Linda Hill explains how the digital workplace is generating
greater burdens on managers but also creating new opportunities to
shine. PLUS: Book excerpt.
Complex trends in globalization, demographic shifts, and new technologies are raising urgent challenges for managers on an everyday level. Because of the number of companies undergoing digital transformation, managers need to navigate an intense speed-to-market landscape while juggling virtual teams within and sometimes outside their organization.
This raises questions like: How will you innovate? How will you bring out the best ideas in your teams working together near and far? How will you drive change within the organization and the broader business ecosystem?
As Harvard Business School Professor Linda A. Hill and Kent Lineback write in the new preface to their book Being the Boss: The Three Imperatives for Becoming a Great Leader, first published in 2011 and reissued this spring, “Leadership has always been hard, and in a world in which the competitive rules are being upended, we know it's getting harder. We all need to keep learning and adapting.”
We asked Hill, the Wallace Brett Donham Professor of Business Administration, to discuss how managers can work faster, embrace digital transformation to cultivate collaboration within and beyond the organization, and build networks for innovation.
Martha Lagace: How can you as a manager guide your reports through a business world where speed-to-market is everything?
Linda A. Hill: In Being the Boss we describe three interrelated imperatives:
· Manage yourself.
· Manage your network.
· Manage your team.
It comes as no surprise that so many managers are overwhelmed and burned out these days. In our dynamic, competitive environment, speed matters. If managers do not develop their people so they can delegate to them, or if they do not turn their groups into agile teams able to learn and adapt together, then they cannot leverage themselves. If they cannot leverage themselves, they have no time to build relationships with their peers and bosses to get access to the resources their teams need to deliver. And let’s face it, reaching out and cultivating relationships in global companies often means staying up late or getting up early to cope with time zone challenges or living in airports sometimes being 50 percent of a manager’s time.
“IT COMES AS NO SURPRISE THAT SO MANY MANAGERS ARE OVERWHELMED AND BURNED OUT THESE DAYS.”
Many companies are working overtime to break down the silos in their organizations. But managers need to do their part and devote time and attention to aligning their interests and cultivating collaborations across the organization. Only when everyone understands the big picture and feels a part of it can they prioritize and focus together on that which is urgent and important to the enterprise.
Lagace: As you teach MBA students and Executive Education participants, are they describing new pressures that weren’t there before?
Hill: Leadership is truly getting more demanding. I don’t think anyone ever succeeded by him- or herself anyway, but for sure they don’t now.
In fact, the “managing your network” imperative that we address in Being the Boss is becoming as important to being a great leader as managing your team. C-suite executives tell us it is no longer enough to just be a value creator—that is, someone who is delivering value for today. If you want to be high potential, you also have to be a game changer—someone who is delivering value for tomorrow. Consequently, we need managers who build teams that are “collaborative-ready” and who can cultivate healthy relationships across the organization. In today’s world, horizontal collaborations are key if companies are to reap the benefits of digital transformation and platform plays, or deliver a differentiated end-to-end customer experience.
Another challenge we’ve seen for managers is that if they want to attract and retain top talent, they need to make sure the work is meaningful. There has to be a sense of shared purpose; managers need to answer not just what the team should or could be doing, but also why doing so matters. All of us, particularly the younger generations in the workforce, want to be in organizations where we can make a difference. If MBAs are to work hard and take the risks necessary for companies to thrive today, managers need to make sure team members can have an impact on an organization whose purpose they deeply care about.
Lagace: You’ve spoken recently about the importance of building ecosystems. What do you mean?
Hill: For innovation to happen and take hold nowadays, managers often need to build ecosystems, networks with those both inside and outside the organization. We are collecting data on how managers build partnerships, even with other industries, to gain insights into how to drive innovation in their organizations. For instance, a manager in the entertainment industry might be working with peers in pharmaceuticals or defense to accelerate the development of virtual reality capabilities.
In my work, I use the ethnographic methods of anthropology to study transformation as it takes place through shared mindsets and everyday behaviors and practices. With these methods—and with attention to ecosystems—we are watching “up close and personal” as managers build innovation labs or corporate accelerators to facilitate innovation in their companies. We are interested both in understanding how to most effectively build out these labs and accelerators and how to ensure that the innovations produced in these entities actually get integrated and scaled in the core business.
Lagace: How is the digital age helping or hurting new managers?
Hill: In class, when we talk about how to build a team, the discussion includes how to build a virtual team with different nationalities, languages, and diversity in the broadest sense.
“THERE ARE A NUMBER OF SPECIAL CHALLENGES ASSOCIATED WITH WORKING VIRTUALLY.”
There are a number of special challenges associated with working virtually. How do you build trust? Without mutual trust, it’s very hard to work together. We have not evolved as people as fast as the business world has required us to—to be able to innovate with people so different and far away from us. Research makes clear that, as people and colleagues, we much prefer firsthand evidence and direct experience with people to help us figure out whether they are trustworthy. New technologies do help, but there is still no substitute for face-to-face interactions.
It’s a human reality we all need to thoughtfully build into our work processes. There is a leader at a major automaker who realized there was no way his company could build a global brand unless everyone all met physically at least once. For sure, he had invested in the latest video and e-communication technologies. Still, he used a significant portion of his budget to have everyone meet together to develop a sense of shared purpose. It was important for them to practice new ways of thinking, working, and making decisions together if they were to fully embrace the rich diversity of culture, expertise, and experience the team represented.
As one manager in a global company put it, “Social media will never replace the dinner party.” Leaders are realizing that such investments are required to build healthy relationships. And, on this basis, global teams can work together virtually on any number of complex problems and exciting opportunities.
About the Author
Martha Lagace is a writer based in the
Boston area.
[Image: metamorworks]
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