Category Archives: Strategy

Struggling with data? It’s about how you think, not your technical toolbox

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More of our economic and social activity resides online than ever before, and more content continues to shift to the digital space. The amount of and types of data that organizations have access to continues to grow alongside this trend, meaning it is no longer possible for leaders to ignore data.

This data can be an enormous asset for organizations – if they know what to do with it.

It’s not enough to make investments in new technology and analytical talent any more.  Those investments are important, but unless business decision makers understand data and analytics and how they can be useful to the organization, the effort is wasted. Leaders and managers need to be able to answer the following question: what do we want to know?

To answer that question, you need a basic level of data literacy. Leaders who have invested in their own data literacy are better equipped to direct their organization’s data efforts and investments because they understand the different ways data can be used. This allows them to identify immediate opportunities in their organization where they can best utilize data.

For example, if you have information about which items or services your customers purchase together, what would you use it for? A data literate leader might look at that information and have the insight that this information could be used to predict future purchases and even drive additional purchases from similar customers.  You don’t need to be an analyst to make that connection, you just need to understand what can and cannot be done with data, and to approach that data thoughtfully. The most critical skill a leader can have in their toolbox is the ability to think.

One of the challenges leaders face when it comes to data is that their analysts use technical jargon with which they are not familiar, and it can be daunting to ask for clarification. A bad analyst uses jargon to avoid questions, but many good analysts simply forget, the way we all do, that not everyone uses those terms regularly or is familiar with them. No one wants to look like they don’t know what they’re talking about. Simply de-mystifying these analytics buzzwords and techniques can make it immediately easier to see the big picture and uncover deep insights.

There are a growing number of undergraduate and graduate programs in the areas of analytics, producing a generation of bright young analysts who can help an educated leader have a major impact on their organization. But in order to get there, leaders need to be able to articulate the skillset they are looking for, because the tools of the field are changing rapidly. How will you measure and evaluate the success of your efforts? What new technologies will you want to take advantage of? For example, in the next five years, artificial intelligence and machine learning will transform the way we do business. Leaders need to be ahead of this trend or risk being left behind.

Rotman’s Data Literacy program provides an intuitive introduction to these emerging technologies as well as insight into where and how they will have an impact. If you regularly receive reports or data, or if you are trying to build more data-driven and evidence-based teams, this program is ideal. You will learn how to ask the right questions to drive effective and efficient decision-making using data so that it becomes an intuitive and necessary tool for improving performance across the board.

Want results? Learn how to nudge your customers.

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What’s the best way to get someone to do something? You can incentivize them financially, you can limit their choices, or you can nudge them. Nudging is an insight from the field of behavioural economics, a way to get someone to do something without restraining their freedom or changing the financial incentives.

The Behavioural Economics in Action (BEAR) research institute at Rotman conducts leading edge research in this field, working on real projects that help people design better products, services and programs.

But how does that work exactly? Let’s take a look at a real world example. If you want to encourage people to stop littering, you have a few options. You could

  1. Hand out fines for littering
  2. Pay people for using the garbage or recycling bins, or
  3. Place green footprints on the ground pointing the way to the nearest bin

That last option is what Professor Dilip Soman would call a nudge. “Human decision making isn’t rational,” Dilip says. “People make mistakes, they get emotional.” But so what? Green footprints on the ground aren’t logical, and yet a 2011 Copenhagen study showed a 46% decrease in littering where the green footprints were in use. That’s not just a nudge, that’s a major behavioural change, and a very effective one at that.

Sometimes nudging is about simplifying processes, including the decision-making process. In a 2013 Cornell University study, they found that simply placing junk food on higher shelves and healthy food at eye level immediately helped high school students make healthier choices. They were 13% more likely to choose fruits and 23% more likely to choose vegetables in their school cafeteria. It was that easy.

What’s really interesting is that influencing behaviour in this way isn’t just an academic study. Every organization, public and private, is in the business of changing behaviour, from getting customers to switch from a competitor, getting people to be more honest when filing their taxes or applying for insurance, or even getting patients to take their medicine and treatment as directed.

Despite this being a universal constant across the board, many organizations are not particularly good at managing behaviour change. Without the right tools and information, the actions of your customers and clients can seem irrational, unpredictable, and difficult to measure.

Rotman now offers a new Behavioural Economics at Work program based on proven research out of BEAR, providing hands-on experience so you can start applying these techniques immediately upon returning to work. Seats are limited and class starts April 19. Apply now.

Want to make partner one day? What are you bringing to the table?

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The competition for new positions at law firms is more intense than ever before, in part due to an increase in the number of law school graduates and in part because of disruption of the legal services market. Law firms need now, more than ever, a new long-term strategy for business development and staying relevant in a changing landscape. But business development strategy isn’t a major part of the law school curriculum. So what can junior and mid-career lawyers do to make themselves more valuable and contribute more to the business?

Identify strategic business needs

Start with a close look at your existing clients, and identify their pain points and business needs. What are their strategic priorities? Why?

Starting with a client you’re very familiar with is good practice for then practicing the same exercise with prospective clients. If you can enter meetings with new potential clients armed with insights about how your firm can best serve them, you’re already ahead of the game.

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Develop your personal brand

Obviously you want to work within the framework of your firm’s over-arching brand, but your personal brand can make a huge difference. It’s why you have a favourite barista at the coffee shop, or are particular about who at the salon cuts your hair.

Working through a personal branding exercise can give you insights into your personal strengths and identify how best to apply them to deliver more value to clients. What is your unique value proposition and how can you leverage it to the best effect? How can you apply that to lead generation or to creating personalized business development plans?

Learn how to ask for business

One of the most valuable skills a lawyer can have outside of their technical expertise is the ability to bring in new business. Professionals who consistently bring in new business are significantly more likely to be recognized by senior members of the firm for their accomplishments, and to eventually make partner.

Learning how to ask for business is about becoming more adept at spotting and seizing organic networking opportunities, clearly articulating the value you and your firm can offer to clients, and perfecting your personal pitch both on paper and in person.

If you feel uncomfortable networking or pitching business, ask yourself if you’re being too pitchy, too self-promotional, or too self-aggrandizing. If you feel that way, certainly your potential client feels the same. Pitching business should start with genuine, authentic conversations, and learning how to do that will have a transformative impact on your bottom line.

Strategic Business Development for Lawyers is a two and a half day interactive program designed specifically to help junior and mid-career legal professionals learn the difference between strategy and tactics and find out how to use both in order to create and implement a business development plan that leverages their unique value proposition and highest potential opportunities.

You will get answers to the most frequently asked business development questions, a set of business development plan templates, and benefit from the real-world experience of senior legal professionals.

Before you hold that strategy meeting, read this

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How many times have you gone to a strategy meeting and had people listlessly sit there, unfocused or distracted? How often, at the end of one of these strategy meetings, have you seen everyone just agree with whatever the most senior person in the room suggests?

That is a terrible way to approach strategy – if you want to win.

Strategy is one of the most important tasks of any employee in an organization, no matter his or her job description. Strategy is about choice. It’s about explicitly choosing what you will do and not do, not just agreeing with someone because they’re in charge. If you’re just going along to get along you’re missing out on strategic value.

""A winning strategy is something you think about all year, every day. It’s not something you can decide at a single meeting or even in one week.  You either tick strategy off your to-do list the same way you do expense reports, or you actively choose to make strategy a real key priority throughout the year.

Strategy comes from every level of the organization

Employees at every level of the organization have a great deal to contribute to your strategy. They see and hear things on the front lines that no one in the C-suite does, and that’s valuable intelligence that can make a huge difference in your strategy. Engaging the entire organization not only helps you access that data, but it makes sure that everyone on your team is committed to winning, because it’s their strategy, too.

Strategy needs to be specific

Before setting out to create your strategy you need to be able to answer these five questions:

  1. What is our winning aspiration?
  2. Where will we play?
  3. How will we win?
  4. What capabilities must be in place?
  5. What management systems are required?

These five questions are part of the Playing to Win strategic framework, which can be applied to any real-world challenge. Leading organizations around the world use the Playing to Win framework to help them develop the strategic capability to make better strategic choices and to guide the process of creating strategy.

Before your organization starts its strategic planning, get everyone on the same page. Rotman offers a one-day Playing to Win workshop, blending hands-on experience, reflection, and group discussions.

What you need to know before a negotiation

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Negotiation skills may not always appear on a job description, but having them will help you in almost any role. To be an effective leader you need to be able to balance analytical skills with a broad array of decision making and interpersonal skills. This is no easy task. So how do great leaders build or develop their negotiations skills so they can add value to any situation? They practice.

There’s no better way to learn about negotiation than with an experiential, hands-on approach. Models, concepts and theories are helpful, but sitting down face to face with another person (or group of people) will help you truly develop your toolkit.

Senior managers, directors, and executives will face a variety of different types of negotiations during their careers—some significantly more complex than others. The most important thing to do before entering a negotiation is to do your homework. Ask yourself these questions:

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Where is the value?
Putting a dollar amount on an item in a negotiation can be helpful, but there are  other kinds of value. Is it valuable because of time or its impact on other resources? Studying examples of existing negotiations to see where different sides placed value can give you a greater level of insight into both your own position and that of the other party.

What are your goals?
You can’t negotiate if you don’t know what you’re hoping to get out of it. What is your ideal outcome? What are your must haves versus your nice to haves? Aside from the deal you hammer out together, there are other, less concrete elements that might also factor into your bargaining, such as your relationship with the other party. And speaking of that relationship…

What kind of relationship do you have with the other party?
A negotiation that is based on mutual trust will go better for everyone involved. It’s important to establish trust at the onset. Often this can involve agreeing to a fair process regardless of the outcome. Take a close look at your existing relationship with the other party, but don’t forget to do a careful self-assessment, as well. Personality, ethics, culture, even your willingness to use particular strategies can impact your negotiations. If you’re working with a team, are you all on the same page? How will your team react to strategies used by the other party?

Great negotiators have the skills to get the deal done, but they also know how to evaluate the success of a negotiation after the fact, how to lead a negotiation team effectively, and how to create value for their organization.

And those skills are important in any leadership role. By practicing negotiation, you can improve your communication and persuasion skills and learn how to wield more influence in other situations.

Rotman’s Strategic Negotiations program is led by expert faculty and is designed to provide you with a safe but challenging environment where you can develop your negotiation skills alongside other senior professionals.

Getting HR a Seat at the Leadership Table

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Human Resources is often the department that people don’t think about until they need something, and then they need it immediately. But HR professionals know that great HR work requires long-term strategy and planning, a year-round set of tactics for talent development and succession planning, and being recognized as a valued partner in the organization. ­­

And that last item is a key factor for HR success. So how do you get HR a seat at the leadership table as a valued business partner?

Link HR to business strategy

You know that HR is a key element of the overall strategy for your organization, but you also need to make sure that your counterparts in other departments or divisions understand the value of HR and how they can work with you to achieve strategic goals.

Think about how pieces of the HR portfolio such as succession planning, culture change, or even compensation impact other key strategic priorities. As a senior member of the HR team you need to not just be aware of what other areas of the organization are focused on but how HR can contribute to their success. By breaking down silos, you can position yourself and HR as a valuable resource, allowing them to rely on you for insights.

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Integrate leadership development and succession planning

When a senior member of the leadership team leaves, organizations can be left scrambling for a replacement. It can be difficult to get your board of directors or leadership team to commit to long-term strategies for leadership development or succession planning, but the pay-off is more than worth it.

In helping the board plan for the future, you will again gain valuable insights into the larger organization, as well as information you can use for other projects such as culture building and change, talent management, performance alignment, and more.

Make HR strategy part of organizational strategy

The more closely you work with and contribute to other areas of the organization the better you can incorporate pieces of the bigger picture into your own long-term strategy and other pieces of your HR toolbox. The relationships you build across the organization should be like a feedback loop: your work on talent management, culture and performance alignment and compensation should have a direct impact on larger strategic objectives. And the outcomes of that larger strategy work as well as those priorities should feed back into your priorities.

The reason HR often isn’t seen as a key partner of the organization is because it is siloed or not considered a contributor to overall success. Your challenge is to remind people that HR is more than hiring, firing, and benefits. HR is a key factor in strategy, in the longevity of the organization, and can drive innovation and change by embracing formal strategies and frameworks. Over time you need to better incorporate elements like workforce planning, leadership development, strategy alignment, and employee engagement in new ways that are more meaningful to the larger organization.

It’s up to you to learn how you can best effect the perceptual shift in your organization that will make HR a valued partner at the table, truly seen as not a cost centre but a profit engine.  Rotman’s Strategic Human Resource Management program allows for the exploration of latest research, best practices and thinking in areas such as business and human resource strategy, leadership development, talent management and succession planning.

Connect the dots from statements to actionable insights

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The face of leadership has changed dramatically over the past few years. Today, executives and directors need to have a high level of financial literacy in order to better fulfill their leadership mandate. But what does that look like, exactly?

Successful leaders can navigate between strategy and operations using financial statements and ratios. They have a context for financial information that lets them build a framework of strategic thinking based on solid financial measures, but in order to get there, they need to already speak the language.

You can’t ask the right questions if you don’t know what those questions are. It’s the difference between seeing the dots and being able to connect them.

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And it’s not just reading and interpreting charts and graphs. Successful leaders need to fully understand the roles and responsibilities of the audit committee, management, and auditors in the reporting process: how they interact and what their priorities will be. How do the financials impact the strategic objectives of different business units as well as the organization as a whole? When you develop the ability to connect strategy and operations, you can truly begin to maximize value for your organization.

Proper analysis of financial data guides leaders in their decision making, helps ensure due diligence, and have an immediate impact on their organization and in the boardroom.

You can build and develop your financial literacy skills this fall at Rotman’s Financial Literacy program. Apply now.

What the C-suite looks for in Senior Management

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Being an experienced manager isn’t enough to help you move into a more senior position any more. To succeed in today’s rapidly changing world, great managers need to develop their leadership capabilities to continue your journey to senior leadership.

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Here are some of the skills the c-suite is looking for when they think about promoting internally:

Holistic thinking
Think more broadly about the success of your organization. More than just your department or division, how can you help the entire business unit or enterprise? How can you work more closely with and support other business functions?

Understanding the relationships between multiple functional areas is key to integrating their projects and activities so the entire organization can succeed.

Conflict resolution and negotiation skills
By thinking more about your counterparts in other business units you can understand where they’re coming from and why conflicting objectives are so common. With a better understanding of the entire organization, you can become a trusted resource outside of your unit.

There’s always room for improvement, especially when it comes to conflict resolution and negotiation. By developing the skills and approaches to facilitate effective conflict resolution you can get down to the real issues with less wasted time.

A strategic mindset
A good strategy isn’t handed down from the most senior member of your organization – it’s developed based on information from all levels of the organization, and should evolve with the changing needs of your business. Truly great leaders know how to develop plans and strategies to minimize conflicting objectives and reduce barriers to collaboration, but they’re also flexible and willing to adapt and change.

Appreciate the many and varied factors both inside and outside your organization that drive strategic decision making, and use them to guide your planning.

Problem solving
There’s nothing wrong with solving a problem intuitively, but there’s a great deal of additional value to be found in learning and applying a strategic model of problem solving. You can enhance your ability to drive innovation, evaluate business opportunities, and even better negotiate by using model-based problem solving and design thinking principles.

Coaching
And of course, a great leader has great mentors and coaches. A good coach will review how you handle challenges on the job and work with you to develop a personalized action learning plan.

Rotman’s Strategic Business Leadership program addresses all of these skills and more, and is designed to help you expand your influence and effectiveness within your organization.  Apply now.

Building Leaders—An Inside Look at Rotman’s Executive Leadership Program

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three-faculty

(Jim Fisher, Rose Patten and Joseph Natale at the networking reception)

“I believe that everyone has within themselves the capability to lead if they only know how to break the idea of leadership into understandable chunks and then integrate it back into a more powerful whole,” Jim Fisher, The Thoughtful Leader.

Earlier this month, I got to sit in a room filled with executives from all sectors of Canada as they started their thoughtful journey through the Rotman Executive Leadership Program.

This transformational program understands that leadership cannot be learned in a week and that it takes time to develop new skills. So, five days of in-class learning are supported with pre- and post- programming to ensure the transfer of leadership skills are strategically reinforced through coaches and advisory boards over the span of eight months.

A month before class, participants completed a 360 assessment. This gave them a robust snapshot of how they’re viewed not just by their direct supervisors but also by their co-workers and direct reports.

Armed with a look at their leadership strengths and competencies for improvement, the class started the program on Monday, May 2 with academic directors Rose Patten, Special Advisor to the President and CEO of BMO Financial Group, board member at SickKids Foundation, and Executive in Residence at Rotman and Jim Fisher, Rotman’s Professor Emeritus and an industry veteran with a long history of leadership in some of Canada’s key organizations.  He also happened to create Rotman’s very first Leadership course.

Jim shared his powerful 9-box leadership model, a guide to what leaders need to do well to succeed. Addressing the ‘Big 8’, Rose covered the capabilities each leader needs to develop to implement the 9-box. These two models intersect to help each participant work on a personal leadership development plan.

Faculty and Coaches

Faculty and Coaches

Through the course of the week, an all-star cast of Rotman’s finest helped participants understand and practice these leadership skills. Here’s just a snippet of what went on in the classroom:

  • Nouman Ashraf, a senior fellow at Rotman and a frequent consultant to some of Canada’s biggest organizations, and a firecracker presenter, kicked us off with a lively demonstration of Integrative Thinking: a model-based problem-solving method that embraces tension in opposable ideas to generate innovation. He also covered a leader’s role in creating a safe environment to foster integrative thinking.
  • Stefanie Schram of Rotman’s DesignWorks took us through a 5-step cascading model on how strategy really works including case studies on the model in practice. Stephanie has used this model while working with some Fortune 500 companies and emphasized the importance of paying equal attention to each step in the cascade.
  • Stéphane Côté, director of Rotman’s PhD program who serves on editorial boards for a number of publications, discussed how leaders can use emotional intelligence to improve self-awareness and regulation as well as any social environment. The class then worked in teams on a case to test the model.
  • Geoff Leonardelli, Rotman’s expert on teams, organizational behavior and managerial negotiations, covered the five different models for team-based decisions and had the class involved in a highly engaging team exercise to test their understanding of the concepts.
  • John Oesch, a published authority in organizational behavior, decision-making and negotiations covered the challenges and best practices around executive communication and got the class to practice using a difficult conversation case.

Additionally, over the course of four days, Professor Julie McCarthy, who has developed effective performance management systems for both private and public corporations, used a four-part model to help our executives develop physical, mental, emotional and value-driven resiliency with immediately applicable ways to thrive in what we now accept as continuous partial attention environments.

One of my personal highlights was meeting and listening to Joseph Nataleduring our networking event. The former CEO of Telus was a powerful and inspiring speaker who walked us through the role different people and experiences in his life played in shaping his success and understanding of leadership. He also shared 9 characteristics he looks for in leaders which our participants found particularly insightful.

Each day, Jim and Rose led debrief and closing sessions to help participants tie in learnings to understand how they fit in the 9 box and Big 8 models. In addition to the examples they provided from their work with various organizations over the years, I personally also enjoyed Rose’s impeccable taste in fashion.

On the last day, each team worked with a coach to develop their personal action plans. Then, over the course of the next few months, they will work with their coaches and advisory board members to implement their plans. At their graduation ceremony in October, we’ll have the privilege of hearing how they’ve grown as leaders, their impact on their teams and their organizations. Based on feedback from the last group, we’ve no doubt it will be an inspiring graduation.

To learn more about our programs connect with me at joanne.goveas@rotman.utoronto.ca

Negotiating for Success: Highlights from Rotman

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Can you leave a negotiation with both you and your counterpart feeling like you won more than your fair shares? That’s what we set out to discover last week at Rotman’s Strategic Negotiations Program.

FacultyPacked with some of Rotman’s leading faculty, the four-day program equipped us with a robust toolkit and the flexibility to succeed in a variety of negotiations. Designed for modern learners who want to learn as much from their peers as any expert, our class learned from each other through a series of increasingly complex negotiation exercises.

Geoff Leonardelli, a published authority on leadership, teams and managerial negotiations, kicked off the session with essential foundations. We learned strategies to determine the true value at play during a negotiation, best practices to anchor a negotiation and the tools of both distributive and integrative bargaining.

We ended our first day with a cocktail reception featuring Buzz Hargrove, a legendary labour negotiator and an Officer of the Order of Canada. Buzz shared insights from his decades at the negotiations table and his views on how Canada’s current political climate is shaping the negotiation landscape for some key sectors.

Most people approach negotiations intending to capture value. However, on day two, Glen Whyte, the Marcel Desautels Chair in Integrative Thinking and frequently sought-after consultant for both private and public negotiations, demonstrated strategies to turn negotiations into value-creating opportunities. Value creating and value claiming are often competing processes. However, a successful negotiator does both simultaneously. A key to this approach is relationships and we learned strategies to build trust even in contentious situations. We also learned the value of interest-based problem solving. Teased apart from positions, correctly identifying parties’ interests can be invaluable in breaking impasses, learning to play the right negotiations game and identifying the correct stakeholders.

Our ToolKit and Halls of Negotiations

Our ToolKit and Halls of Negotiations

As the course progressed, we took on increased complexity by tackling the issues of ethics, risk and using agents. Chen-Bo Zhong, a published researcher in ethics, moral psychology, decision-making and unconscious processes, helped us navigate the gaps between the law and ethics in challenging situations.

Next, we addressed the dynamics, challenges and advantages of team-based negotiations. We worked through best practices of managing teams during both the preparation and negotiation stages to ensure successful outcomes for all your internal stakeholders.

Before tackling the highly complex multi-party, multi-issue negotiations cases, John Oesch, an expert in organizational behaviour, demonstrated how to use persuasion and influence in bargaining especially during multi-party negotiations when influencing the process can be as pivotal to securing a successful outcome as the negotiation itself.

Our class came from a variety of functions, industries and countries which helped us experience cultural differences that can shape the process and outcome of negotiations. Each participant completed a pre-program survey that assessed their approach to negotiations. Then, through the course of the program, we provided feedback on our counterparts and team members so each participant will receive an in-depth report on their performance through the course and areas for development as they take back their skills to raise their impact in their workplaces.

If you have questions about the program call me anytime at 416.946.0722.