At May’s Innovation Day, we welcomed Tom Williams, former Rugby Union player who played for Harlequins in the Aviva Premiership. He shared his personal story and provided several insights on individual and collective responsibility as well as the effects of a coercive leadership and culture.
Do some of your targets and goals encourage or even require a “win at all costs” policy in order to be achieved? When, if ever, is it acceptable to employ a coercive leadership style? Does your organisation question what is acceptable and whether it has the right culture to prevent destructive behaviours?
Over 10 years ago, during the Heineken Cup finals, Tom Williams was told to fake a blood
injury to allow a tactical substitution and reintroduce another player. The “bloodgate scandal” resulted in a 12-month ban from rugby for Tom, who subsequently pursued a career in coaching to instil a better culture and take responsibility.
If you find yourself within a hedgy culture where cheating is acceptable, it’s easy to avoid responsibility and say “this has been done before”. For this reason, it is key to promote a resilient culture at both an individual and organisational level before it’s too late and coercive behaviours have become acceptable.
So, what can we do to build organisational resilience?
Refine your organisational resilience strategy. Whilst some level of adversity helps build resilience, top managers should think about refining their organisational resilience strategy by following three key steps:
- Initiate conversation and communicate powerfully.
- Assess your organisation’s own resilience strengths and areas for development.
- Align resilience with other existing and planned initiatives.
Share the power. Having engaged employees with a high degree of operational autonomy leads to the highest degree of resilience, creativity and innovation. Successful outcomes are achieved when everyone has the possibility to speak up and each employee’s contributions and ideas are valued. Find the right balance between power and empowerment. While setting clear direction and goals, leave space for creativity and be open to new ideas.
Work hard but play fair. Leaders who treat their employees fairly are more likely to be seen as fair, and thus be trusted and respected. Companies can take several steps to implement fair processes, for example by involving employees in decision-making and actively listening to their concerns. Do not only focus on working hard and avoiding losses, but rather optimise performance by promoting fairness and integrity.
Build organisational resilience in five steps.
- Encourage cross-boundary connections and broaden employees’ perspectives by promoting project teams, assignment, and leadership development programmes.
- Establish concrete learning processes and promote leadership development across the organisation, not only for senior leaders, and ensure that leaders from different parts of the business are included.
- Develop coaching skills and action learning to support the capability to actively listen and ask open questions amongst your employees.
- Value diversity of thought and opinion and promote a safe and collaborative culture which supports learning. Share those values and purpose.
- Use every opportunity to develop connections and relationships both inside and outside of your organisation.
These are just some key highlights taken from May’s Innovation Day. Each month, clients of the Innovation Programmes receive a full ACT report, capturing the guest expert’s research, the implications and next steps for leaders to apply back in their team and organisation.
Sources: Williams, T. (2019) ‘Build Individual and Organisational Resilience’, KnowledgeBrief Innovation Day Presentation, 8 May.