Many managers are surprised to find the extent to which small behaviours make a big difference. As a result they tend to disregard these small behaviours to their detriment.

Here are a five examples:

In 1988 I was Group Strategic Planning Manager at the Bank of New Zealand. The day I joined the Bank (8/8/1988) the directors asked the government for a $350m bailout to stop the bank from going into liquidation. Three months later a new Chief Executive was appointed. One of the first things he did was to lock-off his personal lift that took him directly from the basement carpark to his 24th level office without stopping. This tiny change signalled something much bigger to Bank employees who until then had seldom seen the CEO let alone travelled in the lift with him. Of course there were many other things that happened but it was an inspired first step. Three years later the Bank went from bottom to first or second in most industry indicators and was sold for $1.5b to National Australia Bank in 1992.

One of my favourite managers took over as Interim CEO of a major vehicle testing organisation and I asked one of his second-level managers how he was getting on. He said the difference was amazing and immediate. He said that when the previous CEO had come out of the lift he turned left and walked directly to his office without passing anyone else. When the Interim Manager came out of the lift he turned right and took a slightly longer route that took him passed every staff member before going to his office. This tiny change showed that he cared, made him more visible and kept him in touch.

I was facilitating an empowerment process in an engineering company. Nothing we did had any effect until the clock-card machines were removed. This tiny change symbolised trust, respect and equality. 

I was facilitating the implementation of a customer-first strategy in an Electricity company. Two small behavioural changes made a major difference. First, everybody (including the CEO) was rostered to answer customer queries on the phone; this not only sent a powerful message to the customers who were sometimes surprised to find themselves talking to the boss, but also kept the CEO and his top team more closely in touch with what mattered to customers. Second, they installed a large electronic message board at the front of the office. It lit up immediately the phone rang and clocked-up the number of seconds before the phone was answered. 

One of my colleagues was the Manager of a large New Zealand bank that had a “customer first” strategy. They discovered a computer error that resulted in a large number of customers being over-charged by a small amount. The amount was so small it would have been tempting to forget about refunding the over-charge; after-all, the customers didn’t know about the problem, and the fix was far greater than the refunds. By fixing the over-charge they reinforced the importance of customers and symbolised the importance of doing the right thing no matter what the cost.

I have dozens of other examples but I hope these five have made the point: Managers disregard small behaviours to their detriment. 

This may sound strange to many managers fixed in a mechanical mind-set; but, it makes total sense  to those  who understand Systems, Complexity Theory and Emergence. I may get into this in a later post. Heads-up: ever heard of the “butterfly effect”? In the meantime if any of your people need beefing up in these areas please let me know.

Bruce Holland

When I mention to people that I am a consultant they sometimes think it is somewhat distasteful. Even my wife has joked that I am a “conslutant.”

I’m sure you have heard the joke, “A consultant is someone who borrows your watch to tell you the time, and then keeps the watch.” Well, I’m sure that some consultants deserve a bad press; but so do some policemen and some priests. Others provide real benefit. They work for a cause, know who they are and how they add value.

Who you are is who you decide to be, what you decide to do, and who you decide to work with. My work has always been about ‘Liberating human energy at work.” It’s how I assess each assignment before accepting it. The people I chose to work with believe in their people, usually more than the people believe in themselves.

I have always chosen my assignments by answering positively to three questions:

1. Will this be positive for me?
2. Will this be positive for others?
3. Will this be positive for the planet?

Bruce Holland 

​The worst advice I got when going consulting

When I went consulting in 1992 I received some really bad advice from a partner of one of the big 3 consulting companies. He recommended I use the “FUD Factor” which he described as “Fear”, “Uncertainty” and “Doubt”. In other words scare the hell out of clients so they would want to buy your services to fix the problems.

This turned out to be exactly the wrong approach. When clients focus on problems they only find more problems. It leads them to see parts rather than the whole. Worst of all it drains the client of energy and ideas.

I found a far better approach was the “HOPE Factor” which I describe as “Hope”, Opportunities”, Positiveness” and “Energy”. In other words to focus on “what could be”, “what they hoped for” and “what is working at present” that we could amplify. When clients focus on possibilities, they see possibilities everywhere. It leads them to see the whole as it could be. Best of all it increases energy and ideas and they create what they focus on. 

It’s the way to become an essential ingredient to your clients’ biggest hopes.

Many Internal and External Experts feel that their skills are not appreciated enough by top managers and the Board. It’s really frustrating to have studied and mastered a discipline that should be critical, only to be ignored. I’ve heard this complaint from HR Managers, IT Managers, Accountants, Strategy Managers, Risk Managers and external consultants.

An interesting study reported in the Harvard Business Review, July-August 2013, shows why some Experts (Influential Experts) manage to be central to Top Management decision-making and others are dismissed as “just technicians” or “just required for compliance”.

The study shows that “Influential Experts” have strengths in four key competencies (as shown in Chart 1 below):

Trailblazing. The ability to find new uses for expertise. Individuals high in this competency cast a wide net in order to identify and frame issues that top management has not adequately addressed. They understand the business and the environment and how their expertise can add value to the business.

Toolmaking. The ability to develop and deploy tools that embody and spread expertise. Individuals high in this competency are able to develop tools that help chief executives analyse and interpret important issues. These tools include reports, budgets, scenario planning, business models, technical models and other thinking frameworks.

Teamwork. The ability to work with other managers to use their expertise and convince them of the relevance of their expertise. Individuals high in this competency are able to co-opt people into collaborating on the creation and improvement of tools, seeking out their feedback and incorporating it into the design.

Translation. The ability to personally help decision-makers understand complex content. Individuals high in this competency are able to explain complex issues simply, in a language and context that chief executives understand.

​At the other end of the influential scale are “Compliance Experts” (see Chart 2). They are tolerated because of some legal or regulatory requirement but seldom listened to where it matters; because they are only skilled in building their tools. Think of the classic bean-counter.

​Nearly as non-influential are “Technical Experts (see Chart 3). They know about toolmaking and even trailblazing but are dismissed because they lack the ability to translate their expertise and are unable to work with other managers. I once worked in a major bank where the Strategy Manager and Finance Manager (in charge of budgets) were competing for influence and worked almost independently of each other. As a result, when the budgets were completed, they had no relationship to the strategies the organisation had agreed to. 

“Business Partners” (see Chart 4) have more (but still limited) influence; because their influence depends on the managers personal involvement with senior executives. I saw this happen in the bank where sometimes bankers with no expertise in the discipline where promoted into functional roles such as HR or IT but did not have the technical skills to succeed. The wise ones relied more on the experts on their staff, and gave them more freedom and exposure than the others.

​Bruce Holland

To standout and be noticed you must stand for something important. It must be something different. You must become remarkable, like a “purple cow”. As Seth Godin said in his book of the same name; you need people to tell others about you in the same way they’d tell others if they saw a purple cow. 

You don’t need everyone to like you, but those who like you must like you enough to tell their friends. When I started out I aimed to attract 10%. Today with the reach of the internet the percent is probably far smaller. I had no more than 20 fans but these people kept coming back and they recommended me to others who were like them: birds of a feather.

Don’t worry too much about words. People forget them. Speak more than write. Better still, do something that’s a symbol of what you stand for. It’s how you act and look that matters more. People will never forget about how you made them feel. Simplify it.

I had a background in large corporates and I was concerned that people were giving only a small fraction of themselves to work. I saw that this was largely due to the way they were managed and the structures they worked in. I was determined to change it. 

As a founder of Virtual Group we launched our consultancy in a pinstriped tent in a park in front of the tower blocks of our major competitors. Nearly 30 years ago at the height of the rational, neoliberal ideas it did not appeal to most potential clients. But it was different. It was remarkable. It was a symbol of pinstriped quality, canvass-thin overheads, flexibility and what’s possible if you remove all the unnecessary barriers. We called it: “wisdom without walls” and my personal message was “liberating human energy at work”. Nearly 30 years later these remain the things that sustain me and the things people remember about me.

How will you standout? How will you be different? What will people remark about you?

Bruce Holland is the author of the book: Cracking Great Leaders Liberate Human Energy at Work and the supporting Program designed for other internal and external consultants who don’t have the skills or time to develop their own intellectual property to help their clients develop organisational genius and strengthen their human energy fields.

Bruce is also a mentor at GoConsult.nz. The early years of consulting can be a jungle with many risks before the rewards. GoConsult.nz mentors help maximise the rewards of consulting and minimise the risks of transition. GoConsult.nz products include 23 ready-made workshops that reduce the time it will take you to become successful.

If you are going consulting it’s important to understand your “smarts” and what makes you special because this is what your consulting clients will be buying. 
Your fingerprint of intelligence is what makes you special. Like your other fingerprint, it is something that is unique to you, yet many people don’t think about it.
Everyone has a different fingerprint of intelligence
There are nine types of “smarts”:

1. Linguistic ("word smart")
2. Musical ("music smart")
3. Logical-mathematical ("number/reasoning smart")
4. Spatial ("picture/strategic smart")
5. Bodily-kinesthetic ("body smart")
6. Interpersonal ("people smart")
7. Intrapersonal ("self smart")
8. Naturalist ("nature smart")
9. Spiritual/Existential ("purpose smart”).

Example of Bruce Holland
Bruce's Intelligences are from strongest to weakest are: 

1. Strategic smart
2. Purpose smart
3. Self smart
4. People smart
5. Word smart
6. Reasoning smart
7. Nature smart
8. Music smart
9. Body smart.

The fingerprint you will need for success depends on your field of consulting. For example Bruce Holland’s consulting has been mostly in Strategy and Leadership development.
For strategy the most important intelligences are:

1. Strategic smarts is important, first, to be able to see how the organisations fits into its environment, second, how the parts could fit together better to make the whole stronger, third, to see what’s missing from the whole, and fourth, to see what’s important so they can focus their resources at this point.
2. People smarts is important because everyone is different. It’s important to understand the client and what drives them and what makes them special, even if they don’t know this themselves. If you treat them all the same (or the way you like to be treated) you will get lukewarm results. If you treat them how they want to be treated you’ll get magic. 
3. Self smart is important because if you don’t understand yourself on the inside there is no way you can be strong on the outside. If you don’t know who you are, there is no way anyone else can know who you are, and you’ll lack authenticity.
4. Purpose smart has been important to me from the start. I have always had a very clear understanding about my purpose (To Liberate Human Energy at Work) and this has strengthened me whenever I worried whether I was brave enough to approach someone who seemed important and it also carried me through down times that inevitably happen.

For leadership development the fingerprint required is a bit different. People smart is probably the most important followed by self smart and purpose smart. People smart is vital to understand the person, their needs, what drives them, what is holding them back, how to communicate in words that they will understand, otherwise, you will struggle to add value to them. Again, self smart is vital for your authenticity. Purpose smart is important because unless you believe strongly why you were put on Earth you will probably not believe strongly enough that other person also has a purpose, especially if they have no idea about it themselves. For leadership development strategy smart is less important.
Recommended process
I recommend you ask at least 6 people who you trust and who know you well to rank your “Smarts” from 1 to 9. Then think very carefully about the smarts that are most important for your area of consulting. Make sure there is a close match or find some way to overcome any deficits.
Bruce Holland is the author of the book: Cracking Great Leaders Liberate Human Energy at Work and the supporting Program designed for other consultants who don’t have the skills or time to develop their own intellectual property to help their clients develop organisational genius and strengthen their human energy fields.
Bruce is also a mentor at GoConsult.nz. The early years of consulting can be a jungle with many risks before the rewards. GoConsult.nz has mentors and ready-made products to help maximise the rewards of consulting and minimise the risks of transition.

You’ve probably heard the story about the blind men who were trying to describe an elephant. The first touched its ear and said, “It's a great big fan.” The second touched its trunk and said, “No, it’s an enormous snake.” The third touched its leg and said, “It’s a column”. The fourth touched its tail and said, “It’s a hose”. The fifth said, “It’s a solid wall”.

Each ‘saw’ the parts but not the whole. This is really important because the elephant is so much more than its parts. Describing the parts gives us no idea about the power and intelligence of such a magnificent beast.

In a similar way, for the last few years, I have been studying four subjects in isolation. These are: 

1. Systems (watch the video),
2. Complexity, 
3. Networks (watch the video) and 
4. Chaos.

Each is a fascinating subject in its own right and each has provided me with loads of deep insights into how to do business more successfully in a changing world. But my intuition is that I may have been looking at the parts and not seeing the elephant. I may have missed the most important part.

I think I’m getting closer to seeing the ‘elephant’ but it remains frustratingly fuzzy and any insights you have would be very welcome. Before I describe my understanding of the ‘elephant’ I want to briefly describe the four subjects independently.

1. Systems

When you learn to look for them, systems are everywhere. Systems Thinking is about seeing the parts and the whole as well as the relationships between the parts and the whole including whats outside the whole. For example, in the case of the elephant, systems is about seeing the ears, the trunk, the legs, the tail and all the other parts of the elephant as well as the elephant as a whole and the relationship between all the parts and the elephant and the elephant and its environment. 

Without understanding Systems, managers are more likely to make decisions that may fix some short-term localised problem, only to find that the problem pops up somewhere else in the organisation or at a later time.

Without understanding Systems, managers are more likely to focus on their silos, ready to do battle for turf and avoid anything that will make them look bad. 

But when managers are trained in Systems and have the tools to see the connections and the whole, they are more likely to work together for the benefit of the whole organisation.

2. Complexity

The study of Complexity is about how things are organised in relation to each other. Physicists used to see their science as the study of matter; today they are seeing it as the study of how matter is organised and relates to each other. For example, ice, water and steam can all be described as H2O but the properties of each state are very different because of the way oxygen and hydrogen atoms are organised and relate to each other.

What many managers see as a complicated mishmash becomes far more simple when they start to see things in terms of fractals of a complex living system. 

Complexity shows that throughout the natural world, organisation is largely bottom up; only man would be arrogant and stupid enough to structure business in such a top down way. Rather than focusing on rigid hierarchical power structure, business enterprises are better conceived of as a web of nested parts all shaped into the same pattern as the whole. 

In my opinion the biggest benefit from studying complexity is how complex behaviour emerges from the simplest behaviours at a local level. Examples include: human brains, the Internet, the economy, the ecosystem, many animal behaviours like fish in schools and birds in flocks and humans self manage when trusted to work together.

Comlexity is important to business because, unless managers understand it they undervalue emergence, and nearly everything of value emerges from people following some simple rules. These include: teamwork, communication, trust, customer service and culture.

3. Network Science

Networks are about flows and connections. Networks are important to business because, unless managers understand networks they think they are managing a hierarchy (organisational tree) and act accordingly, whereas they are more likely to be managing a network of relationships, and this is managed in a completely different way. You can control and constrain a hierarchy, but a network can only be influenced, prodded, and guided in the right direction.

Networks can describe how people actually work; such as who they communicate with, who they get information from. This is important to business because the most valuable people are not always at the top of the tree or even known to the management team. Unless managers understand how information really flows in their organisation and how decisions are really made they are likely to undervalue people with critical process and customer knowledge.

In the last 10 years, mainly as a result of computer and communication research, the Laws of Networks have been codified and a whole new science of networks has been developed.

4. Chaos Theory

For the last 30 years Chaos scientists have known there is a “sweet spot” at which all living systems have the ability to self-organise or “emerge” without any top-down control. This sweet spot occurs near what scientists call the “edge of chaos”. This is where the system is delicately poised between one steady state and another steady state. 

In nature, these transitions occur often, especially in living systems. The membrane of every living cell is delicately poised between a solid state and a liquid state (on the edge of chaos). This is what makes life so creative; change a single protein molecule and you can produce enormous changes in the function of the cell. Brain activity lies on the edge of chaos. This is why random thoughts pop into your head. This provides brains with their amazing capacity to process information and rapidly adapt to our ever-changing environment.

The membrane of a living cell is a wonderful image to help managers think of their business: just ordered enough to give some sort of form/meaning and open enough to its environment to allow movement (of people, ideas and information) in and out of the organisation and just closed enough to have an identity.

Chaos is important to business because when managers understand Chaos they are less more to allow their organisation to move towards the sweet-spot. Otherwise they are more likely to make their organisation too ordered, too top-down, too controlled, too centralised. The paradox is that over-control leads to less order and less-control leads to more order. When too much order doesn’t work (and it won’t because it can’t) these managers flip to the opposite extreme and the system becomes too disordered and behaves like mob-rule with a great deal of energy wasted fighting turf battles and trying to survive and protect against unruly behaviour. Many managers dance a mad waltz. Round and round they go, flip-flopping from centralisation to decentralisation. It’s a never-ending, soul-destroying, energy-sapping dance; and it’s totally unnecessary.

It's important to understand that the sweet-spot is a law of nature. You don't manage your way towards the sweet spot. Instead, you need to do the opposite — remove restrictions and barriers and trust the system to gravitate to the sweet-spot. Chaos shows why to open your organisation, remove barriers, break down walls, remove silos.

Understanding Chaos is also important because close to chaos small things can lead to major results and certain points in a system have strong leverage points. It’s called the “butterfly affect.” Its like a client of mine said: “big doors swing on small hinges”.

What’s the Elephant?

From the brief description of the four subjects I hope you can see that there are many areas of similarity between them. But the big question for me is am I being blind?: Am I seeing the elephant?

My hunch is that the elephant is about connectedness based on life-force energy and vibrational resonance. By connectedness I mean relationships and belonging.

For years sociologists have known that the need for belonging is one of the deepest of all human needs — maybe as deep is the need for food. It seems that physicists studying systems, complexity, networks and chaos are now saying the same thing.

If my hunch is right then connectedness, relationships, belonging and life-force are much more important than most managers and management theory suggests. 

If my hunch is true the key to leadership is:

1. To connect to ourselves, so we know deeply who we are and can work more authentically and effectively. This is what I call the world within.
2. To connect to each other so that we can work together to achieve more than on our own. This is what I call the world between.
3. To connect to the world so that virtuous energy and forces emerge (like love, truth and beauty, relationships, culture, understanding; and trust) and reduce vicious energy and forces (like shame, guilt, and fear). This is what I call the world outside.

Can you help me inch closer to a deeper understanding? I’d be very grateful. Listen to your head and your heart and let me know.

Bruce.

Bruce Holland is the author of the book: Cracking Great Leaders Liberate Human Energy at Work and the supporting Program designed for other consultants who don’t have the skills or time to develop their own intellectual property.