, 2014

AuthorTrevor Lindars

CategoriesBehaviour

TagsCoaching, Counseling

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Last week I attended a 1-day conference themed around the idea of Resilience. Whilst we were casually sipping our morning coffee, one of the first speakers asked the audience to raise a hand if they knew someone who had experienced depression – a forest of hands shot into the air – pretty much everyone in the packed conference hall. That surprised me and so did many of the statistics that followed. So, here, I will present a snapshot of what was discussed to help raise awareness a little. I will also distil some of the key recommendations to help you and those you care about build some resilience ahead of time.

PostedNovember 18, 2014

AuthorTrevor Lindars

CategoriesBehaviour

TagsResilience, Behaviour

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I recently learnt that many college and university students are uninterested in the ideas and techniques that underpin innovation because they feel that it doesn’t apply to them. If they do not envisage becoming entrepreneurs or designers or engineers or scientists then what’s the point? I do not believe it is a massive leap of the imagination to assume that this type of thinking might also permeate the general working populace. That’s disappointing because there are very few, if any, organisations that are content to rest on their laurels and coast along at the same levels of performance year on year in any part of their value chain. If you want to avoid slipping back in the pack then you have got to innovate and this applies to every area not just the laboratories…

PostedOctober 29, 2014

AuthorTrevor Lindars

CategoriesBehaviour

TagsInnovation

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For the most part, people do not do things unless they are motivated to do so. Of course, I’m ignoring the various forms of coercion since they are always inappropriate. Actually, motivation, on its own, is not enough. People must also be able to do what is required of them and they must receive some kind of trigger to spur them into action. This is the basis of the Fogg behaviour model and was originally focused on UX design. Its application is much broader and it can be nicely integrated with a number of other useful viewpoints that I’ll be introducing below.

PostedOctober 8, 2014

AuthorTrevor Lindars

CategoriesBehaviour

TagsMotivation, Desire, Change Management

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I’ve always found 1-on-1s an extremely powerful management tool. If you’re not sure what I’m talking about, I am referring to a regular meeting with each of your first reports or your manager that is just the two of you maintaining the relationship, staying aligned, understanding goals and removing obstacles. Communication is a fundamental part of both leadership and management and it needs to be open, frequent and, importantly, two-way. A 1-on-1 is the perfect forum for ensuring this is being done effectively. It is not a team meeting. It is not a surrogate for some other project meeting you wish you’d had. It is about continual and constructive engagement, collaboration and growth.

PostedOctober 1, 2014

AuthorTrevor Lindars

CategoriesBehaviour

Tags1-on-1, Coaching, Engagement, Collaboration, Management, Leadership

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There’s been quite a lot of debate in recent years related to the need to take risks and have the courage to innovate. There is a concerted push for us to escape entrenched thinking about incremental change and take more plunges into the unknown in order to really differentiate and succeed. Coupled with this view is the idea that we need to embrace failure and, in fact, wear it as some sort of badge of honour. This seems especially popular among the budding entrepreneurial set. Of course, it doesn’t have to be that way.

“I've lived through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.” – Mark Twain

PostedAugust 27, 2014

AuthorTrevor Lindars

CategoriesBehaviour

TagsRisk, Innovation, Planning, Failure, Success

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I’ve heard a few stories of late from people unhappy with the level of interference they are experiencing from managers who insist on particular ways of working. Ranging from detailed lists to hourly check-ins, this micromanagement undermines trust and subtracts value from both people and processes. It brings to mind several quotations but this one serves my purpose eloquently:

“The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good people to do what he wants done and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.” – Theodore Roosevelt

PostedJuly 24, 2014

AuthorTrevor Lindars

CategoriesBehaviour

TagsDelegation, Management, Motivation

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A little bit of a rant this week. Recently there’s been a fair bit of chatter on LinkedIn and elsewhere debating the differences between a manager and a leader. It seems important to some people – typically those that see it as some sort of hierarchical transition. I have thrown my two-cents worth into the ring by stating “good managers lead and good leaders manage”. Surely it is an anachronistic folly to think that a manager can somehow be effective without demonstrating leadership qualities and, likewise, that a leader can get away with ignoring sound management practice.

PostedJuly 9, 2014

AuthorTrevor Lindars

CategoriesBehaviour

TagsManagement, Leadership

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I often meet people who claim to be overloaded – too much work, no resources, no time. I also meet people that get extraordinary things done whilst somehow cutting through the noise of overload.

The secret is simply a matter of priority, focus and commitment. What is important is to focus on what matters most and deliver that. Of course, ascertaining what matters most is influenced by context, objectives and the needs and support of other stakeholders.

PostedJune 18, 2014

AuthorTrevor Lindars

CategoriesBehaviour

TagsPriority, Projects

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How much do you enjoy going to meetings? In my view meetings can be the second biggest time-waster after email. I’m sure you’ve been in a meeting where it seemed there was no clear point, no end in sight or where no decisions were made. Maybe you’ve got a meeting like that today. Anyway, despite our regular participation in meetings day after day, it amazes me how poorly organized and managed they can often be.

We put up with much and seem to apply little of what we have learned when it comes to our turn to lead a meeting. So here I am sharing a few of my golden rules for meetings in the hope that they inspire some more productive meetings down the track…

1. Compelling Reason – the first and most important thing is to make sure that you really need to have a meeting at all. There are only a handful of good reasons to have a meeting – to give or receive information, to build engagement, to develop options or to make decisions.

PostedJune 11, 2014

AuthorTrevor Lindars

CategoriesBehaviour

TagsMeetings, Productivity

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Innovation is the new black. But what is it? Innovation is simply a change that adds value. Ok, so what’s coaching? In my view, coaching is a facilitated growth process that helps individuals develop and improve under the guidance of an objective 3rd party – clearly, a change that adds value.

Starting from this premise, it should be easy to spot the overlap between managing innovation and coaching an individual or team.

In both cases we’re trying to get from A to B. From our current state to one perceived to be significantly better (or at least better enough to justify the effort and expense). In a nutshell we’re talking projects.

PostedMay 27, 2014

AuthorTrevor Lindars

CategoriesBehaviour

TagsProjects, Coaching, Frameworks

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Essentially, the level of engagement exhibited by an individual is predicated on both their capability and their motivation. BJ Fogg’s behaviour model suggests that these two factors must both be present at the time of some trigger event. The Fogg model is typically used by designers to influence the flow of user interaction with software. Of course, it can also apply to behaviour in a variety of other situations.

If we start from a position that an individual, team or organization has the necessary capability to act in a certain way (often the case) then the driving factor that will influence any behavioural outcome will be their motivation.

PostedApril 2, 2014

AuthorTrevor Lindars

CategoriesBehaviour

TagsEngagement, Motivation, Feedback

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Recently I met with some Lean practitioners and we spent some time discussing the use of the Five Whys questioning technique for discovering to a root cause or underlying reason. It is a form of laddering interview technique.

The idea is derived from six types of Socratic questions [Paul and Elder] that: (i) clarify thinking, (ii) challenge assumptions, (ii) probe reasons and evidence, (iv) examine alternative viewpoints and perspectives, (v) examine implications and consequences and, also, (vi) ask questions about the question.

PostedMarch 13, 2014

AuthorTrevor Lindars

CategoriesBehaviour

TagsNeeds, Requirements, Values

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I’ve been interested in ideas emerging from behavioural neuroscience for some time and I thought it might be worth sharing one of my favourites here. In his book, Your Brain At Work, David Rock likens the conscious mind to a stage in a small theatre with fairly limited resources; there’s a director, some actors and an audience. The stage (pre-frontal cortex) is where thinking plays out. The actors (consciously selected information and external stimuli) and selected guests from the audience (memories and internal models) collaborate on stage to facilitate understanding and inform decision-making.

PostedDecember 18, 2013

AuthorTrevor Lindars

CategoriesBehaviour

TagsCognitive Neuroscience, Mindfulness

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Beyond the T-Shape – into the cave

Performance Management – Coach or Counsel?

Resilience – get some

I won’t need to innovate in my job

Why aren't they doing what I want?

Don't Torpedo Your 1-on-1s

Don't plan to fail. Plan to adapt.

Don't be a micromanager

Manager or Leader? – what the?

Overloaded? - propose an alternative

Meetings – make them productive

Coaching is Innovation Management

Engagement - motivation and feedback

Socrates, Ladders and Chains – what do you really want?

All the world’s a stage – and so is your mind...