Hierarchy vs Network orientation

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of attending a session with the famous Olympian Gold medal swimmer from the Netherlands. Who is currently leading Team NL to the next Olympic games in Japan. A session I reflect back on with lots of inspiration on how to manage through uncertainty, whilst enabling an high performance culture. Here my reflections of the conversation.   It starts with an Ambition Slogan, for the Olympic team translated into "Inspire a generation" what people do on the playing field and show off field, is what truly matters to become a champion when the games are not on. In this I see a clear parallel with Business, inspiration from common goal an higher purpose to align the minds.   The postponement of the Olympics, is a big disruption, a great program impacting a team that would have had a peak performance, and aligned all efforts to that specific moment in time. Acknowledge that tailor made solutions are needed for each different situation, i.e. with a year of delay this means that team set-up would or will be changed. Although people qualified to go to the Olympics it might mean that they are over the top, or get injured, or new talent is jumping to take a seat as they will be the best of best next year, different life choices etc.. Acknowledgment off and address these elements upfront, to keep the team motivated. Its start with the core values (together and respect), athletes are more then a gold medal, this requires to be honest and provide upfront with feedback on the situation.   We further discussed the job of the Chef the Mission or any leader, is to create a high-performance culture. One of the Olympic learnings came from the US and Australia. Between the best coaches of all different teams, they started to sharing knowledge from different sports / disciplines / ways of working/ universities to drive a different outcome, i.e. training SMART, next to Hard and take the required rest to recharge. The philosophy is simple, if you are already a top performer and reached a performance plateau, how can you break through? Not by doing more of the same, but by trying new things out from others that have reached a plateau of performance as well.   A key aspect of creating a high performing culture is Working hard every day try, to push each other, great sportsmanship, but pushing performance up. Great example provided was on Kieran and Dorian, the Dutch windsurfers, with only 1 ticket, whilst being best friends, they kept pushing each other up in performance knowing that only one would go, that is true sportsmanship, winning together.   A personal reflection was on the Olympics in Beijing, Swim fast in old fashion way, due to the change in technology i.e. the technology of suits, which Pieter didn't maximise he got 5th in Beijing. Here it was made clear that previous performance didn't count, its not about the best swimmer, but on all aspects around it, the best team, the best selected materials, although he set the best personal time ever, learning is that we need to operate within the circumstances provided, be flexible, learn on new techniques and get the best out of that situation.  We talked about the culture of working hard every day try to push each other , the great sportsmanship on pushing performance up (referencing Kieran and Dorian). I just finished watching the series on Netflix on "The Last dance" of Michael Jordan, it shows how hard some of the conversations need to be to get to best outcome. the question raises on how do we protect the culture of openness to drive these open upfront discussions enabling acceleration? we came to the conclusion that, in short referencing the last dance: Trust is key, building on personal strength, a common Goal, and respect each others specialism, refencing the role of Dennis Rodman in the Bulls team. A great example of what it takes to look at the complete person. Always be thank full to the team, being part of the team, as you as a leader are just part of the team, the gold medal is a team result!   In closure, lets avoid the negative attention, Be in the moment and Focus on the Ambition, Be open to learn and Share with others new insights. This is the key to increase performance and achieve Dynamic Value, a learning made possible through Sportsmanship!   

How to make culture tangible? A reflection after energetic session organised by Möbius

This week I joined the Gattorna alignment thought leadership session for the third time. A get together of handpicked individuals. A great session with deepening explanations on the Gattona trademarked framework. Openly sharing learnings and best practices in light of the latest trends and updates to the concept frameworks established by Gattorna alignment. My interest and thinking in the area of alignment has been triggered by John Gattorna and his conceptual frameworks, since I got in contact early 2007. From there I started to put these in practice, building up empirical evidence and learnings on the frameworks. Truly leveraging on it in my own journey, whilst climbing the corporate ladder in Shell. John is a great inspiration on the frameworks of Dynamic Alignment and Debb on the associated analytics and insights, that go hand in hand. I'm confident that sharing the insights will helps us all to become true advocates of the alignment model. As an individual with deep interest of my own, I however do think that we need to go beyond the supply chain angle and build further on the value chain as earlier lectured at MIT. From where we can enhance the thinking with all the latest insights. This would position the thinking at the board level and truly drive the required changes we need ! A final note on the customer alignment, it does not limited itself to the external world outside of the organisation, but when applied within the organisation it unlocks a wealth of insights and value. As most customers sit internally within our own organisations. getting this right will allow us to serve the external customers even better… Looking forward to comments, thanks to John and Debb to spark my interest in the concepts of dynamic alignment TM. Your frameworks are game changers and we as business community have a lot to give back to enhance the frameworks even further. @network in practise. A big thank you to both of you and those contributing! Recommended read: Gattorna, John; Dynamic Supply Chains : How to design, build and manage people-centric value networks, 3rd Edition