dynamic startegy
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MBA501_T1_2019_W12.pdf
Strategic leadership
Week 12 Workshop
MBA501 Dynamic Strategy and Disruptive Innovation
Mahatma Gandhi
Play Video
• What does American lawyer
Wendell Willkie mean when he says:
Small Group Discussion
Education is the mother of
leadership.
Small Group Challenge New Delhi, India 1938
In groups, explain why Gandhi didn’t tell Binu to stop eating sugar two weeks earlier.
Sailasuta has a problem. Her young son Binu is addicted to sugar.
Nothing that Sailasuta or Binu’s father, Sananda, say or do will stop
him eating sugar. She decides to take her son to see the great
leader Mahatma Gandhi to ask him to tell her son to stop.
“I cannot tell him that,” Gandhi explains, “But you may bring him
back in a few weeks and then I will talk to him.”
Sailasusta is confused and upset on the long walk back home but
two weeks later she returns to Gandhi with her son. He looks directly
at the boy and says, “Stop eating so much sugar. It is not good for
your health.” Binu nods his head and promises he’ll stop.
Sailasusta is perplexed and asks, “Why couldn’t you have told him
that two weeks ago when I first brought him here?”
Leadership challenges
• Organisations rank senior management succession and finding qualified managerial talent among their top challenges
• To remain competitive and ensure an ample supply of capable leaders for the future, organisations need to cultivate leaders with strategic thinking competency
Leadership risks
• Organisations that do not focus
resources on developing leaders may
be forced to promote untested, possibly
unqualified, junior managers
• Or they might have to look outside for
executives who could then find it difficult
to adjust to their new companies and
cultures
Strategic thinking competency
• Strategic thinking competency is the
knowledge, skills and abilities needed to
detect market opportunities, formulate a
vision to capitalise on those
opportunities, and engineer feasible
strategies to realise organisational and
stakeholder value
Competency predictors
• Predictors of strategic thinking
competency, that is, characteristics and
attributes that suggest stronger
leadership capabilities include:
1. accumulation of work experience
2. cognitive ability
3. extraversion
Strategic thinking competency
Strategic
thinking
competency
Accumulated
work
experience
Cognitive
ability
Extraversion
Source: Dragoni et al.
Cornell University (2011)
• What does Danish philosopher
Soren Kierkegaard mean when he says:
Small Group Discussion
Repetition is the reality and the
seriousness of life.
Small Group Challenge You are the CEO of a large, publicly listed corporation and need to
recruit a new senior executive. The role requires an individual with
experience working on cross-functional teams, executive committees
and task forces.
Two applicants for the role, Silvia and Eduardo, both stand out.
They both have extensive experience and have specifically worked
on cross-functional teams, executive committees, and task forces.
Silvia has provided input to a cross-functional team (contributing),
managed an executive committee (managing), and crafted the vision
and strategy for a task force (leading).
Eduardo has managed and led an executive committee (managing
and leading) and led a task force (leading).
In groups, decide which applicant has accumulated the greater work experience for the senior executive role.
Accumulation of experience
• Accumulation of work experience is the
extent to which executives have
gathered varied levels of roles and
responsibilities over their careers
• Varied levels of roles and
responsibilities include contributing,
managing, and leading work activities
Greater experience
• Executives with greater experience accumulation have had multiple levels of involvement across various work activities
• Such executives may have contributed to the execution of a project, assumed managerial responsibility, and led the effort by setting overall direction and maintaining ultimate responsibility
Silvia or Eduardo?
• Silvia has more of an accumulation of
experience involving a different level of
responsibility in each group
• Although Eduardo has more experience
performing in a leadership capacity, he
has not played the role of contributor
and has less experience accumulation
than Silvia
Problem solving skills
• The accumulation of work experience
builds strategic thinking competency
because it provides developing leaders
with two elements that are instrumental
to developing problem solving skills:
1. repetition
2. novelty
Repetition
• Facing similar work activities multiple
times increases the likelihood of
repetition and mastery
• Through repetition, leaders have the
opportunity to solidify their
understanding of key business factors,
contingencies, and alternative courses
of action
Novelty
• Altering a leader’s level of involvement when they next encounter a particular work activity exposes them to a novel set of requirements
• Leaders can then rely on previous knowledge and experience to solve new problems and receive feedback that helps them to refine their strategic mental frameworks
IBM
• Multinational technology company IBM operate a leadership development program that rotates future company leaders through various roles and responsibilities
• These employees are given the opportunity to accumulate experience in contribution, management, and leadership
38 minutes
Play Video
• Do you agree with English cosmologist
Stephen Hawking when he says:
Small Group Discussion
I have no idea what my IQ is.
People who boast about their IQ
are losers.
Small Group Challenge Redmond, US 1990
Bill Gates, founder and CEO of Microsoft, has a problem. The
company has released its third major version of its graphical user
interface, Windows 3.0, with an improved design and protected
mode functionality. It is the first widely successful version of
Windows and is quickly developing into a serious rival to the Apple
Macintosh and the Commodore Amiga.
Despite Window’s recent success, Bill worries that the company’s
performance may be short lived. He knows that the only way
Microsoft can continue to grow is by recruiting and developing its
future leaders. What he doesn’t know is the foremost attribute or
characteristic that most strongly predicts a person’s potential for
developing into an effective leader.
In groups, help Bill out by identifying a key attribute that will help him predict a person’s potential for effective leadership.
Cognitive ability
• Research shows that cognitive ability, that is, a person’s general intelligence, is related to leader effectiveness
• This positive relationship is believed to exist because individuals high in cognitive ability are able to acquire more job knowledge and acquire it faster than others who are not as intelligent
Better problem solvers
• Further, intelligent individuals are better
problem solvers
• They figure out difficult, abstract, and
unstructured questions better and more
quickly than others and adapt to task
changes better
Higher strategic competence
• Cognitive ability is the strongest
predictor of strategic thinking
competency
• Intellectually gifted executives are more
likely to be adept at crafting business
strategies to address their
organisation’s complex, dynamic
business challenges
Microsoft
• Bill Gates said software was an IQ war
that Microsoft had to win by recruiting,
training, and retaining the brightest
future leaders
• In the 1990s he worried more about
investment banks like Goldman Sachs
because they were his major
competitors for IQ
Bonus Small Group Challenge Intelligence
What are other types of intelligence could have a positive impact on strategy development?
How about emotional intelligence?
And social intelligence?
What role could they play?
Jim Crow
Play Video
• Do you agree with Swiss psychologist
Carl Jung when he says:
Small Group Discussion
There is no such thing as a pure extravert
or a pure introvert. Such a man would be
in the lunatic asylum.
Small Group Challenge Alabama, US 1955
Rosa Parks has a problem. Her bus has reached the third stop in
front of the Empire Theatre and four white passengers are boarding.
As the white section of the bus is already full the bus driver, a man
named James F. Blake, approaches Rosa and three other African
American men sitting in the coloured section of the bus.
‘Y’all better make it light on yourselves and let me have those
seats,’ James demands.
Rosa, although timid, shy, and small in stature is well aware that
failure to comply with the demand will lead to her arrest for breaking
Jim Crow laws. The other men know this too and all promptly stand
and surrender their seats to the white passengers.
Rosa, however, refuses to surrender her seat.
In groups, discuss how Rosa’s decision relates to strategic leadership.
Extraversion
• Extraversion is broadly defined as a
behaviour where someone enjoys being
around people more than being alone
• It is the habit or state of being
predominantly concerned with and
obtaining gratification from what is
outside the self
Ambition and sociability
• Extraversion is generally thought of as
having two components:
1. ambition, which may be observed
as surgency, taking initiative and
being impetuous, and
2. sociability, which entails being
sociable, expressive, and an
exhibitionist
Introverts
• This does not mean that extraversion is
a pre-requisite to effective leadership
• Many of history’s most successful
business and political leaders were
introverts
• Extraversion then is merely a helpful
predictor of potential leadership ability
Bonus Small Group Challenge Introverts
Can introverts be strategic thinkers? How so?
Strategic thinking competency
Strategic
thinking
competency
Accumulated
work
experience
Cognitive
ability
Extraversion
Source: Dragoni et al.
Cornell University (2011)
Playtime
Week 9 Workshop
MBA501 Dynamic Strategy and Disruptive Innovation
The techno jingle of your mobile ringtone snaps you out of what was, up
until that point, a peaceful night’s rest.
‘Hello?’ you ask.
‘I am dreadfully sorry to be calling at such a time,’ Dustin’s voice trembles.
His obvious distress completely washes away any remaining vestige of
drowsiness.
‘Dustin – what’s wrong?’
‘How quickly can you be ready to leave for the office?’ he asks.
‘Um, 10 or 15 minutes I guess.’
‘Good. I’m in a taxi on the way to your place to pick you up. I’ll be there in
10 minutes. The other directors are all on their way to the office as well.’
Your imagination hits overdrive, spinning with the details of at least a
hundred worst case scenarios serious enough to require an emergency
InFocus board meeting in the middle of the night.
‘Please tell me what is going on?’ you ask.
Dustin’s voice breaks, ‘Sergey is dead.’
The taxi winds its way through dark and empty city streets as Dustin
explains the nature of the health condition believed to have caused Sergey’s
untimely passing. As devastated as Dustin is you realise quickly that he has
not turned to you for emotional support but for sound strategic advice to
mitigate the potential fallout for InFocus.
‘Who would be capable of assuming the role of CEO from inside the
organisation?’ you ask.
Dustin shakes his head, ‘I have no idea.’
‘Okay, what about sourcing a replacement externally? Is there anybody
specific that the board might consider suitable that we could approach?’
Again, he simply shakes his head.
You decide to choose your words very carefully, balancing the need for
empathy with the need for directness and sage advice.
‘Let me explain InFocus’s current position from a strategic leadership
perspective…’
Explain the risks the board have exposed the company to by failing
to adopt a proper succession plan.
Any hope you had of the board being capable of coming up with at least a
few viable options for Sergey’s replacement are soon dashed. As it turns
out, the other directors are just as shocked and clueless as Dustin.
‘We won’t find another one like Sergey,’ Christine Kelly laments, ‘He was a
real leader.’
David Proudfoot chimes in, ‘Perhaps not, but what we need now is a CEO
with charisma. Someone who can help make the company likable again.’
‘Charisma?’ Danny Chipperfield asks, ‘What InFocus really needs is a
leader with high integrity who can build trust with our stakeholders. Not
charisma.’
The directors debate what kind of qualifications, experience, and personal
attributes are the most desirable for the role of InFocus’s new CEO. Their
opinions differ greatly.
You open your notebook and begin to scribble an outline for selecting a
suitable candidate for a leadership role.
Group One
In your group, prepare an outline for selecting a suitable
candidate for a leadership role.
Focus on the following:
• Explain the concept of strategic thinking
competency
• Discuss the importance of senior management
succession and finding qualified managerial talent
• List three predictors of strategic thinking
competency and describe their relationship to each
other
Group Two
In your group, prepare an outline for selecting a suitable
candidate for a leadership role.
Focus on the following:
• Explain the concept of accumulated work
experience
• Discuss the kinds of experiences that generate the
greatest accumulation of experience
• List and explain two elements that are essential to
developing problem solving skills
Group Three
In your group, prepare an outline for selecting a suitable
candidate for a leadership role.
Focus on the following:
• Explain the concept of cognitive ability
• Discuss the relationship between cognitive ability
and strategic thinking competency
• List three reasons why people with higher cognitive
ability are more likely to be effective leaders
Group Four
In your group, prepare an outline for selecting a suitable
candidate for a leadership role.
Focus on the following:
• Explain the concept of extraversion
• Discuss the relationship between extraversion and
strategic thinking competency
• List and explain three characteristics of extraversion
Group One Group Two
Group Three Group Four
Present your outline to the InFocus board of directors
The directors continue to argue over what selection criteria should be
established to screen potential candidates for the role of InFocus’s next chief
executive officer.
Dustin has lost interest in the debate and is instead intently focused on you
and your busy notebook scribbling.
He claps his hands together once loudly and the others suddenly fall silent.
‘I know you are all deeply saddened by our tragic loss not to mention sleep
deprived and irritable, but this conversation has become circular and I simply
don’t have the stomach for it tonight. I have brought with me our Strategy
and Planning Advisor in the hope that we may all benefit from some
guidance on how to effectively choose a new leader.’
Dustin turns to you, ‘Please tell me you have something for us in that
notebook of yours.’
You nod as you stand to address the board.
Dustin thanks you for your presentation.
‘Our Strategy and Planning Advisor has made a case that we need to base
our selection criteria on accumulated work experience, cognitive ability, and
possibly extraversion,’ he says.
The other directors nod in agreement.
Dustin turns to you, ‘Do you have any recommendations for us as to how
we might effectively screen candidates for these things?’
‘Of course,’ you reply.
Offer the board some recommendations on how they might screen
candidates and how they might also avoid this situation in the future.
