What's so important about Empowerment?

Several years ago I met the CEO of a stagnant Technology Company.? This woman did so many things right: she deliberately invested in her Executive Leadership Team: functional experts committed to becoming ‘One Team’ and setting aside their functional roles.? She worked the team hard and had good local momentum and a strategy to enter new markets overseas.

They were unable to capitalise on the growth opportunity. What happened?

o?? She and the ELT had to personally had to "drag the results across the line" every Quarter.

o?? In all the 'doing', she failed to build the bench strength needed to expand to new markets.

o?? This company, under new leadership, has yet to fulfil its potential.

Empowered is an organisational state featuring?a robust and empowered bench of leaders with ?modern mindsets, skillsets, and toolsets.

The benefits of building this kind of bench strength are significant.

1. Organisations with effective succession planning, which includes identifying and developing high potential talent, are 1.5 times more likely to outperform their peers.? Deloitte "Global Human Capital Trends."
2. CEOs and Lead Teams who excel at delegating generate 33% higher revenue than those who don't.? Gallup.

Signs your organisation should focus on Empower

• Role deflation. Everyone in the organisation effectively works ‘1-level below’ their Role Description.? This is an epidemic which I wrote about earlier.?
• Slow decision making. Decisions move up & down the organisation because there's neither the clarity nor the confidence for decisions to be made in real time, close to the customer.
• Wasted opportunities. You have a new, strategic opportunity that needs someone to step up and lead. But you have no one with the capacity and capability to lead it.

?Role Deflation (noun) - an organisational state characterised by everyone working "1-Level Below" their Job Description.

For most organisations, the rubber meets the road at decision-making.? Strategy and OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) may be both in place, but do individuals have appropriate Decision-Making authority to meet their KRs? Or will they get stalled waiting for someone else?? And do these individuals have the business acumen needed to make good commercial decisions – with the Bigger Picture in mind?

Barriers

Moving the organisation to an Empowered state typically means breaking through three challenges.

1. Leaders hang on to too much. They don’t evolve beyond individual contributor phase. Instead of delegating and holding people to account, they continue to "do" everything
2. Talent development and succession is haphazard.? The organisation lacks a clear scorecard to show the status of ‘ready now’ talent.? We get what we measure
3. Lack of strategically aligned investment.? Some orgs invest in leadership and capability.? Fewer invest strategically…putting disproportionate budget to the groups and capabilities that will make the biggest difference.

Recommendation

Define ‘what good Leadership Looks Like’ around here.? Distil this into 5 strategically-aligned leadership competencies with observable behaviours.? One SME Owner felt like all they had were ‘employees’ and wanted everyone to take more care… they adopted “act like an owner” as a Leadership Capability.?

This was defined in behavioural terms so there was no doubt what was expected.? They recruited for it.? Everyone knew what it looked like so they coached for it. They found ways to measure how well everyone displayed these behaviours.

"I feel like we only have Employees, I want everyone here to act like an Owner”- CEO, Industrial Cleaning Co.

Get Started

First - Identify the Top 10-20 Critical Roles in the business.

Next - develop a talent scorecard that demonstrates which of these roles has a “ready now” successor.? Be honest.? The initial % of "ready now" roles may be low.?

Then - develop a specific plan for closing the capability, coaching, and experience gaps in the team.

Then - develop this talent according to the plan

And finally - keep measuring. You'll see business outcomes improve as the scorecard moves from Red to Amber to Green.

Outcome

You’ll get results faster than you think.

Role deflation evaporates.? Building this bench ensures that everyone works ‘at level’. When all leaders are effectively delegating to capable people - they can hold them accountable for results and invest in their development.

You and the ELT will then be free to lead the organisation forward - instead of dragging the results over the line every quarter!

Feeling

Initially you will feel confident. The confidence that comes with a clear, cohesive, and measurable plan to engage and develop talent.? Then you'll feel lighter – as the burden of role deflation is lifted.