The year that was

2012 will be over in around six hours. And we will start again. I am grateful for all I have and all I have lost to miss. I am grateful for all I have gotten and found along the way. And I wish you a very very happy new year. Thank you, see you on the other side.

My leadership journey in the last 2 months (4/4)

This is the 4th of 4 parts in this long post/series. Refer to the first three to get the context or enjoy this on its own. :)

Product specific Impact on those working with the product/for the organization

What is it?

If you compare two car companies, let’s take BMW and General Motors, on an overall level they are in the same business. How is it different to work for one of these companies or the other – or how is it different to work for a bank instead – let’s say Citigroup? Now much of that answer will lie in the organizational cultures, the specific ways in which the businesses are run, how decisions are taken etc. And all this, business schools around the world make a fortune trying to tell its students about. I argue that there is another, fundamental, difference, and it lies in the product itself. It will be a different experience working in a company that has a product that is defined physically by the car rolling out the factory, than a company that is defined by its services. There will be a fundamental difference in working for BMW and GM – because the products are different. What is that difference? The key here Is for the businesses themselves to identify what it is that is unique about working with their specific product. What is the specific learning that you can get from working with BMW which you cannot get from working for Citigroup – for sure – and you will never get even working for GM? Depending on the answer, that will change a lot about what kind of strategy you implement. The hard part is to identify what is product specific, and what is just contextual. Most of the obvious things which are different today, aren’t actually permanent, such as f. ex. Company culture. Most things which are obvious could be the same. But some things are different and cannot be the same – because it is defined by the product. It can only be the same if the product is the same. Now – this is harder to identify the more similar the product is (ie BMW and GM), which leaves temptations to identify the other things instead. But herein lies the magic.

An example from my life (skip or read –you know the drill)

In the alarm company I worked for, there were real opportunities of learning related to things such as public policy on crime, on sensor technology, on psychology of people related to the concept of safety. These were product specific – because if we had been producing chocolate, nobody could have learnt about those things. The HR and learning strategy should have been built around that. Because for those genuinely interested in these things in terms of learning, there could have been no better product in the world to work with. At the same time we had competitors in the same industry. What I know that was specific about our product (although, surprise, surprise, nobody in the company made any particular effort in telling me), was the direct tie between the alarms themselves and the security guards. This meant that as a product of “feeling safe” the product had advantages over its competitors, independent of technical merits.

Why it matters?

It matters because it is what makes the company special to work for. From a learning perspective and from an impact perspective. By identifying and highlighting the product specific aspects of the organization, it is possible to develop a competitive and independent HR strategy, attracting the right people, and retaining them. Learning will be tied to the product itself – meaning that the companies growth and individual learning is directly linked to on another. Powerful, ey?

AIESEC context (skip this if you aren’t so interested in those specifics):

In AIESEC, the membership experience (TMP/TLP as we call it), is designated as a leadership development experience. But, of course, it is possible to develop leadership in a number of different ways in the world, and even working or volunteering in other student organizations or NGOs. So what’s special? The products – different sub products of exchange – all involve 3 specific processes that develops leadership in a very unique way. (1) An exchange involves leading another young person to leave their home country and embrace an experience in another country based on what you tell them. That is a pretty significant leadership experience. (2) An exchange involves leading another organization, a company or an NGO, to actually change the way they run their business – by taking in a student or graduate from another country. This is never on the top of the strategic priority of a company. Lead that! (3) To deliver an Exchange successfully, a young person, 18-25, has to deliver an experience together with another young person, 18-25, across the world. Co-create customer value and leadership development where previous there was none. Yeah, that’s product specific leadership development. And product specific impact.

Conclusion

There are many things that have happened in the last 2 months in my life and in my experience. The reason I wanted to put these four points down is that I see them as my specific leadership learning that somehow came to fruition at the end of this period. Is that all? Hopefully not. Will they evolve? Hopefully so.

The obvious question for myself is - what is around the next corner - or even - what's the next turn? All I know right now is that I am grateful for this last period, as in my own mind I have realized things that at least to me where never as crystal clear as they are right now. For all those reading who have helped me learn in the last months and years - thank you.

I wish you a great end to the old and a wonderful entry into the new year.

My leadership journey the last 2 months (3/4)

This is the third part of this post. To read the first two go here for one and here for two

As this is posted on Christmas eve, just before we are going to have Christmas dinner - all suited up is the tradition in our family - I wish you a very Merry Christmas (if you celebrate) or otherwise a wonderful holiday period.

Co-delivery and coordination of “organizational why” and “customer value”

What is it?

When two organizations are cooperating to deliver a product, the more aligned the “Why’s of the organizations” and the “Customer value” is, the better the quality of the product. Think of any situation where you have two companies or similar influencing the delivery of your product. Individually they might be providing great customer value and alignment to their “why” but together they might not match. An example I can think of is airports. So f. ex. Airline companies usually have quite different customer values and “why’s” than the shops in the airport or the airport itself. The airport itself has an interest in you being there and basically shopping, meaning that they would not have any interest in designing a security check where you could pinpointedly estimate when exactly to be there, so you could walk through and walk straight to the plane. The airline company, on the other hand, is usually trying to provide you an on time service as fast and pleasant as possible. The more disaligned these two are – the worse the quality of the product – Paris CDG airport (for those who know it), is probably the world champion at this.

An example from my life (read this, as this is a more complex learning and more examples might help)

In the security alarm company, the guys who were installing and maintaining the alarms on the ground were independent contractors, who through some (surely complex) model of payment that I never was explained of course, would be paid the installation fee and a portion of the service fee per month (this is very the real money was, of course, as any subscription based service will tell you). On the other hand, the contractor was himself responsible for maintaining and servicing his clients specifically on behalf of the whole brand. The customer would know only one company, and when calling the customer service centre, where I sat, would speak to us as one. I would take a complaint or request, feed it into the system, and the installer/contractor in the end was responsible for delivery. The problem, of course is that sometimes these incentives can be dis-aligned, depending on customer behaviour, and the why of different parts

F. ex. If an installer saw his “why” as providing a technical installation, that is quite different than “providing the feeling of safety”. If the customer value was the “price of a smoke alarm hooked up to an alarm centre” as opposed to “having an maintenance guy that knows me and will listen to my concerns”, that is different too. Now – compare that to the why of the head office itself or the customer value that I believe I am providing on the phone. Imagine if on the phone I am delivering what in theory is a good product – “providing the feeling of safety with a local guy you know and trust”, and the installer believes he is delivering “a good technical installation at a good price”. Both can be quality products. But co-delivered, the result, if disaligned, will lead to a quality complaint.

Why it matters?

It matters for two reasons. Firstly because a strong belief in the why of the organization, internally and externally, gives the organization its strength to grow as well as strength to overcome difficulty. If this why is aligned that builds trust and opportunities for co-delivering growth and value. As for the coordination of the customer value this lies at the heart of putting the customer first. Alignment will lead to better quality, stronger and more promoters, and simply – growth.

AIESEC context (skip this if you aren’t so interested in those specifics):

In AIESEC, every Exchange experience is co-delivered. That means that automatically there is an organizational “Why” of the sending entity, and an organizational “Why” of the incoming entity. If a Turkish IT Engineering student is coming to Hungary to an IT startup – is they why of this experience co-delivered and aligned? Are we on the same page of what kind of leadership we are trying to develop through the experience, and why that is relevant to Hungary, Turkey – or both? At the same time, is the customer value for the Turkish student corresponding to the customer value of the Hungarian company? These are 4 circles. And when they are aligned, we deliver powerful leadership development experiences and our customers are happy. When they are not – we don’t – simple as that. Practically, it actually means (what we already know) that “matching“ is not only a question of skills or competencies, but of experiences.

My leadership journey the last 2 months (2/4)

This is the second part of the main leadership learning I had in the past two months. Missed the first part? See here 

Clarity of purpose in a sub- or specific product

What is it?

This is very connected to the above mentioned point. It simply means that every single product that is rolled out in the market, has to have its own “why” that is connected to and derived from the overall organizational why. An obvious way for this to happen is if there is an embedded why in the product development and if it is a clear requirement that this has to be formulated clearly and convincingly, internally and externally, before any product is launched or run. A simple example is to have a product description that includes the Why of the product itself.

Example from my life (just skip if you don’t care)

I will go back to the same company as above. There would be new versions launched all the time, obviously. But often, it was not so clear to explain the independent why to the customer externally of the product. Internally, sometimes, the customer value was more strongly on other products than the newly launched ones, and the organizational value was unclear on both. It might be clear that alarms in general brought a feeling of safety. But why would this specific alarm have a specific type of safety? An example could be an alarm that worked even if electricity or the phone system was down. A point would be how that alarm ensured the why to a higher extent. But instead it was often marketed internally and externally in terms of costs/campaigns etc. If you were a product expert and long in the company you might know the specific why of the sub product, but if you were new or not a technical expert, you would usually just assume. And as it was an assumption, after a while it became bland, uninspiring and mundane.

Why it matters?

As it is actually a part of the embedding, many of the reasons are the same as above – keeping the organization true to itself, reinforcing itself and keeping everyone happy. In addition it is crucial for product understanding. Because in the end, all sub and specific products are the ones actually competing in the market – very rarely a general product. You don’t look to buy “a car”, normally, but you look between two different Sedans – f. ex. So if you don’t understand the specific why of the Sedan (in addition to the customer value), then you cannot distinguish yourself organizationally from the other Sedan – only on customer value perhaps (ie. price etc.)

AIESEC context (skip this if you aren’t so interested in those specifics):

It is easy to say that “By going on exchange you challenge your world view, learn about other cultures, develop self-awareness and learn about the world. It is less easy to explain and understand exactly what a Turkish IT Engineering graduate would learn by going on a internship in an IT startup company in Hungary, as opposed to what a Swiss student of Marketing would learn by going on an internship in an NGO in Ghana working on Child rights. Why, in terms of leadership development, are we trying to offer one experience or the other? Is it to impact the IT industry in Turkey? Or in Hungary? To create more entrepreneurs? To expose Ghanian NGOs with perspectives of Swiss marketing? Or to impact the way Swiss young people think of human rights? The first step is to ask these questions.

My Leadership journey the last 2 months (1/4)

My journey – leadership development in the Global Office

Six months – don’t they go by in a jiffy?

Today (written Tuesday 18^th Dec)  we had the second day of our AIESEC International Team days. 21 people, all together, for the first time in over two months. And suddenly we are off – to a million different directions, in our own reflections. My boss today retold what of course in theory I have heard before, but which resonated very strongly today. It is about the leadership journey and development that happens inside as a result of being put in difficult, challenging and uncomfortable situations on the outside. The theory is always there, but I guess like with any theory, sometimes it strikes more authentically than other times. Today it hit home with me. Like a home run in the last inning of World Series final.

We were sharing 3 moments each today, not of strategy or tactics, not of AIESEC or of exchange. 61 moments of our journeys during the last 8 weeks. 61 images of emotions. Of feeling great. Or awful. Hardship and friendship. Of success – and of failure. And of dealing with it all. Questions asked, and many not answered. I guess – it resonated a lot today. Suddenly I realised that in the last 2 months I have grown a lot. I have learnt a lot. I think I have learnt about things that I came to AI for – 20 months ago. Global Strategy of a head office. Perhaps it sounds superficial or strange, and I wouldn’t know how to describe it clearly yet – hopefully soon I will, but learning how a global association really works, somehow, and how to drive things. One year ago, I remember looking for external literature on the topic of global headquarter strategy, and except some academic dribble, could not really find anything useful. I guess that those that actually know something useful about this, are actually too busy doing the job and accomplishing something great, instead of writing academic thesis about it for a narrow audience.

It took me something like 14-18 months in my role on AI to start truly understanding and seeing some of these things – which I guess goes to show that a 2-year role is not just about “spending much more time in AIESEC and a huge commitment”, but actually about having the chance to learn something much more complex and profound than perhaps most other roles. In AIESEC we always talk about learning fast and delivering in one year. Personally, I think I am quite a fast learner and I have been delivering quite well from the start in my role. Certain understandings and realisations, however, are only appearing and crystalizing themselves now.

The last few weeks I have realized four things, which I think are quite universal actually, and not just “AIESEC” insights – although they came through that. Some of these insights might seem very obvious, I guess all insights are once they are insights, but my experience tells me they are not at all. I will make each of them a blogpost the next few days - as I don't want to overload the reader with all at once.

1. The first, which I wrote about in a post a few weeks ago is the “Embedded Why”.
2. The second is about importance of clarity of purpose of sub/specific products – not just overall organization.
3. The third is about how a quality product that is co-delivered between separate business units requires coordination both on the customer value side and on the organizational purpose side (don’t worry, I will try to explain).
4. And the fourth is about how the product of an organization itself has a specific impact on the people working on that product, because it has specific attributes – and that one needs to know the uniqueness of those connections (between the product and the people) to identify and build those people’s experiences. Everything else you can read about in a text book, and might actually be quite generic. Problem is – that depending on the product itself, it might be completely irrelevant (don’t worry again, I will try to explain)

For each of the four I will use the following pattern:

• What is it?
• An example from my own life (I will mostly stick to one specific completely non-AIESEC work experience, which I think is quite universal)
• Why it matters?
• AIESEC context

Happy reading! I would much appreciate your comments if you have any.

The “embedded Why”.

What is it?

I already tried to explain this in a previous non-elegant post. I guess, in the end, it’s simple. Actually, I think this is what many companies try to do through their “values”. But actually I don’t think that works unless the values are directly connected to the purpose of the product and the business itself. I mean, it is very straightforward. It just means that inside all your operational processes and actions on the ground level, there are key milestones, questions and hurdles related to the why of the organization itself, which directly connects action to purpose.  An simple example is to integrate customer feedback into daily operations themselves, and not separate them out as a different operation. Or to ask key check questions related to the purpose.

Example from my life (just skip if you don’t care)

I used to work for a security alarm company, in the customer complaints department. Now, the purpose of this company was usually not communicated so clearly anyway, but I always assumed it to be something around providing the feeling of safety and comfort. If that is the case, then a key point should have been in the customer complaints department to evaluate “how safe does the customer feel?”. Or for the sales department to evaluate – would we help this customer feel safer with this system (and I am not talking about scare-tactics here), just the simple question.

But what happened instead, on the sales, I guess, is that the customer segmentation for sure focused on “customers that might feel unsafe” – like elderly people or so – but that the process itself was not so focused on actually ensuring they felt safer, but rather on the conversion of the sale itself, whether they felt safer or not. The follow up, and upgrade system as well, very much linked to the same. The segmentation and strategy might be there, but it’s not embedded. So on one hand the organizational purpose is there, and probably stated at seminars and conferences in the company. On the other hand, it is not embedded.

Why it matters?

When the Why is embedded, organization purpose is clear to everyone, every day, without anyone having to ever really explain it. And it helps refine and improve the understanding of the Why on a daily level, at every level of the organization. It motivates everyone who is working in the organization to do more, to be better. When it is not embedded, the result is the opposite. The theoretical “why” can easily be forgotten – or worse – corrupted, at any level of the organization. Even one business unit can turn rotten and spread like a cancer throughout, or simply exist as non-performing.

The understanding of this why, and it’s value in the world and to the customer is naturally not refined on an everyday level, as it is not present every day. Therefore the organizational purpose is detached from the market it operates in, which means oblivion or irrelevance over time. Usually resulting in lack of sales and, eventually, closure. And thirdly, people will not really feel connected to the organization. Because even if the organizational why in theory is good, the daily operational why is missing, and therefore cynicism sets in. This leads to lack of retention etc.

AIESEC context (skip this if you aren’t so interested in those specifics):

In AIESEC it would mean that at the every process, at every team, EB and MC meeting, at every growth chart, at every strategic discussion, the question about “what type of leadership development experience are we trying to provide?” would appear. Alternatively, it would be an evaluation of that question – ie. “are we providing experience XYZ”.

Clarity of the why - in theory and practice

The most important "project" of our term as AIESEC International this year is to bring clarity and belief in the why of our organization.

Up until now we are driving this at every interaction in the organization, at conferences, at summits, at country visits, at virtual calls, and all communication. And I think it is a very important and right strategy. We are feeling the results, as the organization is taking it in, and responding to it. But, of course, in an organization of 80,000 young people, rotating on a yearly basis, it takes time - a lot of time - and it's a process, not an end state.

Last week it came to my mind, that there is another way. It is not instead, but in addition. Because one thing is to talk about and clarify the why and support change in operations and motivation as a result. For it to trickle down and spread.

Another way - perhaps simpler and more powerful is just to provide operational tools where it's embedded. Then instead of people comparing practical operations with a theoretical why it will be opposite. The theoretical why will reinforce what's already there in the operations.

Let me explain. Here is the clarity and the why.

1. AIESEC envisions peace and fulfillment of humankind's potential.
2. As an organization we believe in a constant and fundamental shift in the world through better leadership.
3. Therefore we provide leadership to students and graduates, so that they can be equipped to impact the world. We define leadership broadly, through values, skills, management ability, cultural understanding, execution ability.
4. We develop these leadership skills by (1) taking a professional internship or (2) volunteering experience abroad or (3) working in teams to deliver these experiences or (4) lead teams and manage the organization through that.
5. We know from our organizational past that these experiences are powerful and that (1) AIESEC should grow its physical and virtual reach to provide more of these experiences, that (2) AIESEC really must have the ability to actually deliver on entrepreneurial and responsible leadership, and (3) that a collaborative environment high quality experiences can be delivered.
6. We ensure that our programmes are defined to develop entrepreneurial and responsible leadership through operational definitions, we ensure that all experiences are co-delivered in collaboration, and we make sure that we measure the quantity and the quality of experiences provided.

Hmmm. Clear. Kind of. But it's still theory.

The Embedded Why
When I plan an exchange experience I start by asking the following questions:

1. What kind of leadership development am I trying to provide through this Exchange and why do I want to deliver that impact on a young person to come here?
2. What kind of impact can that development have on my country/the world/issues?
3. How can that experience provide customer value to an organization providing that experience and fundamentally deliver an immediate value to the student experiencing it?
4. What leadership will I, or anyone working on delivering this experience and providing this customer value learn?

These questions repeat - and are evaluated - regularly. In planning, at sales, at delivery, at arrival, during the internship, after and reported upon throughout.

The session above when I hear it after having delivered one exchange? It's clear - because it is just reinforcing operations.

I think by embedding the why in operations, in a simple way, the clarity becomes obvious. And it won't be hard to remind people - as it will be part of the feedback loop into the organization itself.

Now - how to implement?