• Home
• On school improvement
• Insights & evidence
• Thought leadership
• Good practice
  • Intro
• Books
• Workshops
• Masterclasses
• Register
• Members area
• Contact us

Thought leadership
Prof Lynda Gratton

So how can leaders develop their roles as champions of change in order to mobilize and motivate talent to impact on performance. As we have seen in a number of summaries so far, there is much emphasis of the role of leaders at encouraging and promoting:

• Connection
• Engagement
• Co-creating of shared vision
• Provoking the imagination
• Appreciating the best
• Nurturing talent [Placing ladders] etc

One the one hand it would appear that there is good deal of exhortation for leaders to do more and more. On the other, some like Peter Drucker has proposed that leaders should not be helped to do more but instead be helped to know what to stop doing.

This reminds me that at some point soon I should have to revisit some of the early work by Prof Sune Carlson, Prof Rosemary Stewart and Prof Henry Mintzberg on the work of executive leaders and to examine how the nature of such work has changed or is changing since the 1950s. It is possible to speculate that there has been a shift of roles from the planning, co-ordination and control functions to those that call more on blue sky thinking, cooperative and collaborative strategy making, interpersonal and talent nurturing roles.

All companies and organisations want to succeed and many do. One explanation on how they achieve this is well encapsulated in the work of Lynda Gratton who is Professor of Management Practice at London Business School and is an expert on human resource strategy, organisational transformation and leadership. Her work on the leadership of organisational transformation has unfolded though a number of key publications.

In her book Living Strategy: Putting People at the Heart of the Corporate Purpose she discussed strategies and leadership behaviour for creating the context for engagement and employee motivation. In her second book entitled The Democratic Enterprise: Liberating your business with Freedom, Flexibility and Commitment she examined the practices that can impact on employee behaviour and performance. Her third book has shifted its focus on groups and communities. In context of the public sector and in relation to the NHS this has relevance for teams and in particular front line teams.

Specifically the work outlined in HOT SPOTS: why some companies buzz with energy and innovation and others don’t [ FT Prentice Hall 2007] discusses how leaders can work with employees at creating the conditions in which cooperation and collaboration can flourish and as a result motivate employees and teams to give of their best to impact on productivity, quality and overall performance.

So what is a HOT SPOT?
Work and the work place is where we make friends, learn about ourselves “ grow and develop and where we become innovative, energized and stimulated”. It is through work with others that one is able to create “ positive energy” that provides joy and fulfilment, echoing the ideas offered by Abraham Maslow and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi amongst others. The experience of work and the workplace and the times when such joy and excitement, buzz and creative energies are experienced are called HOT SPOTS.

Prof Gratton further define HOT SPOTS as:
“ places and times where cooperation flourishes creating great energy, innovation, productivity and excitement.”
“ can be workplaces, teams, departments, companies, factories, cities, industries, coffee shops, hallways, conferences- any place or time where people are working together in exceptionally creative and collaborative ways”.

Not only are HOT SPOTS good for us as individuals and as employees but they are also good for the companies and organisations that we work for. However whilst most of us would have experienced HOT SPOTS in our lives and working lives at one point or another it is obvious that this is not an enduring state. In many work situations, some individuals feel drained and experience low morale, burn out and are not fully engaged. [ See Maslach on Burn Out and the recently published Diagnosis Boreout, the book by Peter Werder and Philippe Rothlin] .

So how do leaders and their people create the conditions for HOT SPOTS? According to Lynda Gratton four key elements are necessary as follows:

• Firstly a Cooperative Mindset which harnesses the intellectual, emotional and social capital of individuals when they come together to create value;

• Secondly HOT SPOTS occur because of Boundary Spanning is about the way in which we exploit long term as well as new relationships strength of relationships that exists within and outside groups that enables groups to exploit shared expertise, create value through collaborative exploration and novel combinations.
• And Thirdly that HOT SPOTS occur because of an Igniting Purpose ie a cause, a vision or an initiative that engages people’s passion, one which they find exciting and worthy. This Igniting Purpose can start with a question such as the one that she cites that was posed by the then CEO of BP Lord John Brown who raised the question “ How can we as an oil company be a force for good?”. She proposes that igniting questions lead to igniting visions which ultimately lead to igniting tasks.
• The extent to which the Hot Spot is able create lasting value is contingent upon a fourth element i.e Productive Capacity. Here she argues that the skills and competence of individuals are crucial specifically in terms of what she calls the five productive practices [ appreciating others talents, making commitments, resolving conflicts, synchronizing time and establishing a rhythm]

The enabling skills and role modeling of the leader and the manner in which the organization nurture the productive practices of its people are all crucial to the creating of conditions to enable hot spots to occur. Crucially though the role of the leader is uppermost and has been defined by Prof Gratton as follows:

Leader as Socrates: here it is necessary for the leader to be courageous and confident at asking difficult questions; to bring fresh perspectives to issues and challenges and to be persistent at getting to the core of issues and challenges;

Leader as the creator of friendships in which personal networks and relationships are initiated, nurtured and sustained within and beyond the boundaries of the company.

Leader as architect of signature processes at championing and role modeling practices that reflect their personal values as well as those of the company.

Peter Drucker Emanuel Gobillot Harrison Owen Marvin Weisbord and Sandra Janoff Don Tapscott Dr David Cooperrider Dr Marshall Goldsmith Rosabeth Moss Kanter Prof Lynda Gratton Rod Beckstrom