Beyond the perennial challenges of the business family, such as succession or the dissociation of the business and family binomial, boards of directors should pay attention to such crucial issues as organizational culture, key talent and leadership.
Although the strategy defines the whats that will allow us to achieve what we have proposed, whether in the vision or the purpose, it is the organizational culture that will determine how to achieve it in a sustainable way. Culture defines the hows: how we want things to be done that will allow us to achieve what we have set out to do., how we behave when no one sees us, when the boss is not in the office. Culture reflects the daily behavior of managers.
Therefore, it is necessary to define and manage the required culture. Not just any organizational culture but rather our own culture that will allow us to contribute to the success of the strategy and achieve what we set out to do, in a sustainable way, whether in terms of the mission, vision and/or purpose. And if culture is a reflection of the daily behavior of its managers, it is logical that we dedicate time and effort to defining the leadership culture required and that, consequently, we must demand.
We need to define and develop a leader profile, a unique style, a homogeneous leadership culture, which guarantees certain behaviors and behaviors and which prevents, for example, the professional success of a high potential from depending on chance, depending on the boss. let it touch him. The reader will think, how can it be a single style if the behaviors expected of a leader are different for each management level? Well, generating a code of managerial excellence, a properly aligned leader profile, for each of the levels and regardless of whether or not they are members of the business family. It adapts those behaviors and conducts required in each case, regardless of the surname of the person in question.
This exercise will allow us to define what we understand by managerial quality and will open the doors to designing a leadership management system. We will therefore consider managerial quality as a KPI that allows us to manage it. A KPI that I call ICL or Leadership Quality Index.
This is not quantum physics but common sense. To manage managerial quality we need more than simply betting on development. How to develop leadership efficiently without having a profile aligned with the strategy? It will not harm us, but its effectiveness will be limited, similar to several of the cases that I remember from the parable of the sower.
Leadership translates into results, but what kind? Naturally, business results, expected performance. However, the way in which the results are achieved is critical and conditions its sustainability and, consequently, the continuity of the company. The results are achieved by the talent, the human team that we have entrusted to each manager. The leader is the technical director of a football team to whom we do not ask him to score the goals himself, but rather we demand that he bring the team of people that we have entrusted to him to the best level of performance and results. And you will tell me, dear reader, that this is obvious. We already know that the company's main asset is its people and...that is why the bonus of our managers is determined mainly by business results, without taking into account the management of collaborators that we have entrusted to them!
We need to start from the desired situation, from the code of managerial excellence, and from a KPI, the ICL leadership quality index that allows us to measure this managerial quality and its adjustment to the leadership culture desired by the organization. The ICL is an algorithm, a formula, composed of different variables, human resources metrics that reflect the results in the management of collaborators, weighted according to the importance that we consider. A KPI that will allow us to assign a score to each leader and, consequently, will answer questions such as the following:
- Who are our best leaders?
- Do we have a ranking of clients and do we not have one of leaders?
- Do we gain or lose density of managerial talent year after year?
- Do we have sufficient quantity and quality of leadership to overcome the challenges that arise from the strategy?
- Whom to promote or condition their promotion, regardless of whether or not they are members of the business family?
It is not about changing the organizational culture, but about honoring the culture that has made the success of the family business possible, aligning it with the values and strategy, being consistent with the belief that it is the people who achieve the results and that the way How we manage our collaborators will determine the success of the organization.
We must evaluate the performance of our leaders both in terms of business results and in employee management.