Five approaches to managing a team in an era of innovation

The modern world is constantly changing, and the requirements for the competencies of business leaders are changing along with it. What skills do managers of the future need?

Charisma, an important goal and a comfortable environment: we inspire the team

One of the main skills of modern leaders is the ability to inspire employees. This is confirmed by a study by the HR company Hays: 76% of Russian top managers consider the ability to lead a team to be the main skill of a manager. It’s all about the volatility of industries in an era of innovation. The teams that work in them often become pioneers: business strategies fade into the background.

How to inspire a team? There are three main tools:

• Goal setting – think big

The global task that leaders set for the team can unite and inspire employees. A textbook example of such goal-setting is Google. Its founders wanted to create a platform that would collect information from all over the world and make it accessible to the majority of people. Another example is Sibur. In 2020, she began building one of the largest gas chemical complexes in the world in the Far East.

Goal setting should not be considered a universal tool: not every company has an ambitious and global task. However, smaller goals can also be inspiring if they resonate with employee values. The main thing is to identify clear tasks on the way to its implementation, which the team will strive to achieve.

• The charismatic leader as a role model

The image of a successful manager inspires employees to work on themselves, and hence to advance in their careers. Examples of such leaders are German Gref (Sberbank) and Alexander Dyukov (Gazprom Neft). To apply this team inspiration tool, it is important for the leader to monitor their own image and representation in the media.

• Creating a comfortable environment

The atmosphere within the team can also motivate. Today, people are fascinated by the values ​​that a leader instills. So, three years ago, Grigory Fedorishin came to the role of president of the metallurgical company NLMK. He began to work on creating value-meanings that define the face of the company, for example, leadership in the field of sustainable development. This made it possible to increase the involvement of the team: the initiative of employees increased eightfold.

Another element of successful motivation is work on the quality of personnel. So, Netflix hires only the best specialists, the so-called A-players. Working in a team of such professionals becomes an engagement tool in itself. Helps inspire the team and the quality of the workspace. So, in the headquarters of Facebook in California, there are a lot of gardens for informal business meetings.

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Trial and error: looking for business opportunities

Another important skill is the ability to look for opportunities for the company. It consists of three things:

• a careful look at the outside world;
• formation of working hypotheses;
• rapid experimentation on their implementation.

First of all, the modern leader must keep track of customers – to keep track of how their preferences change, what is happening in their industry.

In second place are customers of customers. A deep understanding of the business processes of your customers will help you understand how to increase the attractiveness of the company. Non-customer companies can also help to find growth points. The manager can test hypotheses explaining why they do not work with his company.

Another source of new opportunities is the experience and ideas of leading companies like Amazon or Netflix. Suppliers, contractors, companies from your ecosystem, and even distant industries can help – openness and willingness to learn from experience are important for a leader. So, British Petroleum CEO John Brown advised his subordinates not to learn from competitors, but to learn from companies from other industries.

The most important thing is to quickly test the hypothesis. For example, Netflix was successful in selling DVDs, but caught up with the demand for streaming in time. As a result, the company managed to conquer the video streaming market. Another example is Amazon. The company has conquered the online trading market, but has noticed a growing need for cloud computing. As a result, Amazon became the world’s largest provider of such services.

Implementing a green approach to improve efficiency

For leaders of the new time, constant sustainable development and social responsibility of the company are especially important. There are three main approaches here:

• Earned – invest

Large companies from industries that can damage nature operate in this paradigm. For them, sustainable development is an opportunity to contribute funds to prevent harm to the environment.

• Environmental costs as an increase in costs

This is a purely practical approach. These executives see sustainability as a way to create added value for customers.

• A new approach to earning

This is a new business model that can be described as “make money by saving plants”. Leaders who adhere to this paradigm are looking for a way to run their business in an environmentally friendly way.

One example of such leaders is the former CEO of PepsiCo, Indra Nooyi. Under her, PepsiCo began to closely monitor global issues, such as obesity, pollution or gender inequality. The company then contributed to solving these problems. The product portfolio has become healthier, the environmental strategy has reduced the harm of production, and there are more female leaders at PepsiCo.

In doing so, PepsiCo used universal practices. She began to invest more in scientific and technical development and accept the ideas of employees of all levels. In addition, the company began to involve more and more partners in such work – suppliers, community members and third-party companies.

Preparing scenarios for the future

Long-term planning tools (like a business plan for ten years ahead) do not work in innovative industries. Modern leaders think about the future in terms of trends and dreams. They think about where they want to be in the future, but do not make detailed plans.

One of the most effective ways to prepare for the future is the scenario approach. The leader does not draw up one plan, but prepares for many scenarios at once. He comprehends the trends of the modern world and analyzes what they can result in in the future.

The modern leader works hard on personal skills that will be useful in ten years, and also defines such skills for the team. Examples of such competencies are all-round collaboration, the ability to learn operational rather than abstract skills, and the use of digital technologies. For companies, the ability to interact with other teams and experiment is also important.

Building a bridge to a new world and working on history

External relations in companies are often handled by a PR or GR director. In fact, they should be handled by the CEO. Rupert Murdoch often drew a parallel between the image of the CEO and the man sitting on the fence. According to the media mogul, the CEO must combine two sides: to be on the side of the company and outside. This will allow the manager to keep track of all the changes within the industry and the world, but at the same time know what is happening in the company.

Another common problem among traditional organizations is misunderstanding. Financial and environmental reporting is unlikely to be interesting and understandable to any outsider. To build a dialogue, the leader should work out a real story for the outside world, tied to the mission and values ​​of the company. Its plot should be the same for all stakeholders – shareholders, customers, suppliers, and so on. Most companies don’t have a history; they only have numbers that everyone will forget.

In order for the modern world to love the company and take it seriously, you need to strive for openness and transparency. In addition, there will be no interest from companies that do not show a reciprocal interest in the market. The leader must show interest in the opinions of key stakeholders and proactively collect such information. So, Google not only actively shares information, but also constantly studies its audience through surveys and big data analysis. Information exchange allows you to create an attractive image of the company in communication with the outside world.

The era of innovation places many new demands on leaders. At the same time, the main condition for growth is the constant work on each of the skills. Therefore, the main thing for a leader in the era of innovation is the desire to continuously develop. There should be many sources for new knowledge: among them are other people’s experience and additional education courses. Openness to the world will help to track trends and test hypotheses for the development of the individual and the team.