Take two organizations in the same industry, similar size, similar products, nearly identical talent. One performs and the other does not. When leaders of the second one look for the reason, they look at the people, decide they have a talent problem, and hire, train, and bring in a leadership program. A year later the numbers look about the same. They were looking in the wrong place.
David Edward has spent four decades studying why people do what they do, first at Ogilvy & Mather, Saatchi & Saatchi, and Grey Canada, and since 2003 as founder of the Strategic Initiatives Group. His sentence for all of this is one Kevin has been repeating to clients since he first heard it: the capability was always there. The conditions determine how much of it shows up in the work.
In three parts: what brings out the best in people, and why leaders misdiagnose underperformance as a talent problem; how capability becomes performance, including David's quarrel with "culture eats strategy for breakfast," the three layers of culture, the difference between alignment and compliance, and why a shared reality inside the leadership team has to come before any other condition; and what an organization should do with the capacity AI is now handing back, told through a CMO who won back six hours a week and was afraid to tell anyone.
Research referenced: Kurt Lewin (behavior as a function of person and environment), Bryan Weiner (organizational readiness for change), Chris Argyris and Donald Schön (espoused theory and theory in use), Edward Deci and Richard Ryan (self-determination theory), Janis Cannon-Bowers and Eduardo Salas (shared mental models), and Denise Rousseau (the psychological contract).
David's discussion guide for leadership teams, full transcript, and resources: https://www.2040digital.com/human-factor-podcast/
Find David at https://sigunlimited.com and on LinkedIn.
Subscribe to the Ideas and Innovations newsletter: https://www.2040digital.com/home-2/ideas-and-innovations-newsletter-home-page-explore-all-issues/
The Truth About Transformation: Leading in the Age of AI, Uncertainty and Human Complexity: https://www.amazon.com/Truth-About-Transformation-Uncertainty-Complexity-ebook/dp/B0G3HSBZKD/
