The Peter Principle states that “in a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.” It was formulated by Dr Lawrence Peter and Raymond Hull in their 1969 book by the same name.

I call them “the brand dead” or “brand spectators” who fur up the organisation’s arteries. Most MDs tolerate a Peter or two. But when conditions change, Peter and pals can very quickly poison your brand from within. When the big battalions are mobilised and change is demanded, the Peter’s, not the market conditions, are your worst enemy.

Consider the impact a Peter can have on your recruitment drive.

“Hire people who are better than you are, then leave them to get on with it . . . ; Look for people who will aim for the remarkable, who will not settle for the routine.” The late David Ogilvy, advertising executive

“If you pick the right people and give them the opportunity to spread their wings—and put compensation as a carrier behind it—you almost don’t have to manage them.” Jack Welch, former chairman and CEO of General Electric

Ogilvy and Welch point the way towards recruitment nirvana – making the most of the fact that it’s an employer’s market to recruit experienced; challenging; maverick; game changers who will stimulate the innovation you need.

But the Peters will desperately cling onto the status quo, recruit in their own image and reinforce the employer brand which failed to spot the issues which have since marched all the way around the corner and into your boardroom.

And if you’ve encouraged Peter-style behaviour within your intermediaries and recruitment agents, you’re in deep trouble as they will doubtless perpetuate a protectionist culture.

When you get a moment, just take a look at the various recruitment and blogging forums and consider how many really good people are out there at the moment. Listen to what they’re saying about the recruitment practices of the Peters. Ask yourself whether you know who your Peters are and whether Peter can be motivated to change?

But most of all question whether your recruitment strategy is paying Peter by robbing Paul and the impact this is having and will have on the performance of your brand.

Never in everyday pursuit of corporate endeavour have so many been force fed by so few.

The proliferation of communication channels given the rise of social and technological media means your average employee claims to be nearing communication saturation point. But are they? I would suggest that the appetite for effective communication has never been more keen, yet effective communication is still in very short supply.

Lest we forget, communication is essentially an outcome, not an input. As I had to make a point of reminding a group of senior civil servants while running Team Briefing workshops recently, “success isn’t measured by volume, pace or quantity. Good communication is a product of whether the message has been received, understood and has resulted in the necessary action”.

For a number of years now, when I’ve conducted communication audits for clients, employees across sectors have complained about being bombarded. Despite the rather trendy discussions about the difference between internal communication and employee engagement, message management and push communication appears to be increasing.The biggest culprit is the dreaded email.

The Evils of email Management

Having just carried out an audit of internal communication channels for another public sector client currently undergoing major change, I’ve been struck, once again, by a bizarre, and frequently seen contradiction.

In answer to the question “How would you prefer to be informed of changes”, a whopping 76% of respondents voted for face to face communication.  Of those 76%, some 68% wanted that communication to come from their immediate line managers.

The second preference was for some form of internal social media allowing them the opportunity to provide feedback and debate in an interactive, real time environment.

However, when we looked into the Communication Department’s communication method of choice, they prioritised:

1. Lunch Meetings with the CEO and senior team
2. email bulletins
3. voicemail
4. publications

In fact, as the change programme gathered pace and brought with it “right sizing” and major structure changes, the top two methods fast became the only “official” channels.  Sadly team briefings led by line managers, once a norm, had faded to sporadic bursts.

It’s perhaps understandable that a number of line managers and supervisors had taken a backward step when faced with extremely difficult message management.  But in this case, it was soon very clear that abdication on this scale reflected deep-seated leadership issues.  Their CEO, in Hero Leader guise, although well intended, was clearly undermining his leaders. They had also lost faith in their communication function which, disempowered, was simply stepping aside by pressing the forward and cc buttons. 

But what’s the problem with push communication?

There clearly isn’t a single answer to this question but a glance at this famous learning effectiveness pyramid illustrates the power of face to face interaction with warm-blooded peers. 

The simple fact is that top down, cascade bombardments, usually delivered by email these days, are synonymous with lecturing.  They allow the originator to tick an activity box but are largely ineffective and simply reinforce one-way messaging. Cascades create a wider push communication culture as the approach is seen to be sanctioned from the very top.

As employee engagement requires:

-         interaction

-         involvement

-         feedback

-         opportunities to check understanding

-         emotional connection

by cascading swarms of messages the organisation promises one thing yet delivers another. It’s disingenuous and creates deep seated resentment.

Most of us learn much more effectively in interpersonal environments, when we’re involved and can interact with others. This is one of the reasons why line managers and immediate supervisors are increasingly important communicators. When they have the opportunity and take the time to commit to Facetime rather than Facebook, employees are enlightened and reassured by the example being set as well as the opportunity for face-to-face discussion, debate and reflection.

We all appreciate the merits of electronic communication. But despite the simple temptation of “compose, click and send” and the sophisticated charms of new-wave social media tools and techniques there really is no replacement for good, old fashioned, face to face, eyeball- to- eyeball communication. This is especially true during testing times when people lose what appetite they may have had for Foie Gras and deeply resent the fact that there’s no comfort food on the menu.

Ian Buckingham (ian@by2w.co.uk) is the founder of the Bring Yourself 2 Work Engagement Fellowship www.by2w.co.uk.  He is the author of Brand Engagement – How Employees Make or Break Brands  http://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?PID=281268. and Brand Champions (due Oct 2010)

I was at a dinner party thrown by a former HR director friend recently and as I arrived at his house was struck by the number of high performance cars on the driveway and then, once I was introduced to his guests, was equally surprised by the fact that most were from the HR community.

Now, I’m not deriding folk for their success. It just took a little getting used to, especially as most of the conversation revolved around the financial benefits associated with acquiring a reputation as a downsizing expert and “being the last one to turn out the lights” before moving on.

It’s clearly wrong to claim that re-sizing has become the raison d’etre of the modern HRD. But this perception wasn’t helped by the dinner party conversation about what it really means to trust and whether trust has any place at work?  

One premise was that the last two years has seen employees’ trust in their organisations fall dramatically and that organisations need to work at ways of re-engaging and re-establishing the psychological contract. The opposite - and prevailing view - was that there are certain things in business that have to remain secret, that being open and honest is often impossible and people should be mature enough to accept that.

The concensus was that trust has no real place at work any longer and that a healthy scepticism should prevail recognising that the employer/employee relationship is “a marriage of convenience”. Neutrality was seen as preferable but is it possible or even desirable to remain neutral in a vocational environment you devote the largest portion of your life to?

I appreciate that many of the HRDs I seem to meet these days are vassels for the process re-engineers and have become de-sensitised to emotions in a similar way to soldiers on the frontline. But is this a reflection of behaviour born of survival or how they really believe things should be?

Trust is a fairly fundamental emotion. If there’s no trust there’s no psychological contract between employees and the employer. Without that there’s no “extra mile” and no relationship development.

I guess you can have a relationship or marriage of convenience based on neutrality, without passion; empathy and drive. But then you can also join Victorian role playing societies to escape from reality.

In the UK we’ve become obsessed with the notion of the Employer Brand.  There are a number of definitions but, in short, this is essentially the brand (in its physical and behavioural forms), the employer presents to existing, potential and new employees. 

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with positioning brand as a concept as applicable to the internal audience and employee audience as the customer audience. And it’s a welcome change to perceive employees and potential employees as customers of the internal support functions.  However, it’s an equation without balance.

I believe our HR functions can and should take a step further towards embracing the role of brand management in the motivation, development, recruitment and management of employees (see Brand Engagement ). That extra step means moving beyond Employer Branding and embracing the notion of the Employment Brand. It calls for a lot more than a simple shift in semantics.

We can lure employees to our employer shop window with silvery-tongued promises, clearly differentiated package, glitzy brochures featuring models airbrushed offices and slick recruitment processes, with a seamless link between the core business and linked suppliers like recruitment companies and marketing organisations.  But how do we keep them people once they step through the doors and complete the induction programme? How do we prevent potential brand ambassadors from becoming brand saboteurs if they become disenchanted with the difference between what they were promised and what they experience?

Just as a brand, from a customer perspective, isn’t the promise made but the promise delivered, the Employment Brand is the result of the Employer Brand minus the Employee Brand (i.e. what the people processes promise minus what they actually deliver). 

It’s a simple twist but by focusing on the notion of Employment Brand it keeps the minds of those responsible for managing the people processes firmly focused on constantly ensuring they understand what they’re promising new as well as existing employees and that they are delivering against that promise. 

This approach calls for close collaboration between recruiters; inductors; measurers; people developers; communicators and brand managers. It’s a massive and positive opportunity for HR departments to step confidently into the brand breach with their marketing colleagues:

-         to develop one compelling story about the brand

-         to work to a consistent set of values

As recruitment markets gradually move back in favour of the talent pool, this shift in emphasis may just be a genuine brand differentiator.

There’s been much written about employee engagement in recent years as this relatively modern phenomenon continues to evolve from its internal communication roots.

Although often over complicated, the general premise of employee engagement is simple. Individual contributions of employees in the workplace is influenced by the strength of their emotional connection to their employer. The stronger and more positive that connection, the more likely it is that the employee will contribute their best effort for the sake of their organization or brand.

At its core, EE is based upon reciprocity. The employer works to create a work environment that is satisfying and rewarding for employees and stimulates their emotions and higher order needs. It literally invites them to bring themselves to work and become similarly invested (engaged) in their organisations long-term success. The concept is fairly simple to grasp, but not necessarily easy to implement.

One of the challenges is that emotional connections can be difficult to define and measure and are prone to shift in response to changes in the work environment. More confounding is that these relations are influenced by multiple variables (line management relationships, organizational mission and values, workload, peer relationships, etc.).

Add to this the cost/resource challenges created by the worst recession since the Great Depression and the fact that EE is reliant on discretionary budgets and EE as a business strategy can quickly become a “nice to have” in the good times.

These challenges aside, engagement as a strategy is not only important, but vital, especially in a climate of economic uncertainty, to the long-term viability of most business enterprises. According to a proprietary report just completed by the University of Akron’s Centre for Organizational Research, engaged employees tend to:

• Be more satisfied with their jobs
• Be more likely to stay with their employer even when other opportunities emerge
• Be more tolerant of (perceived) temporary economic hardships due to the economy
• Bring a consistently higher level of commitment, creativity and energy to their jobs
• Demonstrate higher levels of “good citizenship” behaviours both at and away from work

As a general rule, it’s safe to say that most employees are not engaged with their employers right now. In fact, the most recent Conference Board survey in the US found that only 45% of employees currently report being satisfied with their jobs (the lowest since the survey was started in 1987). As many as 60% indicate that they plan to actively seek new employment sometime in 2010.

Can Employee engagement really be reserved as “nice to do” strategy for when times are good? Employees are smart and quickly spot insincerity. In tough times, resorting to push communication cloaked in the trappings of engagement is like washing the car and then parking it under a tree full of pigeons.

A client, let’s call him David, works for a formerly blue chip multi-national.  Their core HR or people processes, post SAP, were re-designed by teams of Big Four consultants to maximise efficiencies and drive out non-conformances arising from human error.  In short, HR has, in effect, been replaced by systems, standards, Helplines and KPI’s. Managerial learning and development has been re-focused on technical rather than soft skills.

David, by his own admission, is a relatively old school, line and customer service focused manager. He’s a believer in sustaining relationships and in resolving interpersonal differences before they become formal issues (often over a coffee or a beer). He has worked for his company for two decades and has received awards for his work on a number of occasions.

Recently David encountered issues in his personal life which compromised his 8am - 9pm working routine.  As pressure built he started to struggle and turned to his recently appointed executive line managers for support. They responded by citing due process, changed his reporting line from 1:1 to 2:1 and offered him the option of submitting formal Grievances and visiting Occupational Health if he had a problem. They also placed this loyal middle manager on a series of Performance Contracts when they believed his standards (loosely defined) started to slip. Unlike David, they documented every conversation.

Sleepless nights led to longer hours; stress led to Psoriasis and eventually to depression and medication and now to extended absence on health grounds. He eventually submitted a grievance but the 2 and sometimes 3:1 micro management has seen the organisation close ranks and he faces the invidious choice of turning on his own company via tribunal or falling on his own sword. 

David is passionate about the organisation and his job. He has the experience and people skills which customer and staff surveys suggest are needed to help turn the organisation around. Yet David, and it turns out, many of his contemporaries, have become the victims of “due process”.

The growing number of Davids remain voiceless despite the CEO Town Halls and surveys. Yet the organisation flounders in a short-termist backlash, woeful line management skills and mismanagement freefall.

The CEO may understand the need for culture change but what’s to become of these invisible FTEs in the meantime when the HR offices are empty and the day to day processes don’t have ears?

This piece first appeared in print Q1 2008…………….

Critics claim we’re facing an imminent recession. The signs aren’t great when the marketing advice from commentators like the Harvard Business School professor, John Quelch* is that companies should focus on family values rather than appealing to conspicuous consumption. It’s pretty unpalatable stuff to stomach for a society dominated by consumerism. But, ironically, anyone who cares about internal communication should sit up and take note.

While researching Brand Engagement and the pending sequel, Brand Champions, my aim has been to expose the obsession with the material manifestations of brand and to identify and articulate the true behavioural DNA of a brand. I know that authentic brands are more than promises made to employees and staff. They’re about promises delivered. And I know from my own experience of running businesses that there’s nothing quite like tough economic conditions to sharpen focus.

Whatever the rhetoric of the internal marketing zealots may imply and despite what manages may sometimes believe, organisations have little choice other than to rely upon their people to give something of themselves if they’re to connect with the organisation, their peers and customers alike. This is tricky to achieve at the best of times but especially elusive when economic conditions turn sour.

Having worked across sectors in the internal communication and engagement fields for nearly twenty years, it’s frustrating to hear the persistent language of alignment. The conviction that some form of corporate internal media is the way forward is depressing. It reminds me of the culture which dominated institutionalised post war media and led to the phenomenon of pirate radio which emerged as a reaction to the establishment stranglehold of state owned communication. In the UK, Radio Caroline has become the literal flagship for iconoclastic broadcasting http://www.radiocaroline.co.uk/history1.asp.

It’s my firm conviction that corporate engagement can’t be conscripted. Internal media which is out of touch with the true culture of the organisation may dominate the internal airwaves but sadly few people truly listen in.
Unfortunately, one of the side effects of tough market conditions is that the language of corporate command and control increases as does the tendency to focus on “push” communication as managers struggle to cope.

Whether we’re faced with a market downturn or not, the internal communication community has a pivotal role to play in ensuring that employees engage with the brand. Irrespective of market conditions, I would argue that clarity about brand can never be a bad thing especially if it’s based upon authentic dialogue and trust.

If you agree, try the following five tips for bridging the engagement gap:

1. Always role model an open door policy, especially in turbulent times. If in doubt, increase consultation. It’s an unfortunate fact that managers tend to adopt a “laager mentality” when faced with problems. It’s the worst thing they can do. Ignorance breeds insecurity which in turn breeds misunderstanding - the sibling of poor performance.

2. Be honest with your people and really emphasise the personal qualities needed in tough times, the type of culture that is needed to thrive in adversity. I’ve consulted in a number of downsizing situations and this is a proven way of giving people some sense of control over their fate. Regardless of the outcomes of tough trading conditions, when people come out the other side of a downturn, whether they were directly impacted or not, they are always grateful for straight, empathic but honest talking

3. Take the temperature more frequently. Measure the impact of internal communication constantly via concentrated pulse takes rather than with cumbersome, seemingly expensive surveys

4. Seek out and promote positive role models and good news stories. Whatever the conditions, they will be there.

5. Don’t underestimate the power of core values. A downturn is just the time to reflect on the reassurance of a legacy which implies that “we’ve been here before, we’ve survived and even thrived”

Quelch points out that “when economic hard times loom….we tend to retreat to our village….as uncertainty prompts us to stay at home and also stay connected with family and friends”. Clearly internal communication has a vital role to play in keeping those communities informed, in recognizing their core motivators, consulting with them and in setting the tone. But lose touch with the core audience and don’t be surprised if employees seize the airwaves themselves. Pirate radio anyone?

*Financial Times February 18, 2008

Biog

For those of you who don’t know him, Ian Buckingham is the author of Brand Engagement – How Employees Make or Break Brands http://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?PID=281268 and is currently working on the sequel Brand Champions.

We’ve reached a critical point of inflection in the war for talent and it’s now time for a paradigm shift if we’re to dominate the moral high ground”(OD Director, UK Financial Services)

I met this chap a couple of years ago – let’s call him Babel.  He proudly wore the label, Head of Organisation Development and worked for a web-based financial services firm which had a reputation for funky marketing.  He represented a truly maverick brand, much heralded for its iconoclastic , irreverent approach but which, unfortunately, also had an alternative financial performance record.  I would show you a copy of their “strategy on a single page” if I could, but suffice to say, looking at it for the first time was rather like being a Victorian explorer faced with a hieroglyphic carving.  The tablet was packed with symbols which might well have been runes and had so many mixed metaphors that it looked like it had been dipped in a vat of cliché .

 He talked proudly of their collaborations with a host of specialist management gurus – although the “tablet” did most of the speaking for him.  They had “absorbed” key thinking indiscriminately rather like a sponge absorbs liquid, and we’re attempting to align their employees behind their OD strategy.  Well they would have done if they managed to translate it for their leaders in the meantime, of course.

In fact, Babel-speak, as it came to be known, became so infamous that the employees had invented a game which they came to call BS Bingo.  An enterprising cultural guerilla had created a spreadsheet populated by the most infamous and prevalent metaphors.  On the internal communication black market, he offered a financial incentive for his contemporaries to seek out, site and mark off those metaphors appearing in officially sanctioned communication within a given period.  The first to spot and report back a “full house” of BS metaphors was awarded the BS Bingo prize.  You were at a distinct advantage if you were a middle manager and attended the Babel-sanctioned conferences and engagement events.

Two years on and Babel left to start up a consultancy, which has since sadly folded.  His former company has just been sold by its parents after years of underperformance and the OD team was severely right-sized a year ago. It didn’t have to be that way as they had some very good ideas.  Sadly, however, they were seduced by compulsive innovation, obfuscated the obvious and forgot to deliver the basics consistently well.   They lost their audience in purple prose.

As we all know, a metaphor’s a figure of speech that uses one thing to mean another and makes a comparison between the two. At their best metaphors add a powerful dimension to communication by conjuring up imagery which, in turn, evokes emotions that help with understanding, empathy and impact. So why are metaphors so abused in the internal communication market?

To find out - take a look at Ian’s chapter in Phillip Kitchen’s book  Marketing: Metaphor and Metamorphosis or drop one of us a line:  theteam@by2w.co.uk

Ian Buckingham’s blog -  celebrating the little people who really bring big brands to life.

It may be an employer’s market at the moment but only the foolhardy will fail to recognise the fact that they need to keep the eyes of their key performer’s firmly focused on the horizon! We all hate rubber necking and failing to pay due care and attention to your brand superheroes is an accident waiting to happen!

But how exactly do you consult with employees at such a sensitive time; when the risk of bursting the delicate dam of indifference with the inquisitive force of attempting to “move people on” is a very real risk?

Well, first and foremost, involvement is key to employee engagement.  Better still, actively seeking out champions and positive best practice is energising and invigorating.  An alternative is clearly needed to problem based and problem bound modes of inquisitiveness.

Appreciative Inquiry (AI) is an organisation development process or philosophy that engages individuals within an organizational in its turnaround, renewal, change and focused performance.

It’s a particular way of asking questions and envisioning the future that fosters positive relationships and builds on the basic goodness in a person, a situation, or an organization. Put another way, it’s an approach that believes in the power of positive thinking and seeks to draw out the superhero in every employee rather than a self-fulfilling belief that all employees are scheming super villains.

Used effectively, it enhances an organisation’s capacity for collaboration and change.  It’s a fantastic way of signaling an energising alternative to the depressing and draining, downsizing mentality of a recession.

Appreciative Inquiry utilizes a cycle of 4 processes focusing on:

1. DISCOVER: The identification of organizational processes that work well.
2. DREAM: The envisioning of processes that would work well in the future.
3. DESIGN: Planning and prioritizing processes that would work well.
4. DESTINY (or DELIVER): The implementation (execution) of the proposed design.

Even the headings are inspirational.

The basic idea is to build organizations around what works, rather than just trying to fix what doesn’t. It is the opposite of problem solving. Instead of focusing on gaps and inadequacies to find blame and remediate skills or practices, AI focuses on how to create more of the occasional exceptional performance that is occurring (and there will be examples), regardless of conditions, because a core of strengths is aligned.

The approach acknowledges the contribution of individuals, in order to increase trust and inspire best practice. The method aims to create meaning by drawing from stories of concrete successes with the potential of becoming best practices and lends itself to cross-functional social activities. It can be enjoyable and natural to many managers, who, let’s face it, are often sociable people when they come out from behind the badge.

There are a variety of approaches to implementing Appreciative Inquiry, including mass-mobilized interviews and a large, diverse gathering called an Appreciative Inquiry Summit Both approaches involve bringing very large, diverse groups of people together to study and build upon the best in an organization or community.

The basic philosophy of AI is also found in other positively oriented approaches to individual change as well as organizational change. AI fosters positive relationships and builds on the basic goodness in a person, or a situation. The idea of building on strength, rather than just focusing on faults and weakness is a powerful idea in use in mentoring programs, and excellent performance evaluations – where superheroes come into their own.

If you’re wondering what to do with your employee survey and are a little nervous about how any internal benchmarking activity will be received; if you’ve had enough of the pessimism and would like to know more about the power of Appreciative Inquiry or just need a hand spotting those brand champions quietly battling the economic doom and gloom, get in touch. We’re happy to share ideas.

ian@by2w.co.uk

As the Lloyds/TSB/HBOS shareholders attest, massive change is upon us.  And there’s nothing quite like the threat of change to test the metal of your leaders.  If leadership is partly about inspiring a community of individuals to undertake a collective endeavour, then stories are essential to articulate that vision. Noel Tichy in his book The Leadership Engine remarks that

“the best way to get humans to venture into unknown terrain is to make that terrain familiar and desirable by taking them there first in their imagination”

And Antoine de Saint Exupéry remarked that

“if you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea”

When a leader inspires, he or she breathes life and energy into their followers. When we reflect on the extraordinarily motivating speeches Churchill made, it’s clear that no amount of PowerPoint (had it existed) and no amount of consultancy or accountancy models would ever have had the effect of his well chosen words. And Martin Luther King had a dream, he didn’t have a change goal and wasn’t at a critical point of inflection. Or was he?

The results of a study at the London Business School show how much of the message we retain depending on the vehicle of communication.

• Statistics = 5-10%
• Statistics and Story = 25-30%
• Story = 65-70%

And the moral of this story is that if you are delivering the ‘Who we are’ (Brand Identity), ‘this is where we’re going’ (Mission/vision), and ‘this is how we’re going to get there’ (strategy)’ piece, then don’t rely too much on statistics alone to land the message.

Business, emotion and non-sensory language (or why so many business speakers are frighteningly uninspiring)

Change may be scary but there’s nothing more terrifying than uncertainty and vagueness.

Do you remember the strapline to the ‘80’s movie ‘Alien’? ‘In space no one can hear you scream’. These few words create an image (space), a sound (screaming) and a feeling (not a very nice feeling). Compare it with ‘dedicated management capability’ or ‘randomised user-orientated response’ – These are non-sensory words, and they abound in the corporate world. Now, if you put enough of these non-sensory words together you will trip something in the listener’s brain and a film and a fog will appear before their eyes as they fall asleep or escape into daydream. These non-sensory words are the vocabulary of science, borrowed in business to give a veneer of credibility (‘it must be true, it sounds scientific’) Somehow we are not reassured by too much feeling or emotion in business. After all, the language of love, romance, of the emotional life is the language of metaphor (‘shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?…). This language excites the imagination; it creates feelings, images, sounds, smells. Remember your first kiss? The first record you bought? The smell of coffee roasting? The visual imagery of being surrounded by your loved ones? Often we believe that these feeling, these emotions, cloud and corrupt the experiment and enterprise we call business. Yet if you want to tell me about values, like trust and integrity, don’t give me the science or the text-book definition, give me the metaphor, give me comparisons to help me understand, give me examples, tell me the story.

 Getting the story straight: The Hero’s Journey

The most effective and versatile storytelling tool must be The Hero’s Journey. There is no space to do justice to it here, but by way of a simple explanation, the Hero’s Journey represents the central narrative that underlies any story of growth or change regardless of cultural origin. It is a framework which allows an organisation, team or individual to examine past and present change, both personal (largely emotional) and corporate (largely rational) and to anticipate and explore future change. Applied as a change management tool it can be a hugely effective way of making sense of  and embracing change.

But as senior leaders tumble, where will the heroes who will lead your people through these turbulent times come from?  Well, they’re all around you.  But sometimes it needs a little external facilitation and support to help you find them.