The current pandemic has thrown into sharp relief the importance of both leadership and employee commitment. Where in the past the work of key workers has increasingly been defined in productive and quantitative terms the nation is not (literally) applauding their commitment. For small companies the commitment that can flow out of the relationship between leadership and engagement is key.

Management writer Daniel Pink has argued for some time that real performance flows out of intrinsic motivation and not material rewards and fear of sanctions. He argues that the key drivers of motivation are autonomy, mastery and purpose. Well, working from home has provided far more autonomy for most people. Remote working, to be successful, has required employees to assume a far greater mastery of their own work than previously when there were managers and processes to ensure visible compliance. The uncertainty of the crisis has exposed the fragility of economics and life, which has caused many people to think about the purpose of the work that they do and the lives that they lead. Organisations that have been able to align and re-purpose their businesses towards supporting others have gained much respect with employees and customers.

Key to surviving disruptive times is to start by shifting the organisational culture from what Argyris calls single loop learning; where people ask ‘how do we do things right?’ to the far more challenging double loop learning question of ‘what are the right things?’. This means to question fundamental assumptions about what we do and how we do it. In disruptive times, simply leaning harder upon established best practices may well prove disastrous. Evidence of this taking place often appears through people working harder but organisational performance continues to decline. When this happens its time to stop and apply double loop learning.

Some employees find adapting to new working practices deeply unsettling and this requires leadership that is not just visionary, but also caring. One of the great discoveries of this crisis has been that many people that were on very low wages with poor career prospects have seized this moment to step up and show, through their actions, that they can and will do more, if provided the opportunity and encouragement. Think about care workers, farm labourers and delivery drivers. My experience suggests that very often the most innovative and profitable ideas to improve performance are found within the company. If managers can create an environment where it is okay to question assumptions and speak up, rather than simply told to get on with their work, the results can be surprising. Whatever you have done before this crisis is a defining moment. Would you like to learn how to leverage your businesses core competence in new ways and build employee commitment? What kind of leader will you be? Let us help you be the best that you can be.

Develop and master core competencies in support of your management and leadership ambitions. The Staffordshire University MBA is designed to accelerate your professional and personal development and to contribute to the journey of being the best you can be. You can also study the MBA via our Level 7 Senior Leader Apprenticeship where you will also gain a Chartered Management Institute (CMI) Level 7 Diploma.

Angela Lawrence, Associate Dean, Staffordshire Business School

As the summer draws to a close and we pack away our well-worn flip flops, it’s good to reflect on the long, warm days that we have enjoyed outdoors, before the shorter days of Autumn set in. I recently spent some time browsing through photographs taken this year, to remind myself of the best of 2020. I came across two pictures that led me to ponder on how each one of us approaches life so differently.

Both pictures taken on the same day, within the same 10 minutes. Both taken at the same location. Both my grandsons, yet both with such different approaches to life. One a risk-taker who throws himself headfirst into everything, giving 100% and constantly on the lookout for the next challenge. The other a thinker, a complicated little soul who weighs the options up very carefully before making any decision and even then, approaches life cautiously, sometimes with some anxiety and trepidation. Can you tell which is which?

What this means for me is that I have learned to speak to them differently, to explore different activities that each may enjoy, to play different games with them and read them different stories before tucking them up into bed at night. I accept that they are very different and embrace and enjoy their unique personalities. I celebrate their individuality, encouraging them to be true to themselves and to live their life the way that they, and only they want to.

Don’t be a sheep

We are all unique, all different – let’s face it we are all made up of different DNA! As I welcome new students to the university this week for the start of their journey as independent learners, I’m at pains to remind them of this. I have spent many years welcoming freshers, excited to be beginning a new chapter in their life. Amongst the information and advice that I share to prepare them for the student journey ahead, is the video of a social experiment that I call Don’t be a Sheep.

The video never fails to make students smile and laugh. It depicts a young lady behaving the way that others around her do, just because she feels that she must. My advice to students is to be true to themselves and not to feel intimidated or pressurised by anyone else’s behaviour. I’m acutely aware that in today’s society there is a great deal of pressure from the media and social media, to be someone or something that you are not. Many have written about the phenomenon of social comparison and the ensuing mental health related issues and lack of self-esteem. 

Generation Z

Generation Z in particular seems to be challenged by continual obstacles in the path of individuality. This uber-connected cohort has spent a lifetime inundated with messages telling them how they should look, how they should behave and whom they should aspire to. The 2020 documentary film The Social Dilemma has gone further to heighten fears around the controlling influences of social media and the divide deepens between those who readily fall under the influence of social pressure and those who have the strength to follow their true self.

Something for everyone

The first few weeks at university provide an opportunity for students to get to know their housemates, their lecturers, their surroundings and their studies. Whoever you are and however you like to approach life, there will be something for you. A full range of societies to join and different teaching methods to accommodate different learning preferences – diversity is recognised and embraced in a way that many have never before experienced.

This is one of the reasons why I love working in higher education so much. I love to see confidence build, personalities develop, independence grow and life ambitions accomplished.

Live your own life

Steve Jobs famously told us “your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life”. I fly the flag for being yourself but I appreciate that not everyone has the confidence to do so. The beauty of university life is that support is always available for those who struggle with mental health issues or anxiety. We know that some find this new environment harder to adjust to than others. Don’t be afraid to reach out and be reassured that you are absolutely not alone in feeling this way.

I hope that my grandsons will continue to follow their own individual, unique paths through life – that people will accept them for who they are and that they will be confident to do things their own unique way. My message to students beginning their university journey is live your own life and follow your own path – you don’t have to look that way, you don’t have to dress that way, you don’t have to behave that way, you are unique, you are yourself and that’s okay! Be kind to yourself and be kind to others.

At Staffordshire Business School, we understand that business evolves with time and technology, so we are constantly adapting our learning strategies and courses to give you the best chance to get ahead of the competition when you graduate.

For 2021, we have developed four brand-new courses that follow contemporary themes such as sustainability, entrepreneurship and digital marketing:

BA (Hons) Finance and Business Enterprise
BA (Hons) Business Innovation and Entrepreneurship
BA (Hons) Business Management and Sustainability
BA (Hons) Digital and Social Media Marketing

Have a chat with the team and find out about the course

30th September 4.00 – 4.30 interested in finding out about the course? Come and meet some of the team for a quick chat – Sign up here eventbrite link

If you want to register for the Small Business leadership Programme sign up here http://smallbusinesscharter.org/small-business-leadership-programme/

For those enrolled on the course

Tuesday 6th October 3.00 – 3.30 Onboarding for those registered for the course – we will send you a meeting invite

Weds 7th October 4.00 – 4.30 – this is a back up event for anyone unable to make the event on Tuesday

Tuesday 13th October 3.00 – 4.30 Start of the course – we will send you a meeting invite

About the programme

The Small Business Leadership Programme supports senior leaders to enhance their business’s resilience and recovery from the impact of COVID-19. It helps small and medium-sized businesses to develop their potential for future growth and productivity.

Participants will develop strategic leadership skills and the confidence to make informed decisions to boost business performance.

The fully-funded 10 week programme will be delivered online by small business and enterprise experts from world-leading business schools.

The Small Business Leadership Programme is being delivered by a consortium of business schools accredited by the Small Business Charter (SBC), and supported by the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy.

Dr Andrew Taylor, Senior Lecturer, staffordshire business school

During disruptive times small scale can be a key advantage.  The management writer Mintzberg (1989) describes most small companies as either simple structures or adhocracies.  My research (Taylor 2013, 2019) indicates that in both cases innovation is central to their mission and survival.  The strength and the weakness of simple structures is that they are driven by one or two key individuals.  This both makes decision-making fast and flexible.  Adhocracies are project based, mission driven places, with little respect for traditional idea’s of good management practice, where inefficiencies are the price of high growth.  There is often a tendency, in both cases, as they grow, to define becoming professional as having more formal and robust processes.  The trouble is that as they seek order and stability, innovation and commitment often crashes as  resent a perceived loss of purpose or human commitment. 

During disruptive times it is often better to leverage the flexibility and commitment of peoples in smaller scale organisations to adapt, rather than seek to optimise.  Small companies, like speedboats, are fast and nimble compared to the large oil tankers of corporate business,.  Asking what are the right things, rather than how do I do things right Argyris (1991) is easier where best practices are less defined bureaucratically.

Small companies can most effectively do this through identifying their core competencies (Prahalad & Hamel 1990) .  Core competencies are the source of how you create value – those things that you do for your customers better than your competitors.  They:

1. Provide access to a wide variety of markets
2. Should make a significant contribution to the perceived customer benefits of the end product
3. Should be difficult for competitors to imitate.

Knowing these allows you to ask yourselves how they could, using what Gavetti (2011) calls associative thinking, be transferred into new, more distant, marketplaces. Managers are good at identifying opportunities that are cognitively close to their business, but need to learn to recognise similar underlying patterns in distant markets and make the cognitive leap.

Organisations, that we are familiar with, successfully doing this include Fuji-Film, Honda, Danone, Dyson and Virgin.

Often leaders of small companies familiar with doing this as anyway as a matter of survival.  Learning to use such knowledge to leverage the strength of organisation and its people, in a joined-up way, can, however, both transform the effectiveness and legitimise existing practices, such that small companies can harness their scale and people to flourish.

References

Argyris C. (1991), ‘Teaching Smart People to Learn’, Harvard Business Review, May – June.

Gavetti, G. (2011), ‘The New Psychology of Strategic Leadership’, Harvard Business Review, July -Aug.

Mintzberg, H. (1989), Mintzberg on Management: Inside Our Strange World of Organizations, New York, The Free Press.

Prahalad, C. K.  & Hamel, G. (1990), ‘The Core Competence of the Corporation’, Harvard Business Review, May-June.

Taylor, A. & Krouwel W. (2013), Taking Care of Business: Innovation, Ethics & Sustainability, Cluj-Napoca (Romania), Risoprint.

Taylor A. & Bronstone A. (2019), People, Place & Global Order: Foundations of a Networked Political Economy. London, Routledge.