Business Improvisation

Business has been cooking at ASCI over the last 6 months or so: our Situational Leadership Workshop is becoming more and more popular. I think corporations are beginning to see that best answer to any business problem or dilemma is “it depends”. It depends on the situation, on who you are, on who you’re dealing with and on a million other possibilities. So how do you pass along wisdom, how you we learn, why do I read all those business books?

It depends, really.

The reason I’m a big fan of Situational Leadership and Business Improvisation is that both are, at their best, processes not answers. Your coaching challenge with a unmotivated employee is almost certainly unique. You can learn how other people motivated their tough employees but the key is really you. And no one has written a book about how YOU can solve a leadership issue. Its not the same as how to fix a leaky tap, its not a piece of code, a zero or a one, its people and everyone is different.  Now before you think I’m advocating just getting to know everyone and be their friend before you can lead, stop. What I’m saying is that you need know yourself. OR “know thyself” as Socrates said.

Understanding your style preferences, strengths and weaknesses and how they may hinder or assist reaching the objective is critical to leadership performance. How to adapt your style to these situations once aware is execution success. That is why corporations are starting to embrace Situational Leadership and Business Improvisation as a process.
My favorite example is the coach with a very high need for control, fast decision maker and a tendency to express his ideas trying to coach a quite, introverted, high external awareness employee.  Basically the coach never stops talking and walks away thinking everything is great, or at least not understanding why things don’t change. The coachee walks away feeling he hasn’t been heard and that the last hour was a waste of time. Leadership is follower driven. Its the coach’s responsibility to adapt his style to the coachee.

I’m working on a presetnation and paper for The Banff Leadership Centre entitled “Situational Leadership and the Reality of Execution Style” which I’ll post here when its done. I enjoy the comments from everyone, pass along an example that you have witnessed where the coach failed to adapt his or her style and I’ll include it in the paper.