Whilst I was in Chicago last month I visited Andy’s Jazz Bar, and as I was watching the band performing I was struck by how often people use music as a metaphor for leadership.

Very often we talk about conductors, the leadership of an orchestra assumes there is one central person in control, that they have a very clear understanding of where the orchestra is going (the score), and that teams of specialists are waiting on their every word and are ready to be directed into making a beautiful sound.

It seemed to me that the jazz band was actually a more realistic metaphor for getting things done in complex organisations.  Jazz bands tend to be small - three to six people.  They tend to have a number of people who have got very complementary skills, but don’t do exactly the same thing. Leadership of the jazz band moves depending on who has got the expertise.

One of the great things about watching a good jazz band is that everyone enjoys the virtuoso performances of everyone else, and everyone gets a chance to showcase their skills.  When their pianist, the drummer or the guitarist are doing their piece everyone else is visibly enjoying the experience, is into the music and is happy to concede their place in the limelight to that individual, knowing that later on it will come back around to them.

This model of highly skilled groups of motivated individuals, each happy to take the lead or be a follower as required, coming together to create highly flexible and improvised music seems to be a better metaphor than the top-down, centrally controlled orchestra for leadership in today’s organizations.

What do you think?

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Jun 04 2010

Many organizations remain concerned that allowing access to social networking sites at work can cause wasted time and distraction - and it is undoubtedly true that this is a risk. I have heard Facebook referred to as “social notworking”.

But there is a growing feeling that social networking can generate opportunities - to connect people and to make expertise and help more visible in large organizations.

BT is to roll out Facebook-style social networking services to its 100,000 UK employees, They expect to make “significant gains in productivity, help the organisation keep track of the skills of its workforce and make it easier for BT staff to find the right experts within the company for the projects they are working on.”

I guess it will be a good test bed to see what is the balance of cost and benefit. We are starting to work with clients on how these social media tools can support virtual teams and matrix organizations - there is definitely something in it.

What is your experience?

Jun 02 2010

According to a new survey of 1,500 chief executives conducted by IBM’s Institute for Business Value, Global complexity is the foremost issue confronting these CEOs and their enterprises. The chief executives see a large gap between the level of complexity coming at them and their confidence that their enterprises are equipped to deal with it.

CEOs believe that creativity is the key skill needed to deal with this complexity. Creativity to disrupt the status quo, challenge existing business models and cut through the organizational paralysis that complexity can cause.

We agree and have been focusing on this issue for 16 years, find out more about how we help clients to cut through global complexity

Read the full article at Yahoo Finance

Jun 01 2010

We don’t use PowerPoint in our training (unless we are doing keynotes to very large audiences where we use it as a backdrop to give the audience something to look at).

We think it gets in the way of communication, makes audiences passive and discourages discussion and interaction.

Now it looks as if the US military has found the same thing, a couple of quotes from the NY Times article we have met the enemy and he is PowerPoint.

Gen. James N. Mattis of the Marine Corps, the Joint Forces commander, said this month at a military conference in North Carolina.

• “PowerPoint makes us stupid,”
• “It’s dangerous because it can create the illusion of understanding and the illusion of control,”
• “Some problems in the world are not bullet-izable.”

In addition to the effect on audiences PowerPoint is often used in a way it was not intended to - it is a presentation tool - hence the advice to use bullet points - the presenter should talk around the points, not just read the bullets.

What happens in large organizations is that PowerPoint has become a common email attachment - “what do you mean I didn’t inform you about our plans, it was on page 170 of the PowerPoint deck I sent you!”

In attachments bullet points don’t communicate - they are too short to be clear and as Gen Mattis says  - not everything can be distilled down to 5 bullet points.

Why no just write them a word document or give them a call. Sending a200m page PowerPoint deck is not communication.

Find out more about our ideas on creating greater participation and less passive meetings.

May 11 2010

Global Integration will present a workshop on  Making Matrix Management Really Work at the ASTD International Conference and Exposition in Chicago on 18th May.

In this highly interactive session, Kevan Hall, CEO of Global Integration will share practical tools and ideas developed in working with over 300 global organizations to show why matrix management often leads to too much cooperation, how complexity causes more control, why success can make you slow – and what we can do about it.

Session details - Tuesday 18th May 2010 from 4 - 5:30 p.m. Session T33EXD Making Matrix Management Really Work Room W 195

If you are visiting the conference or ExPo and plan to attend we look forward to meeting you there, why not drop us a comment and let us know you are coming.

Apr 30 2010

Global Integration works around the world with major multinationals building the skills they need to manage people in complex, matrixed, virtual and global organizations.

The proportion of our business delivered in Asia has been increasing steadily in recent years but as our consultants were based in Europe and the Americas travel costs could add significantly to the cost of workshops and consulting assignments.

In order to look after our global customers more effectively and develop our business in Asia I am pleased to announce that we will open an office and be available to schedule programs in Singapore as of 1st February 2010.

For queries about scheduling, please contact your normal global account manager or contact us here

Same great quality – local travel costs

Feb 01 2010

I came across a radio program yesterday that referenced a new study - Cross-cultural recognition of basic emotions through nonverbal emotional vocalizations.

You can read the abstract here but in essence, the researchers studied how very different cultures (Western cultures compared with individuals from remote, culturally isolated Namibian villages) used non-verbal responses to express emotions.

They found that vocalizations communicating several negative emotions - anger, disgust, fear, joy, sadness, and surprise were recognized across both cultures

However most positive emotions are communicated with culture-specific signals that are often  ort recognized by the other culture.

If this is more widely true it has consequences for cross-cultural communication – do we read negative emotions easily but have more difficulty picking up the positives from someone from a very different culture – maybe we need to be more explicit when expressing positives in a cross cultural context.

Jan 29 2010

Have a great Christmas

Dec 19 2009

For anyone who has participated in the “managing visibility” part of our remote and virtual teams training - you may enjoy this comedy sketch where 2 regular travellers discuss what they do.

Sound familiar?

p.s. This link may not be available to view in the USA due to YouTube copyright rules.

Nov 10 2009

Autor de um livro em que introduz o conceito “liderança veloz” - tradução possível para “speed lead”, que é como se diz em inglês e é assim que soa melhor -, Kevan Hall é um homem que se dedica a acelerar os processos de decisão nas empresas.

Mais de Jornal de Negocios

Oct 20 2009