Adaptive Skills Leadership
I few years ago my companys management visited a nuclear plant
. The safety briefing, the radioactivity tests and the security procedures added to the excitement of this visit. A nuclear plant is managed like no other business. A business mistake results in a loss to a company. A safety mistake in a nuclear plant results in a disaster to society. The highlight of the visit was seeing the reactor. I thought about it as a potential atomic bomb. So might the operators who were well trained with various backup procedures aimed at zero failures. I felt relief when we left and thought we all could learn from the excellent leaders of this industry.
Managing a nuclear facility has never been easy. It demands great technical and great people skills. Being a nuclear manager has always meant satisfying a variety of stake-holders, from top-level managers to a board of directors, from internal employees to outside regulators.
Jerry Yelverton is the CEO of Entergy Nuclear in USA. Entergy operates 10 nuclear plants nationwide. It is part of Entergy which has annual revenues of more than $13 billion and approximately 14,700 employees. Yelverton delivered a speech in September 15, 1997 on the topic of Adaptive Skills. Yelverton claimed that to succeed in the demanding business environment of the nuclear power industry, managers must have two kinds of skills. Off course, they must have top-notch technical skills. That goes without saying. But more and more, we must focus on developing the adaptive skills of our managers.
The difference between an adaptive challenge and technical challenge is simple. There are problems that are just technical. A car mechanic fixes our car or a doctor gives us antibiotics to cure our sinus infection. Those are technical solutions. But adaptive problems demand another set of skills. Installing a new culture into a company is adaptive. Theres no clear-cut technical solution. Its a challenge that is going to require people to change their values, their behaviors and their attitudes. They must be led by motivating and inspiring leaders.
Yelverton said that Entergy looked at its nuclear fleet and found out that the top performing plants were all of different technology, design, location and age. It all comes back to the people operating them. And that all comes back to how well managers can motivate and inspire people.
The most valuable philosophy in developing managers into leaders with adaptive skills is to move them around. Dont keep them in the same department. The managers must be tested in different roles. If a manager has just been in operations and thats all hes seen, thats a very narrow focus.
Yelverton says, The importance of moving people around was reinforced when we interviewed 120 of Entergys top leaders. The number-one factor in their success was this: They had a variety of experiences in different functions, business units, companies, and even countries. These experiences were not your typical assignment either. These were high-risk, high visibility assignments. They were multifunctional and focused on solving a crisis or smoldering situation.
What benefits did our 120 leaders gain from these experiences? The benefits included: They developed a better understanding of how the whole business operates; they better understood the impact of their decisions on the rest of the organization; they were able to transfer best practices to new areas; they learned how to lead in a variety of situations; plus they developed strong networks inside and outside the company
I personally had a career in Finance, Operations and Marketing in 3 different industries in 3 different countries. My corporate journey has included managers who I felt were great and those who I felt were terrible. However, all of them had qualities that helped me grow and added merit to their management styles.
Nowadays, when I encourage people to move, they sometime say, I dont want to work for this person. It doesnt matter if you like him or her or not. You have to look at what you can learn from him or her. Look at those behaviors you dont like and say, Im not going to do some of those things. Pick the qualities you like and incorporate them into your own emerging leadership style.
Top leaders dont wait for the assignment to come to them. They are proactive and throw themselves out there. The sooner this happens in their career, the better. Do not wait until your management moves you around. Seize the opportunity and run with it!
by: Dave Osh
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