GAINING SOVEREIGNTY OVER TIME

Where CEOs and senior leaders spend their time is where things get done and signal the organisation’s priorities. However, dozens of?studies?show how a short-term focus creates a counter-productive cycle for executives that plays out across the organisation.??The analysis of Rajesh Chandy, a London Business School professor, tellingly concluded that bosses spend only 3-4% of their day thinking about long-term strategy.

On his drive to work, there was once a famous piece of?graffiti?that never failed to make Chris Brownridge grin. It read, ‘Why do I still do this every day?’, taunting crawling motorists with its existential jibe. Far from being discouraging, it reminded him how much he loved his job. Chris is the CEO of BMW UK, and what excites him most is solving complex problems with the diverse teams he works with at home and in Germany. In the automotive sector, those problems are rising to a new level of complexity in the shift to electrification. Unlike all-electric entrants like Tesla, Rivian and Lucid, BMW must manage a delicate balancing act of keeping its market satisfied with a portfolio of traditional, hybrid and electric vehicles whilst managing the transition of its business model. The Covid pandemic and the Ukraine war created supply chain issues cutting off vital manufacturing capacity and raw material supplies—lots of interesting problems.?

We’re working with Chris and his team to help them rethink their mindsets and recognise that they have the resources they need to face their future with greater enjoyment and confidence. Early on, we asked them to participate in an interoception experiment, looking at heart rate sensitivity, and showing them the evidence of how it influences judgement. This got Chris intrigued about the impact of affective feelings on his decision-making. He decided to implement the body scan practice as he woke up in the mornings to tune into his physical feelings. ‘It illuminated how much my body’s state dictated my orientation for the day. In retrospect, it now seems obvious, but without that moment of reflection, it’s not. I’m acutely aware of how it dictates my state of mind.’ From here, he started to analyse everything that made him feel physically or emotionally uncomfortable about the way he worked. ‘When I looked at my schedule through this lens, I realised I dreaded a lot of the week. There was a big gap between my passion for my work and what I was doing. I wasn’t creating an optimal decision-making environment.’?

Together with his PA, Chris worked on aligning his schedule with the team’s strategy and baking in sufficient time for reflection and recovery. ‘Now, I enjoy looking at my diary because every part of it enables me to make progress. Gaining sovereignty over my time and mindset has been transformative. It’s allowed me to let go of the assumption that pushing harder and working longer is the only way to be more productive.’?

This shift has empowered Chris to establish mental boundaries, knowing that his diary will take care of his focus. ‘If a board member emails me at the weekend, in the past I would look at it, feeling anxiety that I wasn’t dealing with it and guilty that I wasn’t focused on the things at home. Now, I think I’m resourced because there’s time in my schedule on Monday morning guaranteed to pick up the task, think it through and respond quickly. It sounds simple, but moving out of constant reactivity means I feel so much more in control. The other required reframe is to see that having time back isn’t a sin. There’s this voice in your head saying, ‘why aren’t you busy?’. Instead, now I think it’s a prize I’ve won to reflect, think and create.’?

Another significant change Chris wants to encourage is to increase psychological safety, given his business's dramatic internal and external changes. ‘Perhaps it’s inevitable in a mature organisation, but some parts of the culture and management style make people feel like they’re never good enough regardless of how well they perform. Finding fault rather than finding the good is believed to be the only means to drive performance. I don’t see it like that. Creating safety accelerates performance, and fear slows down the boat.’?

Chris introduced check-ins in management meetings to increase transparency about the team's feelings, encouraging them to use their emotions to open difficult conversations. ‘It’s important that there’s a strong connection between our shared values as a team and how we make decisions. Our emotions, more than our rational thoughts, ensure this is kept in check.’?

‘Like many senior management teams, we felt like a dozen people marching in parallel with glass walls between us. I wanted to take those walls down and work on how we performed as a team, saw the interdependence in our goals and worked together on shared problems. Chris changed the structure of meetings from an onslaught of read-outs from each member about their department and implemented a performance dashboard. ‘If something is green, we don’t talk about it. We know why we don’t talk about it if it's amber or red. If it’s amber or red and we don’t understand why that’s where we focus on sensemaking and problem-solving. Now, we operate like a group of triage surgeons. In terms of creating safety, it’s been dramatic. In the past, the silos mentality meant people were competing for attention and resources. We understand the problems better and work together trying to figure out the answers. What I like most about our new approach is that we’ve separated our intent to solve the problems from having to have the answers simultaneously. For example, in one meeting, it was clear that the solution would require a significant investment that wasn’t budgeted. Jaws hit the floor when we agreed, yes, we need to do it, but also to acknowledge we don’t know how. Creating this type of openness means people look forward to bringing their problems to the table. There’s generally no tolerance for perceived ignorance or weakness in the boardroom, so we cover it up. I think we’re finding this is precisely where we need to expose our shortcomings positively as clearly as possible.’?

Chris has noted how this shift in tuning into emotions disrupts assumptions and unhelpful biases. ‘Being able to talk about how we feel means unspoken anxieties finally come out into the open. How it’s affected me is that instead of forming assumptions, often based on bias or that I think I know what’s coming, it makes me listen fully. I’m not judging; I’m asking myself, ‘how can I help?’?

Now, I see the degree of comfort people feel in being transparent about their feelings as a litmus test for the business's health. It’s a positive leading indicator of performance.?

To learn more about building your mindset, head over to:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Non-Linear-Innovation-Leadership-Jean-Gomes/dp/1119672724/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1675076155&sr=8-1

For a copy of Leading in a Non-Linear World available in hardback, Kindle and Audiobook