[The Work in Review] Matrix leadership, commercial confidence, and decisive leadership.
A look back at the problems I was being asked to solve in 2023.
At last - I’ve completed the annual review of the work I do through OverTime Leader.
I’ve had a bunch of new subscribers this week 👋 welcome 👋 today’s post is outside of my typical playbook, so thought I’d share my two most popular posts to give you a better sense of what to expect going forward:
Why I did this review?
Selfishly, it forces me to take a step back and do a more holistic analysis of the problems we get asked to solve.
I also find it fascinating, so made the assumption that as a subscriber, you might also find this interesting, and hopefully gain an insight or two in the process.
I’ve split the insights across the different sectors I work within. From a surface level, one might not expect to see similar problems through out such a wide range. From start-up to enterprise, from supply chain to mobile gaming, at the core, we are all just humans trying to lead people in a time of uncertainty and change. The ability for me to be both industry and sector agnostic allows me to reassure my clients that they are not alone, but also to design tools and frameworks that can be adapted as and when needed.
*Warning* This is a long post, but if you’re into this kind of thing, you’ll hopefully get something from it.
Let’s go -
🔥 My hot takes on 2023 🔥
Was all about setting foundations. It started off the slow, but work picked up aggressively in Q2 and has not shown signs of slowing down. Across the board, folks are being intentional in how and where they are investing.
It was the year of hard calls and new behaviours. I found there was a recognition that what got us here (undesired state) won’t get us there (desired state).
That created a level of self-awareness and responsibility from leaders to try on new leadership styles that I have not seen before ‘en masse’.
Accepting the ‘poly-crisis’ environment and moving around it. Leaders made a call in 2023 to not sit and wait but to build their organizations to adapt and work better with the resources they had.
AI - ever heard about it?
🔮 Leadership Trends in 2024 🔮
So far, here’s what I’m seeing:
I’ve heard the words “high-performance” so much in 2024, I think they are starting to lose meaning. What’s behind it is the need for leaders to raise the bar of their teams, achieve more than they thought possible and being ruthless with how they spend their time. This is requiring a lot of folks to drive a very different culture than their orgs are used to.
With this culture change comes the need to lean into hard conversations. Leaders are having to let people down, something they haven’t been used to. There was avoidance to ‘rock the boat’ in case folks would join the great resignation, this year it’s giving big “we’ll sail without ‘em” vibe.
Despite the ambition and drive to create high performance cultures, C-suite’s are struggling to let go to create the conditions for high performance. They step in too soon, fix too fast and are ‘white knuckling’ their departments whilst simultaneously screaming for more empowered teams. Leaders, it’s time to let go.
Cross-functional alignment is not a nice to have but a business imperative. The level of ‘unprecedented uncertainty’ is only going to keep raising its own bar. In order to be able to react quickly and strategically is ensuring leadership teams are running their business as one unit, not multiple departments. That’s what creates the oil tanker. Leaders need to create aligned, resilience and responsive orgs in order to quickly rebound to change.
Let’s make some money!! Like a switch, executive teams are now expecting everyone in their business to be thinking in a more commercial way. Whilst I agree this is the right approach (and should have always been top of mind) unlike a switch, just saying it won’t create it. That mindset is hard to teach but not impossible, so leaders need to do more to connect the dots around what creates ROI, and tactically what can people do to help margin move in the right direction. Time to teach.
Personally, I am in my element right now 🙌 Building good business, means making hard calls, trade off, stretching ourselves out of our comfort zones, and being leaders that folks connect to so that they want to do the work to achieve great stuff. I’m here for it and excited for what the year has in store.
A Deeper Dive - The Work
I’ve pulled out some highlights around the problems we got called to unpack and how we approached solving them across 2023. Enjoy!
1. [Sector] AI Robotics 🤖
Problem:
I have particularly enjoyed working with the blend of hardware and software. There’s something about being able to see the product brings it to life. However, robots are expensive and one of the biggest problems clients faced here was the need to lock down funds in a very flippant market (i.e. commits made, money not exchanged). This matters as for executives you have to play business as usual, assuming it will all work out and not hold back from ambitious plans.
As these clients are in growth stage, and founder lead, a lot of the problems they were facing was not being able to shift from do-er to leader and understanding what the transition to executive leadership looked like. This leads to C-suite being overly involved and newly promoted leaders with ever growing remits are unclear where and how to take the lead.
Alongside all of the above was the challenge of consistent culture change. A high-growth business’ culture will evolve every few months until it starts to stabilise. This can be jarring and when unmanaged become a big distraction in the plans.
Solution:
I designed a Set up for Scale” offsite to work with leadership teams to align on how they would come together to address the next phase of growth. This helped level-set expectations in the room, and using my experience in scale-up, I pulled out common patterns that they should expect to see and how to navigate around them (instead of thinking this is a them problem).
I did a lot of 1:1 work with key executives on how they can start that shift into leadership, the outcomes being more confidence and clear in their role and much more focus on what they needed to do to have impact. Clear messaging for founders on how to move forward and plan for what’s coming next.
Internal leadership programs that focus on building confidence, cross-functional collaboration and alignment. I’ve been running these programs for years and it gives me so much joy to see behaviour change in leaders as they step up to their roles.
Internal comms. A key element to culture change. Worked alongside leadership teams to identify the culture shift they wanted to see (pace) and what comms they needed to send + behaviours they needed to role model in order to make the right signals.
2. [Sector] Gaming 🎮
Problem:
Worked across a few gaming companies, a few that were just starting-up to one that had achieved a successful exit. For those starting up, it was all about PMF, building the right team and raising money. For the post-exit it was all about finding identity and purpose on the other side.
Although their day to day problems were vastly different, at leadership level the problems were quite similar; aligning the leadership team on what comes next, and identifying the role the CEO needs to play in current phase the business is at.
Solution:
A team alignment session around what comes next allowed them to find the passion and think outside of the box. It brought to the surface that the culture that got them there, wasn’t going to get them to where they needed to be and was it time to shake things up. This was a big ‘ah-ha’ moment where the leadership team was able to get ‘permission’ to try a new, potentially controversial, step change. For the team that had made an exit this gave them a chance to think about their roles and impact in the new structure and identified how they could leverage their new position.
Not everyone that joins a start-up is ready for what growth really means. I did a lot of work last year on aligning founders on what their level of ambition would mean for their leadership style and the culture they would have to shape to ‘stress-test’ if they had the minerals the get behind it.
I played the role of sparring partner for a founder who had a big transformation in front of them. This role gave them the anchor and platform to make some big and bold decisions, and make it less about them and more about what was best for the business.
3. [Sector] Media Agencies 📺
Problem:
I’ve been working with one of the largest media agencies in the world, and have accepted one thing; they are in constant change. The pace they have has to adapt to the market is insane. This means that at an organizational level, nothing stands still and stability and security are almost-non existent. A outcome of this (for non-client facing folks),is change exhausted teams, wanting to have an impact but no clue how to do it, losing morale and will by the second.
Last year I stared working with the one of the second largest media agencies, who came to me with the brief that their management team made up of amazing specialists were not working together, leaving their executive team driving most of the business. They wanted an organizational structure that would promote matrix leadership and empower more decision making across the business.
Solution:
A disempowered management team is usually a reflection of a hands on Executive team so before I started the work I checked that the Executive Team were committed to being part of the change too. I then did an in-depth assessment of their current structure to fully understand the needs and nuances across the business. From there we co-designed a structure that would leverage the talent in house, the needs of the business and the personalities in the room. This change management piece was all supported by strong internal comms advisory so that we were constantly bringing the teams with us in a consistent way.
As part of any work with matrix, I always ensure I build in time for individuals to get to know each other better. Most of the time matrix teams are groups not teams, with the desire to act like a team. If you want to get folks to call out problems and solve together, you need to ensure strong psychological safety. This doesn’t happen by being in meetings together but by breaking down barriers and opening up their johari window.
For change exhausted teams, they had a new leader at the C-suite, who wanted to reinforce their commitment for being a more aligned, globally minded (read less US centric) team, with clear focus and purpose. We worked with a sub-set of their international team to create a set of principles (values) on how they would work going forward. This was a breath of fresh air, teams felt empowered and heard, and the new C-suite gained immediate credibility and much needed energy into the team.
4. [Sector] Retail / E-Commerce 🛍️
Problem:
Looking across start-up to enterprise, the common link across retail/e-comm space was consumer spending in the midst of a challenging poly-crisis environment. Challenges with shipping meant consumer’s perception targeted the brand not the core issue at hand. In a price sensitive economy, every cent matters both to the customer but also how it’s spent internally. No time for waste.
My start-up client main problem was sales. They had brought in a sales leader who had been unsuccessful, and they had a keen team that was starting to lose their mojo. The enterprise was facing a siloed org that had mostly been in these business for the majority of their career and in the past defaulted to their own zones of control. In this economy, they recognised to play it smart, they had to come together and think like one team and align the business around the same clear set of goals.
Solution:
For the start up client I helped him reluctantly accept that they couldn’t keep outsourcing sales until they shaped the sales playbook. I built a support team around him to act as a sparring partner and set in place the process and culture to create a more sales driven team. It worked and they were able to close some big deals, whilst building the playbook so that eventually a new sales leader could take the reigns.
For enterprise I lead a strategy offsite where we spend a lot of time unpacking the different areas of the business. Due to the high amount institutional knowledge there had been some big assumptions made around how they look at customer data, what we count as success, etc. So we pulled apart language to ensure everyone was on the same page. From there we built a strategy that ensured everyone had a part to play and felt confident aligning the org around it. It was a high energy session, full of healthy challenge and debate and it reminded me that sometimes we really do need to go slow in order to go fast!
5. [Sector] Logistics + Supply Chain ⛓️🚢
Problem:
Another space where I was looking across start-up to enterprise. In this case they had very different needs, but driven by the same root cause. Standing out in a competitive and uncertain market.
The enterprise team was focused on turning a legacy brand into a more consumer facing one. Their challenge was less about what they needed to do and more around internal alignment to change perceptions internally. Despite big ambitions and plans at the start of the year we ended up navigating rounds of lay-offs (in and around them), inheriting new teams and trying to find the right balance of keeping internal knowledge and bringing in fresh voices.
In the start-up world it was all about sales again. They needed to commercialise and land some key deals in order to prove PMF. As part of a high growth business, they were struggling to stay focused on one thing, and stretching their teams to wide, leading to not a lot of success.
Solution:
With the enterprise team we had to quickly shift our approach to support the CMO in their transition plans, acting as a sparring partner as they went through the org redesigns. We supported them on the comms plans to ensure they kept the key people motivated and still on track to deliver their ambitious plans of shifting the org.
We also worked with them on identifying the key leaders in their team and developed leadership approaches to ensure they were having the right impact. This allowed them to leverage their teams strengths which helped overcome the disruption caused by internal changes. It was a challenging and unpredictable year but we were there to support them to make some very hard calls.
We supported them by identifying which lateral peers did they need to partner with and how to work with them to get their strategy moved forward.
For the sales leader, we paired them with our sales coach who worked alongside them on a weekly basis which lead to the Sales leader hitting their targets for the first time and providing them with a playbook on how to approach their commercial strategy going forward.
6. [Sector] Venture Capital 🎯
Problem:
I got a birds eye view into the world of venture capital, working alongside both a CFO of a fast growing fund, supporting a couple of Investors on how to navigate the current landscape, and advising a new fund on building a high-performance founder program. I wouldn’t say the current climate is bringing the best out of folks in VC and the majority of the work was focused on how to navigate office politics (a big distraction in my eyes).
A key theme in venture in how to ambitious high potential leaders, who are phenomenal ICs make the key shift from doing to being more strategic, persuasive and influential in the business. I don’t believe you can move up the ladder in any role without ‘playing the game’ but they key is finding your authentic style.
Solution:
Working alongside the individuals I provided tailored coaching to help assess their ecosystem (key players) and understand the culture (especially the shadow side) so we knew what game we were playing. Then using a psychometric assessment, helped them understand their communication styles and where they could learn to adapt new styles (that still felt authentic) in order to have more impact. A lot of this work was getting them to show up differently to move them out of a box they had been put in. Politics is all about perception, so we work around that.
8. [Sector] Non-Profit 🌎
Problem:
Youth Business International (YBI) is a member based non-profit that provides development, tools and resources to global charities that are supporting young entrepreneurs. They had received feedback from CEO’s of their membership, that they were struggling to understand how to adapt their leadership to the hybrid model and came to use to shape a program to address that gap.
The work we have done with YBI has been so enriching and it is so inspiring seeing the impact these organisations have on the world, and the future of entrepreneurship.
Solution:
We kicked the program off at their global summit where we did a talk about the changes in leadership, and what we can learn from professional sports teams to inspire us to be better leaders.
We then hosted a 10-month virtual program where we blended theory, practical action through tailored playbooks, and peer to peer learning, so CEO’s had a safe space to learn and share with each other.
We wanted to showcase that they were not alone, a common pitfall of leadership. Hear what the participants had to say on the impact it had.
Wrapping it Up
I’ll be honest, I did not expect 2023 to be such a fruitful and fulfilling year. 365 days ago I was in a really low point with the business, exhausted from post-pandemic reactivity, to now market instability, I felt so far away from the work that gives me real joy (all of the above). I decided I’d push through until Q2 ‘23 and make a call.
I’m so glad I did.
It’s been a privilege to work across so many sectors with so many great people, and lean on my own team to help make it all happen.
This year is off to a hot start, and I’m considering doing a hot take at the mid-point if we feel this type of insight in interesting. It’s definitely a forcing function for me to process what I’m seeing, hearing and doing out loud, to help connect the dots and spot some themes.
I’d love to know your leadership predictions for 2024?
What are you:
Seeing?
Feeling?
Hearing?
Let’s build together.
G