Helping leaders emerge

Written by Stephen Parker, Chief Learning Officer and Global Head of Talent Management, consulting firm – A.T. Kearney

Dan Cable, Professor of Organizational Behaviour, London Business School says we are our best selves when we are doing “what we love, what people value, and what we’re great at.” Yet our busy lives rarely bring us to this soul-sustaining juncture. Even the most successful professionals can feel trapped by what they are doing. They may be highly respected and richly rewarded, but something is missing. Deep down they sense that their work does not fully invite them to be their best self.

Some organizations get along fine operating this way, but when an organization is highly aspirational, helping people to be their best selves is imperative. I work in a highly aspirational organization. In 2013, we committed to a vision of A.T. Kearney being the most admired global full-service management consulting firm by the year 2020, while doubling in size. With those goals in mind, we build our learning efforts around this core tenet: For us to be the most admired firm, each one of us must be the most admired version of ourselves – our best self. This confluence of organizational and individual aspirations compels us to offer learning experiences that benefit the whole person, encompassing the emotional, intellectual, relational and physical domains.

Accordingly, our Expanding Horizons learning initiative (designed and delivered in collaboration with London Business School) takes a straightforward approach to helping our firm partners connect with their best self. We ask each participating partner to identify up to 20 people who know them well, be they colleagues, clients, friends, relatives, former teachers, etc. We then invite these individuals to share stories of when they saw the partner at his or her best. These recollections are submitted via a confidential web-based portal and collected into small booklets, to be shared solely with the partner being described.

Before we hand the booklets to the partners, we ask them: “What do you expect to see, in terms of themes and trends, in the stories about you?” This is a prompt to contemplate the best in themselves, which for most may be a refreshing respite from a lifetime of “constructive” self-critique. We then send the partners off to a read about their best selves in a setting of quiet solitude, such as the gardens at London Business School. As you might imagine, reading these deeply personal recollections of siblings, former athletic coaches, teachers, past and current colleagues, clients and friends can be quite emotional. Partners often remark: “I had no clue they saw this in me.” Those who invited only a few people to share recollections of them often wish they had asked for more.

The insights can be powerfully enlightening. For example, partners who believed that their best self is brilliantly analytical and results driven – based on the praise they have long received for achievements like being the fastest to earn an MBA or the first among their peers to be named a partner – may find that such strengths are not mentioned at all in their best-self stories. Instead, people who know them well recall instances when the partner was unusually caring and compassionate, startlingly generous, or steadfast in the face of crisis. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the partner’s previous sense of self is false, but rather, that it may be woefully incomplete. Such realizations create space for further growth by inviting our firm partners to bring more of their best selves to all they do, and to help the people they lead be their best selves.

“It is easy for busy people to default to brief and transactional interactions,” notes David Hanfland, an A.T. Kearney Partner. “Expanding Horizons helped me to recognize that when I have I really made a difference in people’s lives is when I have slowed down to better understand what is happening with them, and what I can do to help. I have a long way to go, but I am working on this every day. I can already see the impact it is having with my clients, colleagues, and family.”

In an organization as aspirational as ours, the significance of being our best selves cannot be overstated. There is simply no greater source of sustained commitment and zeal for achievement. The author Joseph Campbell once urged readers to “follow your bliss,” but later suggested they would do better to “follow your blisters.” For when we are doing what we love, what people value, and what we’re great at, we give it our all. We then find great joy in our blisters.  Ask yourself:

  • Is your work life too often soul-depleting, rather than soul-sustaining?
  • How well do you know your “best self”?
  • Are you willing to learn about your best self from those who know you well?

 

Stephen Parker is the first Chief Learning Officer and Global Head of Talent Management with the consulting firm A.T. Kearney where he applies his deep experience as a leadership consultant and executive coach to help his colleagues worldwide discover and apply the very best of themselves. Stephen, recently profiled in Chief Learning Officer, has advised CEOs across many industries including pharmaceuticals, technology, and consumer goods, and has designed and led multi-year leadership and culture projects for global corporations. He previously served as President of a boutique leadership consulting firm in Washington, DC and founded the Global Consulting Group for BlessingWhite, an international leadership development firm. Stephen is based in New York City and lives in Princeton, NJ.