Charles Daniels

A new article by Harvard's Michael Beer & collaborator Johanna Pregmark identifies "seven silent killers" - leadership or organisational barriers that are publicly undiscussable yet consistently block the delivery of strategy & change. It builds on Beer's previous research that set out six such "killers": 1) A top-down or "hands-off" senior management style - top leaders who fail to confront conflict & actively lead change. 2) Unclear strategies & values - &/or or conflicting priorities 3) An ineffective senior management team that cannot effectively balance focus on the whole & the parts. 4) Poor coordination & collaboration across functions, units & borders, representing an inability to effectively organise, manage & lead the work. 5) Inadequate leadership skills & development, particularly the lack of investment in "down-the-line" leaders. 6) Poor vertical communication - insufficient engagement from top leaders to help people understand the strategy & lower-level leaders feeling unable to speak truth to power The new research confirms these six "killers" & suggests a seventh barrier essential to an organisation’s agility in a rapidly changing world: 7) Poor delegation of authority of decision rights - primarily related to the possibility for people across the organisation to make decisions to initiate & test new ideas & to innovate at their own level. There are some fantastic insights in this article: journals.aom.org/doi/full/10…. It's behind a paywall so here's Beer's earlier paper for those who can't access the article: openaccessgovernment.org/wp-….

Change is changing & our methods need to change too. In health & care, Gantt charts are the dominant method for managing projects. Yet in other sectors, there's a big shift away from them. As change gets more complex, project timelines get shorter & more changes & pivots are needed. In @McKinsey research: - 72% of project managers report Gantt charts become outdated within weeks of creation. - Teams spend an average of 4.5 hours per week just updating project timelines. Modern project management favours layered planning, where, say, quarterly plans outline big-picture goals & weekly plans keep track of immediate tasks. How to abandon your Gantt chart & plan big projects without micromanaging dependencies: medium.com/@paco-cantero/why…. By @PacocanteroW.

In my many years as a leader of change, I have participated in some brilliant workshops & some terrible ones. A key issue is workshop design. I've come to understand that workshop design is more important than facilitation. If we take a systems view of the event, there are many more ways to impact people's experience than facilitation - the process, space, the sense of community, the collective insight. This all depends on the design. There are some fantastic free resources on workshop design from @sessionlab. If you are a change leader or facilitator it is so worth investing in these skills: sessionlab.com/blog/workshop…

How to define & understand problems to get better results from change initiatives. Often results are not delivered because (time pressured) leaders jump straight into problem-solving actions without making the time & space to understand & define what the problem is. Here's the "E5" approach to problem-framing: 1) Expand: explore all aspects of a problem & its nuances 2) Examine: understand underlying drivers & systemic contributors to the problem 3) Empathise: consider the perspectives of those who are most central to & affected by the problem 4) Elevate: understand how the problem connects to broader system issues 5) Envision: actively imagine & design solutions to the problem hbr.org/2024/01/to-solve-a-t…. By Julia Binder & @MichaelDWatkins

"Zombie Leadership": dead & discredited ideas about leadership that continue to walk amongst us. They continue to be propagated by the media, popular books, consultants, workforce practices & policy makers. They stop more effective leadership practices from becoming mainstream. Four strategies to defeat Zombie Leadership: 1) Recognise components of Zombie Leadership 2) Return to the definition of leadership 3) Recognise the cost of Zombie Leadership 4) Champion alternatives to Zombie Leadership sciencedirect.com/science/ar…. By @alexanderhaslam et al, via @BenJaneFitness.