Birkinshaw's Four Dimensions of Management.

Birkinshaw's Four Dimensions of Management Developing an Appropriate Management Model

Price, specialization, quality, and service - these are just some of the ways that you can gain an advantage in your industry. But have you ever thought that you could be more successful by tailoring your organization's approach to management to fit your business strategy? You can explore this with the "Birkinshaw's Four Dimensions of Management" model. We'll look at the four dimensions in this article, and we'll explore how you can use them to develop a more effective management model for your business. Learn how to manage people more effectively in four key areas. © iStockphoto/Sashkinw

About the Four Dimensions Julian Birkinshaw, Professor of Strategic and International Management at the London Business School, published his Four Dimensions of Management in his 2010 book, "Reinventing Management." The framework (see figure 1, below) highlights four dimensions that represent key management processes and practices. Each dimension has two opposing principles - these principles are "assumptions or beliefs about the way something works or should work." These principles underpin the routine actions that your organization's managers take. The principles on the left side of each dimension are traditional principles: these are the approaches to management that organizations have used for many decades. The principles on the right are alternative principles: these are newer ways of thinking about management. Figure 1 - Birkinshaw's Four Dimensions You can use the framework to think about the approach to management that you're currently using, and to explore whether you can develop a more effective management model - one that suits your strategy and the way that you want to do business. Let's look at each dimension, and the corresponding principles, in more detail. 1. Managing Across: Activities This dimension relates to how managers coordinate activities with people over whom they have no direct control. The opposing principles are: Bureaucracy With a bureaucratic approach, organizations use formalized rules, job roles, procedures, and formal guidance to get things done. Results are predictable. A certain amount of bureaucracy is needed in most organizations; and, it's especially important in organizations that are dealing with significant risks (including health or safety risks). The downside of bureaucracy is that it can make change difficult to achieve, as well as stifling initiative, creativity, flexibility, and autonomy. This can make it very hard for bureaucratic organizations to change direction, and it can disengage and demoralize team members. Emergence Emergence is spontaneous and is based on independence and autonomy (which are highly important if you want people to be self-motivated). People organize themselves, work independently, and take appropriate action quickly. Emergence leads to innovation and creativity, as well as to higher morale and better engagement. The downside of emergence is that, unless effective structures are in place, teams and organizations can feel chaotic and disorganized. People can lose focus because there are too few boundaries and rules in place, and they can end up taking actions which are rational from the team's perspective, but are harmful from a big-picture perspective. 2. Managing Down: Decisions This dimension relates to how people make decisions in the organization. The principles are: Hierarchy Hierarchy is based on authority and power. Senior managers make decisions, as they are perceived to have more expertise and a better view of the big picture than subordinates. Hierarchy can motivate people to work hard in the long-term, because they want to move up to more powerful positions in the organization. It can also be effective for assigning accountability, organizing work, and handling decision making, especially in larger organizations. However, hierarchy assumes that "the boss knows best," even when this is not true. It can block upward communication within the organization, and this can lead to poor decision-making by powerful people. Management based on hierarchy can also lower morale and engagement if managers don't listen to and support to team members, or if they don't give people credit for their contributions. Collective Wisdom Collective wisdom is drawn on when people across all levels of the team and organization contribute to decision-making, and work to solve problems collectively. This improves morale and engagement, and leads to better decisions when knowledgeable people - for example, customer-facing staff - are involved in the decision-making process. The disadvantage of using collective wisdom is that it can take a long time to make decisions if too many people are involved in the process. This is a serious problem if you need to make timely decisions. 3. Managing Objectives This dimension relates to how people set and pursue organizational goals. The principles are: Alignment With alignment, everyone works towards common goals set by the organization. This principle offers managers a simple way to get their team members moving in the same direction, and this is hugely important if the organization is pursuing a strategy that needs significant, coordinated action. A downside of alignment is that managers instinctively try to use key performance indicators to measure progress. These can be ineffective or counter-productive in hard-to-define areas such as creativity and innovation. Alignment can also put too much focus on short-term results rather than long-term growth, and it gives people less flexibility in how they reach their objectives. "Obliquity" With "obliquity," people pursue goals and objectives indirectly. For example, instead of setting a direct goal to "increase sales by 15 percent," an organization might set goals that measure how efficiently staff deal with new customers, or that look at employee happiness. A long-term consequence of this will hopefully be that sales increase - the organization's overall objective. With this principle, team members are also encouraged to work towards their own individual goals, which they intuitively believe will contribute to the overall objectives of the organization. (They may not be able to "prove" this in a straightforward way.) With obliquity, team members have greater ownership over their work and they decide how they reach their goals. This can lead to high productivity and engagement. Obliquity is often effective in new and evolving businesses, those that demand a high degree of creativity and innovation, or those that need to exploit a wide variety of niches. A downside of obliquity is that people can lose direction and momentum if their overall objectives aren't clear, and they can be wrong in their intuitions, which can lead to wasted resources and missed opportunities. It can also make it difficult to achieve results that need significant, coordinated effort. 4. Managing Individual Motivation This dimension relates to how people are motivated in the organization. The principles are: Extrinsic Extrinsic motivation describes approaches to motivation that come from outside the people being motivated, such as pay raises, promotions, or praise. Negative factors such as pressure and threats can also be part of extrinsic motivation. It's relatively easy for organizations to measure performance and reward team members using extrinsic motivators. The downside of extrinsic motivation is that these drivers don't always address the deeper needs that we have as human beings, and it can leave us feeling dissatisfied, disengaged, unhappy, and unfulfilled. This, in turn, has a negative impact on creativity and performance. Intrinsic Intrinsic motivation relates to the rewards that people experience from doing a task or activity well. Intrinsic motivators are often very satisfying. Most hobbies and leisure activities are based around intrinsic motivation - we do them because we enjoy them, not because we have to, and this is particularly powerful when it applies to work. However, intrinsic motivators can be difficult to manage, as these often rely on the activity that a person is doing, and his or her perception of it. Applying Birkinshaw's Four Dimensions of Management To use this tool, go through each dimension and think about where your team or organization is right now. Then, think about where your organization should be on each dimension, so that it can best achieve its strategy. Your aim is to develop the most appropriate management model - as highlighted earlier, this is a set of choices about how the work of management gets done. Remember that there is no "right" or "wrong" side of the scale. Your approach will depend on your organization, your current situation, and where you want to go strategically. In reality, many organizations will be on the left-hand end of each scale, which may be fine if that is what their strategy requires. The challenge for managers comes if they want to move from more traditional management principles (on the left-hand side of the dimensions) to the alternative principles (on the right-hand side of the dimensions). Let's look at some of the tools and strategies that you can use to do this. Moving from Bureaucracy to Emergence A certain level of bureaucracy is necessary to run an organization effectively, but, often, organizations get bogged down in it. You can develop emergence within your team and organization in several ways. Start by reviewing your organization's business processes and procedures, so that you can eliminate unnecessary steps. As part of this, map processes out, and challenge the necessity of each step and rule that's applied. Also, get regular feedback from team members on how you can remove bureaucracy and improve processes and procedures. Then, work on building a culture of trust, so that people know that they can be trusted to do their jobs properly without excessive bureaucracy. As part of this, empower your people, and share as much information with them as you can. Additionally, give your team members further autonomy by avoiding micromanagement, and by encouraging them to use initiative, where appropriate. Moving from Hierarchy to Collective Wisdom At least some level of hierarchy is essential for most organizations to function. However, you can use the principle of collective wisdom in many ways. Again, build an environment of trust, so that you encourage your people to communicate with one another and speak freely without fear of being judged negatively. This will help you take advantage of your team members' expertise, and will encourage people to be more creative. Next, involve your people in collaborative decision-making if possible, and use tools such as Hartnett's CODM Model to solve problems collectively. You can also encourage people to use social networking tools such as blogs, intranet forums, and Twitter to communicate with one another, and you can ask people to present their ideas at team meetings. This will further help people collaborate and share knowledge. Tip: Our Book Insight into "The Power of Collective Wisdom and the Trap of Collective Folly" offers a look at how you can tap into the collective wisdom of members of your team. Moving from Alignment to "Obliquity" Obliquity relies on people pursuing "indirect" goals that you and they intuitively believe will benefit the organization in the long term, rather than working on specific, more measurable, shorter-term goals. To move towards obliquity, establish a clear mission for your team or organization, but then give people flexibility in how they'll work towards this mission, rather than setting out for them how to do their work day-to-day. One approach - famously used by Google - is to give people a dedicated time-slot during the working week to "follow their hunches." You and other team members can review these projects regularly, and give backing to those that show potential. You can also brainstorm indirect goals that, when achieved, have the potential to contribute to your team or organization's overall objectives. Moving from Extrinsic to Intrinsic Motivation Extrinsic motivators are often effective; however, you will likely find it best to motivate your people using a combination of extrinsic and intrinsic motivators. Each person on your team will be motivated by different things, so use tools like McClelland's Human Motivation Theory and Self-Determination Theory to understand what motivates them as individuals (both intrinsically and extrinsically). Then, encourage people to use tools like the MPS Process, so that they can understand what type of work suits their personality and their strengths, and, where you can, allow them to craft their jobs to suit them better. Also, remember that changing your management approach in each of the other three dimensions can help people experience more intrinsic motivation. For example, you could get these benefits by allowing team members more freedom in how they reach their goals, and by giving them a say in organizational decision-making. Key Points London Business School professor, Julian Birkinshaw, developed his Four Dimensions of Management framework and published it in his 2010 book, "Reinventing Management." Birkinshaw's Four Dimensions of Management are: Managing Across: Activities. Managing Down: Decisions. Managing Objectives. Managing Individual Motivation. Each dimension consists of one traditional and one alternative principle. You can use the framework to develop a management model that best suits the type of work that you're doing, and the way that you want your organization to develop.

Core Competence Analysis

Get Ahead. Stay Ahead.

                                                                                                        Killion James N. B

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What makes you stand out from the crowd?

© iStockphoto/hidesy

The idea of "core competences" is one of the most important business ideas currently shaping our world. This is one of the key ideas that lies behind the current wave of outsourcing, as businesses concentrate their efforts on things they do well and outsource as much as they can of everything else.
In this article we explain the idea and help you use it, on both corporate and personal levels. And by doing so, we show you how you can get ahead of your competition – and stay ahead.
By using the idea, you'll make the very most of the opportunities open to you:

• You'll focus your efforts so that you develop a unique level of expertise in areas that really matter to your customers. Because of this, you'll command the rewards that come with this expertise.
• You'll learn to develop your own skills in a way that complements your company's core competences. By building the skills and abilities that your company most values, you'll win respect and get the career advancement that you want.

Explaining Core Competences: The Value of Uniqueness

The starting point for understanding core competences is understanding that businesses need to have something that customers uniquely value if they're to make good profits.
"Me too" businesses (with nothing unique to distinguish them from their competition) are doomed to compete on price: The only thing they can do to make themselves the customer's top choice is drop price. And as other "me too" businesses do the same, profit margins become thinner and thinner.
This is why there's such an emphasis on building and selling USPs (Unique Selling Points) in business.
If you're able to offer something uniquely good, customers will want to choose your products and will be willing to pay more for them.
The question, though, is where this uniqueness comes from, and how it can be sustained.
In their key 1990 paper "The Core Competence of the Corporation", C.K.Prahalad and Gary Hamel argue that "Core Competences" are some of the most important sources of uniqueness: These are the things that a company can do uniquely well, and that no-one else can copy quickly enough to affect competition.
Prahalad and Hamel used examples of slow-growing and now-forgotten mega corporations that failed to recognize and capitalize on their strengths. They compared them with star performers of the 1980s (such as NEC, Canon and Honda), which had a very clear idea of what they were good at, and which grew very fast.
Because these companies were focused on their core competences, and continually worked to build and reinforce them, their products were more advanced than those of their competitors, and customers were prepared to pay more for them. And as they switched effort away from areas where they were weak, and further focused on areas of strength, their products built up more and more of a market lead.
Now you'll probably find this an attractive idea, and it's often easy to think about a whole range of things that a company does that it can do well. However, Hamel and Prahalad give three tests to see whether they are true core competences:

1. Relevance: Firstly, the competence must give your customer something that strongly influences him or her to choose your product or service. If it does not, then it has no effect on your competitive position and is not a core competence.
2. Difficulty of Imitation: Secondly, the core competence should be difficult to imitate. This allows you to provide products that are better than those of your competition. And because you're continually working to improve these skills, means that you can sustain its competitive position.
3. Breadth of Application: Thirdly, it should be something that opens up a good number of potential markets. If it only opens up a few small, niche markets, then success in these markets will not be enough to sustain significant growth.

An example: You might consider strong industry knowledge and expertise to be a core competence in serving your industry. However, if your competitors have equivalent expertise, then this is not a core competence. All it does is make it more difficult for new competitors to enter the market. More than this, it's unlikely to help you much in moving into new markets, which will have established experts already. (Test 1: Yes. Test 2: No. Test 3: Probably not.)

Using This In Your Business and Career:

Mind Tools on Strategy:

• SWOT Analysis
• TOWS Analysis
• PEST Analysis
• Core Competence Analysis
• Value Chain Analysis
• Porter's Five Forces
• Porter's Generic Strategies
• Bowman's Strategy Clock
• Scenario Analysis

To identify your core competences, use the following steps:

1. Brainstorm the factors that are important to your clients.
2. If you're doing this on behalf of your company, identify the factors that influence people's purchase decisions when they're buying products or services like yours (make sure that you move beyond just product or service features and include all decision-making points.)
3. If you're doing this for yourself, brainstorm the factors (for example) that people use in assessing you for annual performance reviews or promotion, or for new roles you want.
4. Then dig into these factors, and identify the competences that lie behind them. As a corporate example, if customers value small products (e.g. cell phones), then the competence they value may be "component integration and miniaturization".
2. Brainstorm your existing competences and the things you do well.
3. For the list of your own competences, screen them against the tests of Relevance, Difficulty of Imitation and Breadth of Application, and see if any of the competences you've listed are core competences.
4. For the list of factors that are important to clients, screen them using these tests to see if you could develop these as core competences.
5. Review the two screened lists, and think about them:
   
   • If you've identified core competences that you already have, then great! Work on them and make sure that you build them as far as sensibly possible.
   • If you have no core competences, then look at ones that you could develop, and work to build them.
   • If you have no core competences and it doesn't look as if you can build any that customers would value, then either there's something else that you can use to create uniqueness in the market (see our USP Analysis article), or think about finding a new environment that suits your competences.
6. Think of the most time-consuming and costly things that you do either as an individual or a company.
7. If any of these things do not contribute to a core competence, ask yourself if you can outsource them effectively, clearing down time so that you can focus on core competences.
8. For example, as an individual, are you still doing your own cleaning, ironing and decorating? As a small business, are you doing you own accounts, HR and payroll? As a bigger business, are you manufacturing non-core product components, or performing non-core activities?

Tip 1:
As with all brainstorming, you'll get better results if you involve other (carefully-chosen) people.

Tip 2:
On a personal basis and in the short term, it might be difficult to come up with truly unique core competences. However, keep this idea in mind and work to develop unique core competences.

Tip 3:
You may find it quite difficult to find any true core competences in your business. If you've got a successful business that's sustainably outperforming rivals, then maybe something else is fuelling your success (our article on USP Analysis may help you spot this).

However, if you're working very hard, and you're still finding it difficult to make a profit, then you need to think carefully about crafting a unique competitive position.

This may involve developing core competences that are relevant, real and sustainable.

Tip 4:
As ever, if your going to put more effort into some areas, you're going to have to put less effort into others. You only have a finite amount of time, and if you try to do too much, you'll do little really well.

                                                                                                                       Killion James. 

BOOKKEPING AND HOW TO SAVE COST ON IT.

Most small-business owners in Kenya view bookkeeping as a burdensome task that takes them away from running their business. It makes others nervous, and they may second-guess their knowledge and skills in fear of the Kenya Revenue Authority knocking on their door.
You don’t have to be intimidated or bored by accounting. Successful business owners don’t view bookkeeping negatively. They have adopted a few basic procedures to stay on top of the paperwork. By doing so, they save time, money and a lot of stress.

Follow these basic steps to gain control -- and stay in control-- of your business’s bookkeeping tasks:
1. Use accounting software such as QuickBooks. Become at least generally familiar with the software: Know how to input checks, reconcile bank accounts, create reports and other data. Then choose one of five ways to maintain it:

A. Do it yourself. Take a class on the software and dedicate time each week to input information and reconcile bank statements. If you fall behind on inputting transactions, it can be difficult to catch up. This is when most people throw bank statements and receipts into a box and procrastinate. If this happens, you’ll usually end up with option E below.

B. Train and hire a family member to maintain the books. From a supervisory role and internal control system standpoint, it’s still critical to have a basic working knowledge of the software and procedures.

C. Hire a local college student majoring in accounting. You will typically find student employees to be very affordable. Just remember not to give the student too much latitude with check signing or control of paying bills. Although the student is running the system, you still need to supervise their work to make sure your books are tight.

D. Hire a local bookkeeper e.g Killian Dynamics to provide the services you need, and turn the books over to your certified public accountant for planning and tax preparation at the end of the year. A bookkeeper will certainly be more skilled and knowledgeable than you or a family member, but your cost per hour will increase. One smart strategy is to negotiate a fixed monthly fee so you can budget for the service.

E. Engage your CPA to provide all bookkeeping services, including tax preparation. This is what typically happens when your books have devolved into a mess. While this might seem like the most expensive option, your CPA team will probably be the most skilled and be able to complete the work quickly and efficiently. Even though the hourly rates are higher, the fee should be similar to what you would have paid a bookkeeper during the year to do it on a monthly basis. Another benefit of using your CPA exclusively is that you have confidence it was done right.

2. Scan your receipts, business cards and other important paperwork. Some software products, such as NeatReceipts, import directly into QuickBooks. Utilizing this type of tool will help save time and paper, and help audit-proof your record.
3. Separate personal accounts from business accounts. Don’t mix the two. Keeping personal and business bank accounts and credit cards separate will make bookkeeping much easier and help maintain your corporate veil if you have a formal entity.
4. Avoid cash. Instead, use your debit or credit card religiously. When you use cash you lose track of potential write-offs. If you have to pull money out of an ATM, note on the receipt the purpose of the withdrawal.
5. Go paperless. Storing tax documents for at least six years can be a hassle. Another option is to purchase a small fireproof safe to store important personal documents (passport, life insurance, etc.) along with a regular backup of your bookkeeping software and tax returns saved on a flash drive. For extra data protection, consider off-site physical storage or online data storage for these records and scanned files.
6. Auto-track your mileage. Keeping a written record of all your business, charitable and medical auto mileage can be a pain. Look into a satellite-assisted service, phone application, or software program.
7. Meet with your CPA at least twice annually. Review your business plans, financials, tax deposit amounts, payroll procedures and tax strategies. The cost of taxes is too high to leave your plans to chance. Just a few minutes on a regular basis can save thousands of dollars. Also, remember that your CPA should be bringing you strategies and ideas in these meetings. If the meeting consists of you throwing out ideas and your CPA shooting them down, you have the wrong CPA. Find a planner who is reaching out to you with ideas and strategies on a regular basis.

For any assistance call Killian Dynamics on this no. +254720896873 <Kenya, Nairobi> or email killiandynamics@gmail.com

Done by Killion James.
Part of this article is an excerpt from the book What Your CPA Isn't Telling You from Entrepreneur Press.

Read more stories about: Accountant, IRS, Bookkeeping

 

STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT. WHAT IS IT ALL ABOUT?

STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT. WHAT IS IT ALL ABOUT?

Although most small business owners have heard the phrase "strategic management", they have little idea what it actually means.

So what's the deal? Is strategic management worthwhile or is it all just hot air?

Without a doubt, strategic management is one of the most overused and misunderstood catchphrases in business. However, if used effectively it can have a positive impact on your bottom line and significantly improve your company's growth potential.

As its name suggests, strategic management is all about formulating strategies and the key to making it work for your business is to focus your strategizing efforts in the right areas and then manage the organization to achieve the defined strategies.

Short-Term Strategies

All the planning and strategizing in the world won't help your business if you don't have a plan of action for the short-term. Short-term strategies describe your company's activities in the here and now, and typically don't look beyond a 12-month timeframe.

In fact, some businesses do their short-term strategic planning on a quarterly basis, particularly if their industry is a highly volatile one. Since the timeframe is relatively short, short-term strategic management tends to be highly detailed and specific.

Communicate short-term strategy goals to employees and then manage employees in a way that holds them accountable for achieving strategic goals.

Long-Term Strategies

Short-term strategizing is essential, but alone it is simply not enough to help you meet your goals in business. To realize your long-term goals, you also need to develop long-term strategies, i.e. strategies covering a time span of one to five years.

Even though long-term strategies are less detailed than short-term strategies, they provide a road map that will guide you in your quest to achieve your goals and create a set of parameters that informs your short-term strategic management process.

It's worth noting that the most effective strategic management efforts employ both long-term and short-term strategies working in tandem with one another.

When managing employees, ask them how the work they are doing is contributing to long-term strategic goals and give them the leeway to modify their actions in ways that better achieve long-term strategic goals.

Functional Strategies

From time to time, you may also find it helpful to employ functional strategic management processes. These processes develop strategies that guide specific functions within your business, e.g. marketing, hiring, IT, etc.

As with short-term strategic management, functional strategic management can afford to be highly detailed because it addresses a very specific set of goals, typically over a short-time period.

However, it's also important to remember that the functional strategies you devise for your business need to line up with your short-term and long-term strategic management processes. If your functional strategies are at odds with the company's other strategies then you really haven't accomplished anything.

Strategic management does have limitations. One of the most frequently stated criticisms of strategic management is that it is often employed in an overly rigid manner, restricting the ability of businesses to react to changes in the marketplace.

If you decide to implement strategic management in your small business, remain aware that the strategies you devise are only intended to guide your activities and can be adapted to respond to market conditions.

To manage strategically, work closely with your employees to educate them on strategy options and decisions. Whenever you get the chance, emphasize how strategic thinking can help the organization.

by Killion James.

The Alpha Male Syndrome.

Male Alpha

The Alpha Male Syndrome

as reported by team K. Dynamics                                 

              

 

The business world is a natural habitat of alpha males. Whether they're larger-than-life legends who run giant companies or the heads of little-known firms and small departments, these aggressive powerhouses are hardwired for achievement and eager to tackle challenges that others find intimidating. Those alphas who are balanced human beings in full command of their strengths are esteemed by colleagues, revered by employees, and adored by Wall Street. But other alpha males are organizational risks, not assets. They inspire fear and resentment rather than trust and respect, often causing expensive problems for their companies. Indeed, the very term "alpha male" has become a pejorative in America , thanks to the many instances when their abuses have created corporate soap operas and dramatic news stories.

Make no mistake: the world needs alpha males. When used appropriately, their courage, confidence, tireless energy, and fighting spirit make them natural leaders in competitive situations. The trouble comes when they use their exceptional strengths inappropriately or carry them to such extremes that they turn into tragic flaws: their confidence becomes arrogance, their toughness becomes belligerence, and their competitiveness becomes a fight to the death in which even teammates are seen as rivals that have to be vanquished. Unfortunately for many alpha males, what works in a jungle or on a battlefield - or during a genuine crisis - is not always appropriate in today's business environment. Nowadays, leaders are expected to do more than command and control; they're called upon to motivate, inspire, teach, communicate, and model integrity and personal growth. Such skills do not come naturally to most alpha males, and those who fail to develop them are increasingly out of place.

Over the course of our careers, we have coached hundreds of prominent alpha males. We have written about them extensively and have conducted a rigorous study of their assets and liabilities. The main thrust of our consulting work - and of this article - is to help individuals and organizations harness the immense power of alpha males while minimizing their potential downside. As you'll see, doing that requires more than simply building on the alpha's formidable strengths. It also means taking an unflinching look at how their assets can mutate into liabilities, with the potential to destroy careers and spread like viruses to teams, divisions, and entire companies.

THE ALPHA MALE SYNDROME

If you run a team or an organization inhabited by alpha males, your challenge is to optimize their enormous productive capacity while at the same time get the upper hand on their risk factors before they create problems. You need to harness their competitive drive while keeping them from turning teamwork into guerrilla warfare and colleagues into stage hands for their one-man show. And you need to take full advantage of their leadership gifts while protecting employees from their potential abuses. The first step is to understand what we call the alpha male syndrome.

The first letter of the Greek alphabet, alpha has come to denote "the first of anything." Animal researchers use the word to signify dominance, applying it to the leader of the pack, who is first in power and importance. Among humans, an alpha is defined as "a person tending to assume a dominant role in social or professional situations, or thought to possess the qualities and confidence for leadership." As we use the term in our work, alpha signifies a powerful, authoritative personality type with a specific set of traits. Alphas are aggressive, results-driven achievers who insist on top performance from themselves and others. Courageous and self-confident, they are turned on by bold, innovative ideas and ambitious goals, and they pursue their objectives with tenacity and an urgent sense of mission. At their best, alpha males inspire awe, and their noble leadership skills are revered by others.

Those positive traits constitute one half of the alpha male syndrome. The negative half consists of behaviors that lead to everything from minor business problems to full-fledged organizational catastrophes and personal disasters. Dysfunctional alphas create resistance, resentment, and revenge. People admire their competence, but they hate reporting to them or teaming with them. When we're invited into a company as consultants, most of the complaints we hear are about alpha males who are driving people crazy. We're told about alpha managers who demoralize their staff with autocratic, abusive, or micromanaging tactics; about alpha coworkers who are demanding, impatient, and unwilling to listen; about alpha peers who fight to get their way even when they're demonstrably wrong; about alpha subordinates who solo rather than collaborate. The gripes we hear have usually been part of the corporate milieu for some time, consuming far too much employee time and energy. The cost in absenteeism, turnover, stress-related health problems, and the loss of loyalty and motivation is enormous.

Most alpha males, of course, are in between those extremes, fluctuating between a terrific upside and a potentially devastating downside. The job of those who coach and manage these alphas is to help them move further to the positive end of the continuum.

Why alpha males? What about alpha females? Even though a great many women in leadership positions possess the same fundamental traits, alpha males receive the bulk of attention for two primary reasons. First, men are more likely than women to have alpha characteristics, and the executive ranks contain many more alpha males than alpha females. Second, a great deal of wreckage is caused by boys behaving badly. While alphas of both sexes are aggressive, competitive, and prone to anger, the male of the species is far likely to become ruthless, intimidating, and belligerent. These common observations were borne out in our research: men scored much higher than women on virtually all measures of alpha risk factors (see the sidebar, The Hard Data on Alphas).

The Hard Data on Alphas The instrument we use to develop alpha profiles of individuals was also used to elicit basic data. In a series of three validation phases, we studied 1,507 subjects, all of whom worked full time in the business world, many in high-ranking leadership positions, 63.79% were male, their average age was 41.2, and they hailed from 106 nations and worked in hundreds of different industries. Overall, our data show that alpha traits correlate with being male, with increasing levels of education, with low anxiety, with supervisory positions, and with type A personality traits. The propensity for having alpha risks relates to being male, to higher levels of stress and tension, and to a lack of self-reflection. In other words, the prototypical alpha is a well-educated man with managerial experience and the hard-driving, urgent intensity of a type A. The most troublesome alphas are men who are under a high degree of stress and are not inclined to introspection. High alpha scores correlate strongly with anger, impatience and competitiveness, and the scores for anger and impatience are significantly higher in men than in women. One of the most significant findings corroborates something we observed repeatedly in our work in organizations: alpha risks are closely related to alpha strengths. Although some subjects scored high on one scale and not on the other, in general the greater the strengths, the greater the risks.

In sum, when properly channeled and controlled, the alpha male drive to reach the top is a boon to progress, but when the ethic of "do what it takes to get results" is taken to extremes; it becomes a menace to both personal careers and corporate health. Exactly how it can is seen in Table 1, which lists common alpha traits, and the value and risk associated with each one.

The Alpha Syndrome: When Strengths Become Liabilities

Table 1-1 The Alpha Syndrome: When Strengths Become Liabilities
Alpha Attribute	Value to Organization	Risk to Organization
Dominant, confident, takes charge	Decisive, courageous leader; gets people to take action and move forward	Doesn't develop strong leaders; intimidating; creates fear; stifles disagreement
Charismatic, magnetic leader who leads the way	Brings out the best in others; gets people to do more than they thought was possible	Manipulates to get his way, uses charm to lure people down his path
Aggressive, competitive	Determined to win; turns others into winners	Competes with peers; alienates colleagues; reluctant to give others credit
High achiever with a strong sense of mission	Action-oriented, produces results, energizes teams to reach impossible goals	Takes high levels of performance for granted; expects the impossible and fails to acknowledge what's required to achieve it
Bold, creative, innovative thinker	Dreams up ingenious ideas, solves intractable problems, sees further than others	Arrogant, stubborn, overly opinionated; imposes own views; closed to others' thinking
Persistent, tenacious, determined, steadfast	Has courage of convictions; always moves forward; willing to take unpopular stand to get results	Drives self and others to exhaustion; urgent; impatient; thinks rules don't apply to him
Strong appetite for newness and change	Values speed, drives people and organizations toward needed change and rapid growth	Overzealous; undervalues organizational alignment; launches into action before gathering support from others
Farsighted; sees what's possible	Recognizes gap between today's reality and tomorrow's potential	So focused on future that present and near term are neglected; loses sight of business viability
Sees what's missing	Proactively spots problems, adjusts, corrects, prevents things from getting worse	Can be critical, demeaning; fails to appreciate others' contributions; people feel demoralized

THE FOUR ALPHA TYPES

All alpha males are aggressive, competitive, and driven to achieve. They think big, aim high, and attack their goals with courage, confidence, and tenacity. But each of the four types expresses these common qualities in different ways. Think of them as spices that add flavor to the basic alpha male recipe. Understanding their nuances will give you deeper insight into yourself and the alpha males around you, enabling you to pinpoint strengths you can build upon and risks you need to address. With this more granulated view, you can home in on a specific course of action, just as a doctor can devise a better treatment plan if she knows the exact type of infection a patient has rather than only the broad category.

Here is a brief summary of each type's primary behavior traits:

• Commanders: Intense, magnetic leaders who set the tone, mobilize the troops and energize action with authoritative strength and passionate motivation without necessarily digging into the details.
  
• Visionaries: Curious, expansive, intuitive, proactive and future-oriented, they see possibilities and opportunities that others sometimes dismiss as impractical or unlikely and inspire others with their vision.
  
• Strategists: Methodical, systematic, often brilliant thinkers who are oriented toward data and facts, they have excellent analytic judgment and a sharp eye for patterns and problems.
  
• Executors: Tireless, goal-oriented doers who push plans forward with an eye for detail, relentless discipline and keen oversight, surmounting all obstacles and holding everyone accountable for their commitments.

You might say that all human beings can fit into those four categories, not just alpha males. To some extent that is true, but our concern is with alphas, and alphas bring to the four types an overlay of aggressive intensity, energetic persistence, and competitive drive that sets them apart from the rest of humanity. It is that distinctive collection of traits that led us to use the term alpha male syndrome.

It's important to note that the types are not mutually exclusive. While virtually every alpha has one dominant type PG, he or she will typically have one or two secondary patterns as well. So, for example, a visionary alpha might also have strong strategist tendencies, while another visionary might have executor traits as a secondary characteristic. The data from our Alpha Assessment study support the observation that alphas display the qualities of one primary type, but also possess traits of the other three in varying degrees. Although each type is statistically unique, there is an approximate 20 percent correlation between them.

To cite ourselves as examples, we are both visionary alphas, but Eddie has strong secondary arms as both a commander and a strategist, while Kate has a lot of executor traits. We both have big, expansive ideas, but Kate will offer practical comments about implementation challenges to justify her point of view, and she will persist until she can bring closure to the discussion. When Eddie wants to get his way, he first uses charm and humor to inspire support. Before bringing out the data, he appeals to the emotions by describing the impact his idea will have on other people.

In our experience, the most effective alpha leaders are those who blend the functional elements of more than one type - or are smart enough to surround themselves with associates who add the strengths of other types to the mix. For example, here's how the four types might look at a particular task:

• Commander: This job needs someone to take charge and lead the way.
• Visionary: I see a great possibility waiting to be unveiled and seized.
• Strategist: The potential opportunities and risks need to be analyzed and solved.
• Executor: Getting this done requires structure and control.

You can see where all four styles have value, and that, depending on the circumstances, different combinations and proportions would be ideal.

CHANGING ALPHAS

As we've suggested earlier, the challenge for anyone coaching alpha males, whether senior executives or external consultants, is to maximize their strengths and shore up their weaknesses. We have developed a battery of effective procedures for doing exactly that. The first step is to make alpha males aware of the downside risks in their own behavior.

The Intention-Impact Gap

When told that their intimidating style can deplete morale and impair teamwork, alpha males typically become defensive. "I've been successful just the way I am," they say. "You're not going to neuter me now." No one wants to neuter them, of course; just scrape away the rough edges that create problems and just might derail their own ambitions. They don't realize that the skills that got them to the playoffs are not enough to take them to the championship.

We illustrate the stark reality of the situation with what we call the awareness trajectory. We have alpha clients enumerate their intentions in several categories, such as business outcomes, leadership results, and key relationships. We then compare their intentions to their actual impact and examine the reasons for the gap between expectations and results. Typically, high-ranking alpha males have more than enough knowledge, skill, and drive to be effective leaders. The wild card is their self-awareness (vertical axis) and their awareness of how they influence their peers, teams, and other key players (horizontal axis).

The Awareness Trajectory

Just as smoking constricts the arteries and erupts in any number of symptoms, dysfunctional alpha males can constrict the flow of energy, information, and creativity in an organization, causing damage that shows up both locally and system-wide. One common pattern is a deadly trap we call the alpha triangle. We find the model very helpful in understanding the consequences of alpha behavior patterns - and in illustrating those consequences to the alphas themselves.

Once an alpha male recognizes the gap between his intentions and his actual impact, he becomes more amenable to feedback. We provide this with 360's based on in-depth interviews. We provide both verbatim passages from the interviews and color-coded bar graphs depicting how the client was rated in different areas of competency. These reports carry tremendous weight with alpha males, because they are typically oriented to hard data. The next step is also a powerful motivator: we facilitate meetings between the client and those who are struggling to work with him.

Because they think in bottom-line terms, alpha males become motivated to change only when they see that doing so will lead to greater influence and more sustainable business results. Once they see that their former behavior has a downside, they become willing to work on what they might otherwise demean as "soft" or counterproductive: developing more effective ways to communicate and collaborate with others. Alpha males who turn their potent intelligence, energy, and determination inward are capable of remarkable transformation.

The Alpha Triangle

The triangle consists of three characters: villain, victim, and hero. Each one reinforces the other two: villains blame, victims whine, heroes fix. Each lays claim to a specific payoff: villains get power, victims get sympathy, and heroes get appreciation. As villains, alpha males are right out of central casting. Their noble intention is to get things done, but when they pursue that goal with blunt instruments the people they think they're helping actually feel like victims - misunderstood, mistreated, and maybe even abused. To complete the triangle, heroes step in to clean up the mess.

Alpha males typically vacillate between villain and victim. They bully people to the brink of tears and then feel sorry for themselves for having to deal with such incompetents. Sometimes they also wear the hero costume, stepping courageously forth to put out the fire they started.

Each of the three roles perpetuates the alpha triangle: villains like to feel in control, victims need to feel wounded, and heroes love to feel honorable. And, because each player has a stake in keeping the triangle intact, the pattern is hard to break. As the various triangles within an organization become entrenched, the symptoms escalate from occasional traumas and minor annoyances to chronic disorders and outright catastrophes. The key is to replace dysfunctional alpha male behavior with new, healthy habits. Once that shift takes place, everyone else in the triangle drama automatically adjusts. It's simple geometry: remove any of its three sides, and a triangle will collapse. See Figure 2.

The Alpha Triangle

Here's an example: Walt was a hard-driving alpha executive with a red hot temper. What he thought was constructive feedback his victims saw as a weapon of mass destruction. His staff cowered in fear, his peers tuned him out, and everyone in the company tiptoed around him. Periodically, Walt would take his complaints to the CEO, an inspiring alpha who loved the role of hero. He would soothe the wounded victims and negotiate their differences with Walt, and eventually sanity and calmness were restored. On the surface, his approach might seem sensible. But the pattern kept on repeating because Walt had no incentive to change. When he saw the results of the 360º interviews we conducted, Walt snapped out of it. The syndrome was clearly spelled out by his colleagues, who said things like "Walt is brilliant, but he's so abrasive and demeaning that he can't get alignment."

For his part, the CEO came to see his own role in perpetuating the triangle. He immediately stopped acting like a hero and more like a leader, telling Walt that there would be consequences if he didn't change his behavior.

With his motivation reinforced by the CEO, Walt rose to the occasion. Acknowledging that his volatility was impeding results, he requested our help and set forth to develop more constructive influence skills. The alpha triangle soon collapsed, and the performance of the entire group ratcheted up a notch.

Stop Defending and Start Learning

Another way to break the triangle is to help alpha males respond less defensively to disagreement and critical feedback. Alphas tend to offer feedback in a coercive or belligerent manner, instantly putting the recipient into the victim role. The victim defends himself or herself either passively, with nervous explanations and timid justifications, or aggressively, by counterattacking or shifting the blame.

The same thing happens with disagreement. Because they think they have all the answers, alpha males have a strong drive to explain, justify and convince. If others don't get it, they state their case another way, louder and more forcefully. Discussion becomes debate, debate becomes argument, and argument becomes hostility. If the opponent is also an alpha, the result is war, even at the expense of mutual interests. Someone who's not an alpha is not likely to fight back, but rather slink away in self-defense, pretending to get the point. Disappearing with them, however, are all the useful facts and important viewpoints they would otherwise contribute. Also gone is the alpha male's opportunity to garner support, help people learn, and bolster incentive. Where defensiveness prevails, no one receives constructive feedback, and therefore no one can improve.

Figure 3 is a powerful tool for monitoring defensiveness. The higher the score on the (+) scale, the lower the defensiveness and the greater the openness to learning. A high score on the (-) scale indicates the opposite: a lot of defensiveness and a mind closed to learning.

You can use the scale to understand a particular alpha male's escalation pattern, as well as your own and that of others who might be contributing to the problem. This can be a valuable step in formulating better ways of doing things in the future. The basic task is to shift each person's behavior from the high scores on the minus side to the high scores on the positive side. Once one person shifts, you'll quickly see others move in the same direction. See Figure 3.

Shifting from Defensiveness to Learning

Encouraging Vulnerability

As superheroes in their own minds, alpha males want to appear confident and strong, even invincible. They fear that if they don't come across as titans their credibility will be undermined and opponents will pounce like sharks that smell blood. But, as paradoxical as it may seem, when strong, successful leaders are candid about their human frailties, they're actually seen as more self-confident and courageous. They actually command more respect than those who strut around with their chests puffed up, afraid to show a chink in their armor. That's why we strongly encourage alpha males to be fully transparent about what they learn about themselves and publicly affirm their ongoing commitment to personal growth.

The truth is, everyone already knows the alpha male is an imperfect human being. Trying to maintain an image of perfection just keeps them at a distance from colleagues and feeds into their image as arrogant and self-important. On the other hand, when they openly expose their personal foibles, they show everyone another side of themselves - one that is self-aware, humble, and eager to improve. Such candor builds trust, respect, and loyalty, making their working relationships far more productive and raising their leadership capacity to new levels.

In order to help them see just how open or self-protective they are, we have alpha males respond "yes" or "no" to the following questions:

• When people ask me something, I have trouble saying, "I don't know."
  
• I find ways to let people know I'm smarter than they are.
  
• I often exaggerate the extent of my experience.
  
• I try to cover up my problems until I find a way to solve them.
  
• I deflect attention from anything that makes me look bad.
  
• I sometimes pretend to understand things when I'm actually confused.
  
• I try to project an image of decisiveness even when I'm not sure what to do.
  

Once they recognize that attempting to project a Superman image actually works like kryptonite in a modern workplace, weakening their ability to lead effectively, alpha males can be persuaded to let down their guard and be real. This is not psychobabble; it's a nuts-and-bolts, bottom-line concern. In our experience, companies that place a premium on open­ness and self-awareness are more creative, more energetic, and more profitable. If the alpha doubts that, have him try this mental experiment. Ask him to imagine a scenario in which his boss has problems with how the alpha has executed certain directives, which he, the alpha, considered too vague to follow. Then have him imagine the boss storming into his office, slamming the door, and letting loose a barrage of demeaning remarks. Finally, have him imagine instead that the boss calmly says, "I'm aware that I'm not doing a very good job communicating what I'm looking for. I have a sense of how it should be done, and I really want you to execute it, but you obviously can't read my mind. So let's try to tease it out together." Now ask the alpha which approach would make him bust his butt to get the job done. Which manager would earn his loyalty and trust?

That's the kind of reflective, self-aware leader we encourage alpha males to become themselves. When they make that shift, they are well positioned to overcome the domineering, combative behavior that all too often pollutes the work environment and sabotages their best intentions. At that point they are positioned to harness their magnificent alpha power, energy, and competitive drive for the benefit of their careers and their organizations.

 

                                                            seen by Killion James.

 

TEAM BUILDING

       TEAM BUILDING

Helping organizations develop teams through team building events and coaching is very challenging and satisfying. The tasks are not limited to facilitating a team building event. I need to educate many of my clients so they too can see the true meaning and value of team building.
Let me tell you how you can use team building to help newly formed teams meet new challenges. The seven-step team building process below can be used to enhance team success.
Team building is an essential first step in creating successful team. A group of talented people do not always produce excellent work. Interdependency and collaboration, for example, require a variety of people with a wide range of skills to work together as well-functioning and cohesive team.
Yes, no team is ever homogenous. Individuals who are selected to work together as a team bring with them their values and agendas. Sometimes, they bring to the team the norms and behaviors of the previous teams and institutions they came from. The collection of different expectations, work approaches, and behaviors may become counter productive when not given attention. I have meet many executives who said that their teams have no problems. Later, i found that their people kept them clueless about team conflicts. Every team must be effective from its creation. This is a daunting challenge I know, but you must take the challenge.
Developing a cohesive team begins with team building. The team building session for new teams must provide an opportunity for team members to agree on:

• the team charter
• the team mission, goals, and vision for success
• Team member roles and responsibilities and other key stakeholders roles
• Work approach and agreement for mutual accountability
• A learning a resource plan
• A stakeholder-communication and relationship-building plan.

Engaging in team building soon after the team’s formation helps the team address all of the dimensions of team effectiveness.
THE TEAM BUILDING PROCESS
The seven-step team building process for new teams is as follows:
Step 1 – Gain the commitment.
Step 2 – Clarify the team charter.
Step 3 – Collect information from team members.
Step 4 – Design and conduct a three-day team building session.
Step 5 – Implement the results.
Step 6 – Evaluate the impact of team building.
Step 7- Continue developing your world class team.
I know, only a handful of managers take team building seriously. For many of those in the IT industry, team building is a day where you forget about work; team building is a day when your team competes with another team. This does not mean that managers of other industries have better understanding of team building. Some company executives do not even consider having a team building at all. Believe me, I had clients which never had a team building event for the first 36 years of their corporate lives.
I know of many team building facilitators who think it is cool to give their clients a catalogue of low and high course games. They are as clueless as the people who expect them to help.
If you are a business unit manager who want to educate,engage, and empower your team, I encourage you to read more.
If you are a team building training provider, consider the following steps so you can help your customers the best way possible.
   by   Killion James.