Time is the enemy of good leadership. It takes time to develop a team of individuals. A common metaphor is the orchestra conductor. Each instrument player has a specific role and it is the job of the leader to meld them together to work harmoniously and effectively. The conductor takes a significant amount of time to get this working correctly. That is their sole purpose. They make the best of the talent in the team, get them working well together and develop the individual talents of those involved. In business, we have to do all of these things and worry about the P&L, the Balance Sheet, the competition, quarterly earnings, changes in Government regulations, the media, shareholders, where the market is heading and the latest developments in technology. We are kept pretty busy.

Consequently we are time poor from the moment our eyes open until we drift off to into slumber at night. There is a tension between the time needed to work with our team members to work effectively together and the time we have available to do just that. So we cut corners. We start to lead from a macro perspective. We are prone to broadcast emails to the whole team, mass Town Halls where we download what is going on, Zoom calls to the whole team where we pontificate on how things should be. It is terribly efficient but is it particularly effective?

We know from sports that all the modern coaches coach each individual based on who they are and what they are capable of doing. The old style game half-time coach thunderous moments of inspired oratory are the thing of Hollywood movie celluloid relics of a past long passed. Leaders need to focus on each person, one by one.

Some players are easy going, amazingly talented athletes who can perform the most unexpected feats of spontaneous physical dexterity, that a coach can never teach. They are Amiables who like people and are understated. They don’t speak in a loud voice, in fact they are laconic to the extreme. Loud incandescent outbursts about the requirement for getting the numbers are lost on them. We have people like that on our business teams. They are the solid quiet performers, often the social glue inside the team, holding all the superstructure together.

The opposite stye are the Drivers. They are highly numbers and outcome oriented. They want the big bucks which comes with producing results. They don’t need external motivation, because the fire burns deep inside them and it is permanently self-igniting. They don’t need public acclaim or affirmation, because they march to the beat of their own drummer. They don’t listen to any praise because they are sceptical and they don’t feel any need of it. They can handle extreme pressure from above to perform. They have no problem with straight talk about getting the numbers or getting out of Dodge. They need to be strongly corralled to play as a team member, because they are oriented as an individual player and believe they rise or fall on their own efforts. They have severe outcome focus, rather than people focus, so often they can be limited in application as the leader. That doesn’t stop organisations putting them in charge though, because they produce results.

Analyticals are data freaks. They only react to proof and evidence. They suspect any opinions which cannot be backed up with the statistics, expert testimonials, key numbers or facts. They are very well organised and thorough in their approach to everything. You have to persuade them with the data. They are not stirred by emotional calls to action. “Do it for the Gipper” doesn't do anything for them. Whether in sport or in the office, they need to be convinced by proof of the right course of action and once on board, they then knuckle down and get right behind the effort.

The opposite style is the Expressive. They are outgoing, like being with people and are very confident, often too confident. They are usually the pranksters inside the team, making the jokes, geeing everyone up. They are flamboyant and enjoy the accolades, public acclaim and attention. Titles, prizes, trophies, incentives – bring them on they say. Inside the company they are the “hail fellow well met” crew, who work hard and play harder. Pumping up their ego has no bounds. The less fizzy, more sensible variety are often the most attractive leaders inside the organisation.

As leaders we need to know which style we are and what are our own strengths and weaknesses. We need to know the same detail about our team members. We should spend time with them individually. Time constraints push us away from doing this, but we have to fight against the unrelenting drive to harmonised mediocrity. There is no point in being a macro leader in a modern micro world.

I remember reading once about a President reflecting on the cost controls he had instituted inside his organisation. The industry had emerged from a recession and even though the economy and the company had recovered, he had forgotten to ease the strict controls he had instituted to protect the company. Covid-19 has forced many of us to institute strict controls in order to survive the business disruption caused by the virus. When should we release some of those stringent controls?

This is a tricky subject at any time, but it becomes more pungent when you are coming out of a long tunnel. As Winston Churchill once remarked ,“If you are going through hell, keep going”. Very clever and witty, but when we have come out the other side of Covid-19 hell exactly at what point do we need to ease off the vice like pressure we have been applying to expenses and investment?

In any business there is always tension around a couple of staples. Control and innovation can be in contradiction. Compliance, regulations, controls are there to protect the business. Systems have to work at scale, regardless of who is employed in the business. There has to be consistency and production sequences need to work to make deadlines or to ensure the required quality. When I worked in retail banking, there were so many regulations and audits, regarding what we were doing. Every process had to be documented and followed according to the letter of the specified designation.

People didn’t get into trouble for varying from the procedures. It was hiding the variation that proved to be career ending. They were too scared to admit they had not followed the procedures and so tried to hide the fact away. Unfortunately, that doesn’t work and at some point it all comes rolling out and rolls right over the top of the individual and they are summarily fired for hiding the offence.

On the other hand, we want people to be innovative. We know the danger of groupthink and also of being left behind by more creative rivals. Staff witnessing the career ending variances from the established tried and true methods, are not much induced to try new stuff. How do we get innovation, when we have the system tied down so tight there is no room for mistakes?

There has to be a different mentality around mistakes. Japan is a mistake free zone. There have been decades of bosses very publicly screaming abuse at staff for screwing up. This curtailed people’s interest in doing anything new or better. The boss has to now take the lead here. The staff need to be told clearly what can’t be played around with for compliance or regulatory purposes, but also what is up for grabs. Mistakes can be said to be tolerated but if the talk isn’t matched by the walk, the experiment in a “hundred flowers” blooming, dies on the spot.

Sounds easy, but just where is the line? How big a mistake are you personally, as the boss, prepared to tolerate? When Lee Iacocca called in one of his marketing executives at Chrysler following a major failure on a new model launch, that executive was expecting to be fired. To his amazement Iacocca said, “Fire you! We just spent million educating you”. Can you be like that?

We set the temperature for innovation, by how much we celebrate the learnings from failures. We might not be as big minded about losing millions like Lee baby was, but still there will be opportunities to demonstrate that we never fail, because we always learn. We are going to come out of Covid-19 in 2021, so although we can’t set a specific date to loosen the controls, we still need to set a date to remind ourselves that we need to reevaluate where we are in the business cycle. Now is also the time to look for innovations which can be implemented, once the cash flow has been stabilised. Plan now and pour in the investment when the time is right, rather than waiting for the cash to be there first and then start the planning.

We need systems and rules to protect the company and we need innovation to take the company forward. It cannot be “either”, it has to be “and”. Striking that balance has no road map and is difficult to get right, but if we can be directionally right and at the right scale, then we are going to be on the right track.

Harvard Business School, Stanford Business School and INSEAD Business School are all awesome institutions. My previous employer shelled our serious cash to send me there for Executive education courses. Classes of one hundred people from all around the world engaging in debate, idea and experience exchange. One of my Indian classmates even wrote and performed a song at the final team dinner at Stanford, which was amazing and amazingly funny, as it captured many of the experiences of the two weeks we all shared together there.

When you get off the plane and head back to work, you realise that the plane wasn’t the only thing flying at 30,000 feet. The content of the course was just like that. We were permanently at a very macro level. The day to day didn’t really get covered and the tactical pieces didn’t really feature much. This isn’t a criticism because you need that big picture, but the things on your desk waiting for you are a million miles from where you have just been.

Fortunately, there are some leadership principles which can cover off the day to day needs. Principle #22 is “begin with praise and honest appreciation”. Such an obvious thing, how could this even be mentioned as a principle? It may be obvious, but are you a master of this principle? We talk about providing psychological safety for our teams. Well that is great and just how do you do that, when you have pressure to produce results from above and are feeling the stress of the current business disruption? It is too easy to begin with an interrogation about the current state of play, the numbers, the revenues, the cash flows. How about if you started every interaction off with finding something real to praise about the team members. Not fakery but something real, that shows you are paying close attention to what they are doing well.

Mistakes happen. Except in Japan. In Japan mistakes are not allowed and the penalties to career advancement are large. “Fail faster” might make you a legend in Silicon Valley but would see you cast out in Japan. That is why the entire population here are all ninjas at concealing any errors, so that the boss never finds out. How do we get innovation going if we can’t tolerate mistakes? That is one big reason why there is so little white collar work innovation in Japan.

Principle #23 says “call attention to people’s mistakes indirectly”. Rubbing in it some one’s face that they screwed up is a pretty dumb, but universally adopted, idea by bosses. Principle #26, “let the other person save face” isn’t an “oriental idea”. It is a human idea and no one likes losing face in front of others and it doesn’t increase people’s engagement levels. In fact, is has them thinking about leaving for greener pastures. Principle #24 also helps, “talk about your own mistakes before criticising the other person”. We want our team members to feel empowered to take responsibility, to step up and try stuff. That is how we create an innovation hub inside the organisation. If you have a hotbed of ideas from your team and the competition is still canning people who make mistakes, then you will win.

Principle #25 is so powerful. “Ask questions instead of giving direct orders”. Bosses are staff super-visors, because we have super-vision. Probably true once upon a time in the olde days, but no longer the case. Business is too complex today, so we need to grow our people and to be able to rely on their ideas. If I spend all my time telling you what I think, I haven’t learnt anything. Bosses need to think of questions which will push the team’s thinking muscle hard and get people really engaged. Instead of laying our your thoughts, chapter and verse and falling in love with the sound of your own voice, try asking questions instead. After asking the question, shut up and let your people answer without interruption. It may be killing you, but do it. Being asked for your opinion and ideas is empowering. Maybe the boss has all the answers, great, but what if the staff have questions the boss hasn’t even thought about. In Japanese business, asking the right question is more valued, that having the right answer.

All of these principles have things in common. They are common sense, but not common practice. They are super easy to understand, but devilish to execute consistently. They are game changers in our relationship with our staff. Having some leadership principles to live by just takes the action of thinking out of the equation. These become the reflex actions we take because they have become a habit. These are the types of habits we need to cultivate.