Do we need the title “Business Partner” to be a partner?
Let me start by giving credit to a peer of mine who reminded me of this blog post long since drafted and patiently waiting for its day to be made public. It began with a conversation around teaming and leadership. What resonated with me was the tactical use of the word partner in titles.
It’s seen all over the corporate world in titles such as IT business partner and HR business partner. Pretty much everyone that isn’t directly aligned to the business unit as a leader is called a business partner. Yet it is perhaps in the name of the function and the expectations that it drives where we find most problems arise. In short, we don’t need partners. We need players.
Sports
My sports analogies tend to be pretty bad since I’m not exactly a super athlete nor do I spend much time following sports. That said, I do recognize that on a sports team there are various roles and responsibilities. Many parts that work together as a cohesive unit.
There are the leaders on the sideline that strategized from afar. There are the leaders on the field that drive play by play execution of those strategies. And there are players that both follow the lead and make ad hoc critical decisions when there is a need to deviate from the strategy.
Each player and every leader is important. They’re all part of an ecosystem and the most effective teams master putting each of those players together in the most efficient and optimized manner such as to drive towards a shared goal.
Avengers
Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a massive Marvel fan and I’ve watched every movie in the franchise multiple times. So forgive me for this one.
The Avengers came together over the years as a result of a series of problems. Each member of The Avengers was highly equipped to solve some of those problems. There were several episodes, or comic books, where there was one superhero and one specific problem to solve but The Avengers came to light when the problem became too big for any one of the superheroes to solve alone.
Once The Avengers came together, it was no longer relevant what their history was as much as it was relevant how they worked together to solve the problem. They all brought something to the table, and for the most part they all recognized Captain America and Tony Stark as leaders of the Avengers. But each of these people brought their unique skills to the table AND contributed to strategic planning for the issue they were trying to solve.
Corporate World
The corporate environment is not at all like either of these two scenarios. Hierarchies in structures have created in so many ways inefficient teaming. Individual behaviors are driven so much by the title on their business card, their level within the organization, or the particular background they bring to their role.
As a result, we have the proliferation of titles such as business partner. Have you ever thought about the significance of that title? In what world must you add the word partner to someone’s title to encourage the right behavior? And are you trying to encourage the business with which the individual is partnering or are you trying to encourage the individual?
If the title was something that did not include the word partner, would you only let the person in the room for a few minutes instead of the entire meeting? Is there an alternative to a partner mentality that is so negative that you use the word partner to excise that mentality? And if I do not include the word partner in my title, do you assume I am not partner-like? Perhaps I’m being a bit dramatic but I think you get the point.
Whether we are partners, players, or leaders there are more effective ways to nurture a successful team beyond the addition of an arbitrary word to a title. Consider the strength, skills, and perspective of individuals. How can we coax out the value of those unique attributes for the benefit of the team?
Tips for moving from being an invited “partner” to a needed player
1. When you have that thought or opinion, say it.
How often have you been in a meeting but left without sharing a thought that came to mind which you felt was brilliant, or at least relevant? Perhaps it was a meeting with peers or superiors in which a topic came up that was outside of your expertise. Maybe it felt safer to stay in your lane and not speak up.
So often, fear of embarrassment or perhaps the fact that the topic was outside of our expertise keeps us from sharing. Even more likely, the culture of the company was such that no one even acknowledged our presence during such a topic. Too often we are known solely for our role as stated on our business cards.
Playing it safe and not sharing our thoughts doesn’t benefit anyone. As the saying goes, no guts no glory, so throw caution to the wind and say what’s on your mind. You’ll never know what can come of your idea unless you send it out into the world.
2. Ask a question in every meeting
In every meeting, regardless of the topic, ask a question. Someone I respect is very good at doing this effectively. To be perfectly honest at first I found it a bit strange, but I can’t argue with the fact that it works.
Initially it reminded me of some of my classmates in business school that simply wanted to be heard. Frankly some of those classmates barely listened to the conversation at all. They certainly didn’t acknowledge what had been said by fellow classmates.
This colleague however makes it clear that they listen to the conversation. They absorb the content and they craft the question in a way that both demonstrates their understanding of the topic and also pushes the conversation forward. This is a skill that I think every leader needs to learn.
You are in the room because you bring a unique point of view. You can make us better. Have you asked the right questions with a fresh perspective?
3) DON’T leave your hat or jacket at the door
I get kind of annoyed when I hear the term “leave your jacket at the door”. It is usually used when people want you to come into the room as part of a team to solve a problem. It’s not that the intention isn’t just but perhaps short sighted.
The fact is, I actually want my leaders to bring their expertise into the room. I want them to come in and represent their particular towers or functions. I just don’t want that expertise or the views of their particular towers to prevent them from thinking about the problem more comprehensively. I don’t want them so focused on their tower that they can’t see the problem from a bigger point of view.
When they enter the room, I want their number one team to be the team in the room and not the team that they represent. I want them to bring that hat or jacket in the room with them, but set it on the back of their chair. Your hat or jacket is NOT you. Your title is not you. You matter because you bring a different perspective individually AND you represent your team.
We are not defined by the titles on our business cards. The words printed there do not empower us nor should they stifle our ability to contribute to the team. Regardless of the labels attached to us, each of us brings ideas, questions, experiences, and a unique perspective which allows us to contribute to a conversation beyond the scope of our title.
Remember, being a better leader and creating a more consciously inclusive environment is good for your people and good for the company.
Giving feedback is critical to development. Especially now.
In recent years much has been said about diversity and inclusion. Studies continue to show that more diverse companies are both more profitable and faster growing. We are finally starting to have open and honest conversations about what can be done to improve racial and gender equity within the corporate environment.
I started thinking about this a lot recently as I overheard a conversation about a particular person’s performance. The comments, though not aggressively so, were negative. It was clear that the manager did not feel this employee was performing at an acceptable level.
I asked the manager if he had told the employee about these issues and if it was clear to the employee what she needed to do to improve to an acceptable level of productivity. Based upon the response that I got, it became quite clear there had not been the level of conversation that was warranted. The manager was not regularly meeting with the employee nor had he ever sat down to explicitly talk through the performance challenges and lay out an agreed upon improvement plan.
My suspicion is that this happens a lot and the end result is that individuals are not coached and instead end up being terminated. (Let me be very clear here: I am not a researcher nor have I done a study. This is a blog of reasonable OPINION.) A further suspicion is that if you are already part of a group that does not feel engaged socially or connected politically within a company your opportunity to thrive will be diminished. If on top of that you have a bad manager your chances of success are next to naught.
Could cultural differences lead to missed opportunities to learn from each other? When you really break it all down the question becomes is diversity and inclusion as much of a talent management and leadership issue as it is about racial bias and historical prejudices? Do we lose people of color in corporate America due to bad management more so than outright bad behaviors? What factors are contributing to these issues?
1. Everyone is walking on eggshells
I’ve heard from some that they are afraid of giving honest feedback to women or people of color because they do not want to appear sexist or racist. The argument is that the world has become so politically correct that providing feedback is a risk. These individuals often feel more comfortable discussing their colleagues in a forum where random and unrelated people can hear.
Instead of the individual getting the constructive feedback that can help them improve, they are simply getting the negative about their performance from coffee room conversations. This can lead to feelings of isolation. Sharing negative feedback with their peers instead of them directly has a negative impact on the reputation of that person.
2. Secondhand feedback is never as valuable.
Another phenomenon I have witnessed is that feedback is deliberately delivered through alternative channels. In this scenario, individuals who do not feel comfortable directly providing feedback to someone will instead have another leader deliver the feedback. They may not explicitly ask for this delivery but in telling a particular person that they know has a relationship with the employee, they know that the feedback will get back to that individual.
In many cases, they’re showing their subconscious bias by sharing directly with white men while avoiding women or people of color. This ensures that the problem will continue because neither party is learning how to deal with the other directly. The individuals being put in the middle serve as a barrier between the manager and employee.
Feedback is never nearly as effective when watered down through a chain. The addition of an intermediary increases the likelihood that the message will not be delivered as intended and adds the perception that the received message is flawed. Furthermore, any reaction by the employee to the feedback through this back channel will be deemed a reaction to the feedback when it may be a reaction to the channel.
3. Bad management has a greater impact on those “not in the room”
All employees need to have the right amount of engagement and interaction with their leaders to be successful in a job. Direct feedback, regular conversations around performance and objectives, as well as verbal and written praise when appropriate are all things that are important to the development of a professional. Not spending time on coaching and development sessions leads to an inability to fully understand the capabilities of your employee.
Most companies spend a lot of time recruiting but much less time onboarding, training, developing, and engaging. For employees that do not have another network within the company this can be much more detrimental. At the same time, employees who have broader networks within the company have vastly larger opportunities for exposure.
I spoke with a woman leader years ago who told me that on average she had 10 minutes per month of direct one on one time with her manager. She never had conversations about her career aspirations. Her manager knew of the skills that she had relative to her current role but had no clue of all of the other things she had done in the past that might be applied to different opportunities. He did not really know her.
This particular woman was never in the same locker room at the gym as her boss. She did not tend to hang out at the same bar over the weekend. She wasn’t often invited to lunch with the guys. So all of those other opportunities her male colleagues had to expose their personalities, their strengths, their experiences were not available to her.
Her manager might have been just as bad of a manager to all of his employees. However the impact on this person was multiplied due to the fact that as a woman of color her social networks within the firm were limited. Therefore, when a new opportunity came up this employee had very little chance of getting that opportunity because she had less likelihood of even knowing about it.
Strategies for Building an Inclusive Environment
The most effective managers ensure that every individual on their team is being included in the conversation. It is through inclusion that we can tap into the benefits of a diverse working environment. Here are a few tips for being a better manager and building a more inclusive environment.
1. Build and manage around the full employee lifecycle. From hire to retire, everyone is on a tour of duty and should have clear expectations, regular connections and engagement, and a respectful exit when that time comes
2. Provide feedback as much as possible directly to the individual. If uncomfortable doing so face to face, practice. And potentially use other mechanisms like written feedback.
3. Try not to share feedback on one of your employees with a peer or superior before you have shared it with the employee. That’s not fair to the employee and does not show strength. In the end, you are making both you and your employee look bad
4. Look around the room more. At lunch, in meetings, and around the coffee maker. See if there are individuals from your team that are never there. Find them, engage with them, and loop them in.
5. Expand your network and your skills base. If you are uncomfortable handling issues with a particular race, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation, that is not their fault. It is YOUR issue to solve. Read up, talk to people, ask HR for help.
Building an inclusive and respectful environment is up to everyone, not just the “diverse”. As leaders we need to treat everyone fairly and ethically not only to develop the potential of each employee, but also to serve as an example to everyone with whom we come in contact.
Ultimately, being a better leader and creating a more consciously inclusive environment is good for your people and good for the company.
Over the years I have often said that what you see is what you get when it comes to me. My authenticity is perhaps my most consistently recognized trait. Some will love me and some may be confused by me, but pretty much everyone that has worked for, or with me would say the same thing about me. I would hope that part of the good would be imprinted on companies where I have worked and within organizations I have led.
Organizational culture has a profound and long lasting effect on performance. The culture of an organization will develop whether it is guided intentionally or not and once it has formed it becomes very difficult to change. And boy have we found how critical this is! In a year where so many office workers were forced to work from home, away from their teams, the strength of company culture has been tested more than ever.
What is driving the culture of your company? Did it extend to a largely remote work environment?
Studies on culture point to a powerful phenomenon where, over time, organizations take on the characteristics of their leaders. This concept of the often unconscious influence of the leadership team is known as the ‘shadow of the leader’ though given the sometimes negative view of the word “shadow”, I prefer the concept of “imprint”. The behavior of the senior team has a direct impact on the performance and productivity of the entire organization.
In his article The Organizational Shadow Impact, leadership and change consultant Torben Rick discusses the occurrence of the ‘shadow of the leader’ and how it can be used to influence organizational culture in both a positive and negative way. Rick writes “The head of an organization or a team casts a shadow that influences the employees in that group. The shadow may be weak or powerful, yet it always exists. It is a reflection of everything the leader does and says.”
Walk the Talk
Employees take their cues on what is important from the leadership team. The leaders within an organization must model the desired behaviors and let others see the company’s desired values in action. High performance leadership teams understand that their behavior casts a shadow across the entire organization which affects its culture. In order to be effective leaders they must be aware of the shadows they cast and learn to have their actions match their message.
“The culture of any organization is shaped by the worst behavior the leader is willing to tolerate.” writes Rick.
How would you say that your imprint is shaping the culture of your organization?
When a company makes statements about desired values and behaviors without modeling them within the leadership team, employees see a lack of integrity. Not only is it unlikely that employees will adopt the desired values and behaviors, the message being received is likely to affect the organization’s culture in a negative way. In order to build a winning culture the top teams must be seen as living the values and walking the talk.
Making a Good Imprint
The most important cultural influences come from the top starting with the CEO and their team. The highest level of leadership will influence their teams, who will make their own imprints and influence their reports in turn. The core values of an organization must come from the top.
While each level of leadership must be responsible for the imprint they themselves make, how effective their influence is will be either limited or empowered by the prints being cast by higher levels of leadership. A high performing leadership team will imprint resilience and positive culture throughout the entire organization.
What intentional or accidental imprints are affecting your organization? Are they weak or are they strong? Here are five things to watch to gauge effectiveness and look for opportunities to improve.
1. Teaming
An organization is a collection of individuals who are organized into teams. These teams must work in harmony with other teams as a cohesive unit which is cooperative, responsive, and functional. High performing organizations understand the value of teamwork and building a successful team requires work.
Organizational leaders need to model the traits of good teamwork. Instead of seeing themselves as the one in charge, they need to include themselves as part of their team to demonstrate the importance of working as a group. There is further opportunity to model positive qualities when interacting with leaders of other teams and when working on cross functional teams.
2. Sharing
Sharing on an organizational scale most often refers to the sharing of information. In an environment where knowledge can be viewed as power there can be a tendency to hoard information, especially when the culture supports it. In order to be responsive, inventive, and functioning at their best an organization needs a free flow of information.
It is important that leaders prioritize the dissemination of information to their reports to demonstrate the importance of information sharing. As decision makers release information to the leadership team, it must be delivered to all team members in a timely manner. Failure to share information may force people to rely on the grapevine which can not only be inaccurate, but gives the impression that there is a need for secrecy.
This watch area is incredibly important in the new heavily remote work environment.
3. Caring
Every company wants employees that care about coworkers, clients, and organizational success instead of having employees that are only showing up for a paycheck. So how can an organization make employees care? Caring is a two way street. If an organization expects employees to care about organizational goals and values it must show employees that they are cared about.
If the leadership team is making employees feel that they are nothing more than a means to an end, employees will have little motivation to care about the organization they work for. It is important for team leaders to consistently demonstrate that people come first. Caring employees feel that the organization cares about their wellbeing and recognizes that they are human beings with real lives outside of their places of work.
4. Honesty
Honesty is perhaps one of the most important values that any company needs to embody. If an organization doesn’t conduct itself with honesty and integrity it can’t expect its employees to be honest either. A company must live the value and be transparent and honest with all company stakeholders.
If the organization and the leadership team consistently demonstrate honesty, then the only thing employees need in order to adopt the value themselves is a little trust. Team leaders need to show employees that they are trusted to do the right thing. Honesty can’t grow when employees are micromanaged in an environment of suspicion.
5. The Little Things
Organizational leaders can make a major imprint on the organization by living the core values of the company and making sure their interactions with employees and other stakeholders consistently demonstrate those values. Some ways that team leaders can do this are structured and obvious. Other ways are more subtle and yet just as effective.
My out of office reply says “If this is urgent, important, and can only be addressed by me, you should still contact one of my direct reports. Otherwise please follow up with me when I am back from my holiday.” The reality is that of course I am available to take critical calls. However, it is really important that I demonstrate my respect for time away from work. It also signals that I trust my team and truly want to highlight and promote potential successors.
Company culture is an integral part of organizational success, yet there are no easy answers when it comes to shaping it. Leaders must see themselves as role models and understand that what they do, and how they do it, affects either with intention or by accident their imprint on the organization. The leadership team needs to have a solid understanding of the core values that the company wishes to embody and then live those values by demonstrating them every day in everything they do.
How strong is your imprint?
Be well. Lead on.
Adam
Covid is still an issue. Please stay safe and wear a mask.
Adam L. Stanley
Connections Blog Technology. Leadership. Food. Life.
Being an early adopter has its perils, but sitting on the sidelines thinking no major action is needed can be the kiss of death for any company navigating disruptive waters
In my last blog, I reviewed the magnitude of change swamping commercial real estate and how our firm has established four goals to keep our teams focused on delivering the most practical systems and tools for our buck, while also embracing the best cutting-edge innovations.
We touched on the speed of change (in case you haven’t noticed) and I raised the specter of quantum computing, which will make even millennials feel like dinosaurs in the digital age.
Search quantum computing and you’ll find out what I’m talking about. For the purpose of this blog, think of it as computers teaching each other to analyze problems more like humans. Quantum computing is to today’s computing what the IPhone 10 is to a pocket watch from 1920. All of the big players in tech, including IBM, Google and Microsoft, are in the global race to build the world’s first practical quantum computer, and the prestigious journal Science said Google expected to have a 50-qubit quantum computer by the end of this year.
Once quantum computing is made widely available, it will spark the next industrial-super revolution, which will be many times bigger than that caused by the birth of personal-computing in 1984, or the rise of the searchable internet in 1995.
Meanwhile, while we wait for this seismic shift to occur, the digital revolution is quickly gaining momentum. Take data for a moment (bear with me; it really is interesting): In 2010, you might have produced a gigabyte (1,000 megabytes) of data in a week or two – or even a month. That’s the equivalent to about 200 songs, 10 episodes of the Game of Thrones, or roughly 34,000 emails.
Today, an enterprise user produces 60 gigabytes per hour! So, before lunch, the average employee produces about 400 gigabytes. Multiply that by the hundreds of millions of people creating data every day and you can see how 90% of the world’s data was created in the last two years.
With such mind-blowing speed of change in mind, think of companies like Facebook, Google, and Amazon. They only got started in the mid-90s, not long ago considering their ginormous size and power. And, just as these new giants rose up, other iconic brands were taken out by disruptive change, including:
– Kodak, which had more digital photography patents than any other company;
– US Steel Mills, with the highest quality and tremendous customer loyalty;
– Many national hotel brands that had consultants hooked on their points and rewards, and;
– Blockbuster, which is perhaps everyone’s favorite story of a giant that was killed by a fledgling startup.
As we move deeper in to the information age, the forces of change will continue to broadside unlikely companies. No matter what period in modern history we’re talking about, what’s always separated winners from losers is what leaders do at critical inflection points that demand change.
Will we be Blockbuster or Netflix? That’s top-of-mind question for leadership at my current company, which refuses to fall into any complacency traps (not in our DNA!). Should we be worried? Not if we focus on value, which to our firm means: a strong bias for action and results; value created by insights not transactions; and giving our people the right platform to drive growth. That, and always keeping an eye out for the next big thing!
Be well. Lead On. Adam
Adam L. Stanley Connections Blog Technology. Leadership. Food. Life.
This blog was coauthored with Leif Maiorini, a tremendous leader within my team at Cushman & Wakefield. These are our views and not necessarily those of the company.
Your “citizens” do not need another arms race
You’re probably familiar with terms like “arms race” and “mutually assured destruction.” This refers to the Cold War period (1947 – 1991) between the U.S. and then-Soviet Union, who stockpiled nuclear arsenals to keep each other at bay. Now, it is true that none were ever deployed. Thus, we have two countries with lots of dead/decaying warheads, which is a costly mess to unwind economically and ecologically.
The net result is a great deal of value destruction (trillions of dollars). Driven by differences in social, economic and political points of view, their mutual desire to suppress the expansion of the other’s ideology is likely one of the greatest wastes of economic, political and social capital ever enacted.
The result was driven by fear, fear that the other would have a strategic advantage or a capability that would be used to tip the scale, changing the balance of power and resulting in global expansion of their opponent’s interests. The panic that one party would have an advantage over the other led to a considerable amount of irrational investment that would only be apparent in hindsight, long after the capital was spent, the leaders gone, and the stakeholder value destroyed.
You’ll hear the same term — “arms race” — applied to corporate America a lot right now. Nuclear war is far more serious than a concept like acqui-hiring, yes. But the arms race in corporate America, mostly seen through M&A, has the same root: irrational fear that the competition is getting ahead and need to take bold action to ensure that they have a defensive position. Far too often, ego-driven, growth-seeking leaders allow their personality get in the way of strong decision-making and experience (which presumably got them to that perch).
Many corporations are in their own version of a “cold war.” Afraid that their competitors might have an advantage, they rush into risky investments that usually result in a destruction of value for their stakeholders. Few companies get the synergy promised in their business case when they acquire another entity. More often than not, the acquiring company overpays and the culture clash results in a type of organ rejection that jettisons the best minds from the combined entity leaving the shareholders with a fraction of the anticipated value.
When you make decisions from a place of fear, power and ego, it can cloud your decision-making massively. The decisions that result are sub-optimal at best and essentially destroy companies at worst.
A good example here would be Hewlett Packard. They bought a company called Autonomy for $11.7 billion in 2011; because of accounting issues around that deal, they had to take a $8.8 billion write-down, which knocked out all their profits for an entire quarter. Some people have called HP and Compaq the worst merger in tech history. Meg Whitman has engineered an incredible turnaround there, but the company today is a much smaller version of what it was at peak.
Arms races rarely serve the best interests of “citizens”, in the case of corporations, our clients and customers. Thus, we believe we must seek first to understand unmet client demand and then invest in technologies and solutions that address those needs. We will not make technology investments from a position of fear, ego, or irrational impulse.
We continue to find partnering the most advantageous strategy for this rapidly changing space. With hundreds of start-ups entering the commercial real estate ecosystem each year, the ability to pivot and exploit the best solution is greater if you are able to partner. Few solutions offer true, differentiated capabilities and our clients dictate that we leverage and support a wide variety of solutions, often solutions that are seen as competing. This is difficult to do without an open, partnership approach.
We are a global real estate services company that leverages technology to increase the value we deliver to our citizenry. Acquiring a technology company does not make us a technology company, nor does it justify trading at multiples of revenue rather than EBITDA; thus it is possible that value is destroyed by most technology acquisitions. We look to strategic partnerships with aggregators like DMGI and Accruent as ways to support continued growth and investment in CRETech.
We continue to partner with innovative accelerators like MetaPropNYC, 1871 in Chicago, and Moderne Ventures to identify new players that could help us meet the needs of our clients as we work toward a POC as a Service model across our markets.
Our focus is on making our service lines more productive, creating a level of interconnectedness between them and our client, and providing the analytics that enable more effective decision making. Given that for most companies, real estate is their top (or second) largest expense, helping our customers get the greatest value from this investment is our top priority. .
So here’s the soapbox – Stop the arms race. The arms race described above — the Cold War version — certainly didn’t benefit any citizens. Companies have “citizens” too, those being clients and customers. So before you go out and make an irrational decision, ask a few questions:
What are the unmet client demands?
How should this demand be addressed? What are the solutions that create the greatest value?
Has this problem been solved? Is there something in the market (or a derivative market) that could help solve them?
What is the option that results in the greatest benefit to all parties and the greatest value for our customers?
What is the value of an acquisition, investment, or partnership? Who benefits? Are there competing solutions and will our strategy result in a transient, strategic, or little/no advantage for our stakeholders?
Would we be positioned to buy this market player? Is that the right decision?
What would that look like financially and culturally?
Are we buying this tech just to buy it, or is this serving a need and researched?
We believe that answering these questions, playing out the scenarios, and looking at the outcome with a high level of scrutiny will result in less acquisition activity, greater partnerships, and higher overall value for all involved.
Adam L. Stanley Connections Blog Technology. Leadership. Food. Life.
With such mind-blowing speed of change in mind, think of companies like Facebook, Google, and Amazon. They only got started in the mid-90s, not long ago considering their ginormous size and power. And, just as these new giants rose up, other iconic brands were taken out by disruptive change, including:
