When asking existing partners in professional services firms the one leadership quality they find hardest to teach, they invariably list gravitas first. When asking middle management teams what is the most important quality they expect from their leaders, inspiration is what is often missing. Our aim at WWS is to develop balanced leaders, and this includes making you and your peers effortlessly visible to your staff, colleagues and the outside world.

Accelerating the acquisition of the relevant skills requires both practice and a diverse set of inputs from disciplines ranging from the theatre, to psychology, creative writing and improvisation. Our latest expert, David Roylance, is a stage director, voice coach, Alexander technique tutor and a fine actor. We have worked with David to develop specific programmes for both emerging and confirmed leaders in the areas of gravitas, inspiration and stage presence – for those really important speeches.

David trained at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in the Barbican. There he began a long association with Patsy Rodenburg, Head of Voice at the National Theatre. He has also trained as a director with Yukio Ninagawa in Tokyo. You will find more details of his acting and directing career here. We are particularly proud that David directed the WWS-sponsored play Meslier at the 2006 Edinburgh fringe that received a 5* review and recently transferred to London.

David made the link between directing and teaching presence in the late 90s and his clients include companies as diverse as Immarsat, British Nuclear Fuels, News International, Hewlett Packard and Scottish Power. He works regularly with WWS for specific coaching engagements and was part of the team who developed and delivered a custom programme for Bank of Scotland last year.

Initially, David was interested in the connections between voice and body language. He then incorporated the use of structured narrative in personal story telling and adapted it to the corporate environment. Working with WWS, he developed comprehensive programmes aimed at specific business situations:

David Nish, Group Finance Director of Standard Life, was the host of our recent Talent Management breakfast in Edinburgh. He outlines his views on why investing in specific Talent activities is essential to modern businesses:

“We live in an unpredictable world today. In business, markets are increasingly interconnected while reputation is valuable and fragile; governments are delegating social policy and individual responsibility is heightened. The environmental factor is here to stay and it is growing - and there is a high cost in terms of employee loyalty and quality of service. Not surprisingly, fear and insecurity for both companies and individuals is abundant.

To cope with this, the business world needs an enhanced capability to change. It makes sense that knowledge and learning has become fundamental and individuals are more accountable.

I strongly believe the present is a consequence of the future, not the past.

When facing these challenges, talent development is fundamental. We need to define and develop skills; provide and build experience; motivate and incentivise for the long-term.

Developing tomorrow’s leaders is vital. Modern leadership requires awareness, vision, the ability to stimulate imagination, responsibility and real action. This is where the investment case for talent comes in. Developing talent is a must-do activity and as such we need to commit time, money and personal commitment to it.”

You may remember that we were asked by Sky News to comment on Tony Blair’s impending departure last year. Quite logically, we were asked to comment on the arrival of his successor too, particularly in light of our experience coaching CEOs during their first 100 days… Finance Week built on our views in a humorous piece entitled: “FD steps up to lead the world’s first industrial empire”. Click here to read the article. And monitor your business press carefully: the verdict on the First 100 Days is only about 3 weeks away…

Thank you to all of you who attended our recent business breakfast meetings on Talent Management in London, Glasgow and Edinburgh. According to your written feedback they were a great success: you enjoyed our relaxed approach; the robust statistics on future trends; and the big-picture-yet-practical perspective we provide at WWS. So many of you want further briefings on leadership in general, but also specifically on succession and on coaching. Watch this space for news of more busy breakfasts coming your way!

With hundreds of books about coaching hitting the shelves every year, it is often difficult to – literally – judge them by their cover. As you know, we are pretty proud of our own tome Essential Business Coaching, but there was no independent review available until now. We are pleased to report that the Human Resource Management Journal (Vol. 17 no.1) has published an in-depth analysis that notes:

“this is a practical, not an academic book”

“Essential Business Coaching in fact does a worthwhile job and does it well.”

“It is practical, pragmatic and up to date. The authors respect different perspectives and traditions. They ask important questions of the reader and offer some realistic answers.”

“The case studies will give organisational buyers, managers and potential coaches a picture of how coaching works in their context. The discussion of the foundations and key elements of professionalism will help raise standards.”

You can download a full review CLICK here

You can order the book CLICK here

Raising talent management as a board issue was high on Rosemary McGinness’s agenda when she joined the family-owned spirits manufacturer two years ago. As a highly entrepreneurial business the company had this “how did we become so big?” moment. Few outsiders know for example that beyond the large eponymous Grant’s whisky blend, WGS also makes Glenfiddich, the world’s best-selling single malt. And so Rosemary called in WWS’s Colin Duthie to design a talent programme for the top 250 people. “The best thing about working with Colin is that he operates at Board level and is also extremely practical. He’s a mine of knowledge on which courses our senior people should attend around the world for example.”

Rosemary’s career started at Forte – at least a customer of the drinks industry – but, having spent 11 years there, she joined Williams Lea (corporate information specialists) and then spent four crazy years in New York with Bowne Business Solutions (in a similar industry). She jumped at the opportunity to return home in Scotland working for a global business that was developing luxury brands such as upmarket Hendricks Gin and Reyka Vodka (the only vodka to be distilled in Iceland); and had enough courage to put an HR director on its board. This meant that she had the authority to attract, retain and develop staff from day one.

Coaching for career progress
Rosemary herself is no newcomer to coaching. “We used informal coaching at Forte back in the 1980s. But I took on extra coaching help when I moved to Williams Lea. In 1994 we had 450 people, five years later with a public floatation we had 4,000!” She employed one coach to help her with the strategic, operational side of the business - for things like implementing remuneration programmes - and turned to WWS’s Averil Leimon to hone her personal skills. “Averil was great at helping me with inter-personal effectiveness skills, particularly when working with the leadership team. She is also a very good sounding board.” Rosemary also turned to coaching during her time in New York. “My coach was a 73 year old woman, literally the most mature business person I have ever met!”

Advice to others
Unsurprisingly, Rosemary is a strong advocate for coaching and has advice to offer other senior people and buyers: “The best thing about coaching is that it allows you to take time out for reflection – away from your busy working schedule – which is rare luxury today. It also challenges your assumptions about company culture: it is so easy to become an insider.”

When choosing coaches she suggests choosing diversity and a good match: “We have worked with WWS on a range of issues and each of them has its own needs. Colin, Averil and François are all so different, they each bring different qualities – a mix of academic rigour and practicality, and they are easy to do business with!”

Rosemary also has thoughts on the talent management process. To her fellow directors she suggests: “Build a strong business case and integrate it with the current business plan for your company. Make sure the Board buys into it. Make sure it starts from the top. Colin started with our CEO, then the board, then the next level. It creates a dynamic of its own.”
“Finally, keep it very simple and practical, as Colin says: ‘keep it high in conversation and don’t make it a paper process’.”

The recent spat between Ryanair and Eurostar was quite amusing in light of the fact that nobody mentioned the time wasted at the airport in the various calculations… Having spent far too much time on delayed UK business travel myself, including being re-routed to Southend Airport at 11pm with no transport back into London, the title of this opinion piece may seem a tad provocative… Surely, there can’t be a way to turn cattle security checks and knees-under-your-chin seats into something pleasurable?

Since I decided to write this article six weeks ago, every flight I have taken has been delayed: plenty of time for people watching!

Herded into small areas with insufficient seating and no apparent air-conditioning, people get hot under their business collars. The bullies, or just the frustrated, pick on the staff in ‘shoot the messenger’ fashion. Many of us start telling each other how it should all be done. By now, everyone believes that they could run an airline better themselves. These people are busy implementers, used to action, making things happen, type A in character, shoehorning activity into too little time. Being stopped in their tracks is excruciating.

The worst aspect of travelling is the giving over of control to someone else. How can we be more resilient and relaxed in the face of the petty irritations? Frustration and anger are debilitating emotions, reducing well-being and satisfaction. However even without delays we do not get the most out of our travel. You will already have developed a constructive range of coping strategies for your travels. Here are three tips from Positive Psychology to add to your repertoire

1. Dance in the moment It can feel like journeys steal time from us. Steal it back! Your flight is delayed? Grab the novel at the bottom of your bag. Security forces you to be in early? Get the best out of everything: eye up that new sports car they are raffling, sample the perfumes, stock up on fine wine or perhaps, have a conversation with that friend or relation that you don’t have time to see.
   
   
2. Savour Instead of filling every moment with laptops, blackberries, mobile phones and multi-tasking, take time to savour the small things. If like us at WWS you love your coffee, seek out the finest you can and rather than throwing it back, savour its impact on your senses. Notice how it looks, the aroma, contemplate and concentrate on your first sip. Give every sip the same attention. Notice how much higher your enjoyment and satisfaction are. This can even work with airline sandwiches, well at least some of the time!
   
   
3. Have a beautiful day (or hour)– all too often, as we rush from one event to another, we have, or make, no time to really experience our surroundings. Flying in and out of cities or countries only seeing the inside of boardrooms can make us very dull. Build in extra time to experience different settings. Plan to do one beautiful thing. E.g. If in London, go to the National Gallery and find the painting that most expresses where your business is right now. In Milan, take the lift to the roof of the Duomo and find yourself above it all, surrounded by craftsmanship carried out to the highest standards despite the fact that few people might see it. “When I travel to a new city, I always take my return flight two hours after the logical one”, adds François. “Discovering local shopping specialties, or simply walking through cobbled streets is essential to keeping your long term sanity.”

Happy travelling this autumn!

This quarter we move away from business books and cover recent political reporting; but there is a catch: there are more management lessons in our tome than in a year’s worth of Harvard Business Review…

Veteran Washington reporter Woodward (of Watergate fame) completes his series on the Iraq war. This third instalment is a fascinating and comprehensive analysis of decision processes before, during and after the military operation.

Independently of your views on the merit of the war, you will be fascinated by the management learning contained in this book. There are over 500 pages of examples of motivated, hard-working, loyal people getting it spectacularly wrong while using the best management tools, technology and financial resources.

For example: how Bush did not follow his instinct and hired Rumsfled, simply to show his father he had better judgement. Rumsfeld then micro-managed and terrorised his staff until he became surrounded by an empire of yes-men. Or how Bush’s approach to problem solving was spot-on (lots of questions, lots of insightful thinking) but he was operating in a strategic vacuum with a desire for good news at all costs. And then there was the in-fighting between the Pentagon and State Department which led to an absence of effective overall strategy for more than three years.

This book is The Office on a huge scale: page after page you cannot quite believe the dynamics that lead to this huge crash in slow motion. I think that it will be the source of case studies for years to come.