Leadership behavior and career specialization – a lesson taken from sport!

I am a keen follower of the Vodacom Super 14 international rugby tournament. While watching a good number of games over the past few weekends, I was struck by the leadership behavior espoused by the captains of two great franchises. They are Victor Matfield of the Blue Bulls and John Smith of the Sharks.

First, some background information before we compare the captains’ behavior on and off the field followed by a few words to conclude how critical the behavior of leaders are in influencing the achievement of positive results.

Both Victor Matfield and John Smith have proven track records at provincial and international level as players and captains. They were influential in establishing their respective franchises’ dominance in the local and international scenes for half a decade and were part of the South African team that won the IRB World Cup in France in 2007. Actually John Smith was captain and Victor Matfield his deputy at that time and the pair still serves South Africa proudly in these capacities with our hopes pinned on them for the next World Cup in 2011.

Matfield has always played in one specialist position, that of lock, and has been considered one of the world’s top players for some time. John Smith has also played as hooker, until after the World Cup, where after it seems that younger emerging players from both John’s franchise as well as from other teams were making demands for permanent placements at local and international level.

At this point in time, a South African rugby legend, Os du Randt, retired. He played the specialist position of Prop for South Africa and was a key contributor towards our World Cup victories in 1995 and 2007. His departure left a big gap. And stranger than fiction, the coaches of the Sharks and the National squad stepped in and had John retrained into this vacancy. It worked like magic and under John’s captaincy at national level and Victor’s at local and international franchise level South African teams brought home an unprecedented number of trophies during 2008.

This brings us to the events of the past four to five weeks!

While Matfield’s Bulls have raced to the top of the league table with an unbeaten record, Smith’s Sharks contrary to expectations, did not win a single game until this weekend’s rather unconvincing victory over a team that is currently considered fairly second rate.

Matfield’s behavior both on and off the field is that of a successful leader, someone seeming to want to take control of destiny with a fierce fire in his belly to get the job done, convinced of his own and his team members’ abilities and training regime to produce the desired outcomes week in and week out. He is seen engaging with referees about decisions while actively leading the Bull’s forward pack in grinding their opposition mercilessly into submission.

While Smith’s body language speaks volumes of the mental position taken up by the Sharks’ management, coaches and players – seemingly friendly humble but rather not overtly confident, and unsure to a point where his appearance resembles that of someone whose shoulders drag and is reluctant to want to take charge – with no fire in his belly or any excitement about taking on the challenges that lie ahead. This past Saturday John was supposing to rest but was suddenly called up and again swopped into yet another Prop position. Head. It seems that all the chop and changes has made him doubt in himself in spite of his past successes. This seems to be same for his team members chopping and changing players and key positions game in and game out thinking this will change the odds in their favor. John was even heard joking about taking on a fourth position in the team next week.

Referring to a comment in last week’s blog practice makes perfect, therefore indecision to take a position undermines gaining expert experience and developing forward momentum.

In conclusion, a fundamental requirement for success is to really want it and to be utterly convinced that it will be achieved. Since the industrial revolution the concept of specialization has taken a key position in modern society. Gone are the days of jacks-of-all-trades plowing along achieving mediocre results. In are the professionals with their degree concentrations in narrow fields and specialist knowledge honed from focused experienced ready to work as part of and to lead teams within departments within divisions within multinational conglomerates pairing with the best of the best from other fields, churning out above average returns for their stakeholders.

The Association of Business Executives (ABE) offers a range of specialist courses in management for Business, IT, HR, Finance, Marketing, Travel and Tourism and Hospitality that are accredited in the United Kingdom and provide access to final year studies or credits within Master’s degree programmes with many international universities. ABE also has colleges throughout the world offering tuition services and classroom support to students. Don’t hesitate to contact me on hendrikb@abesa.co.za should you require info and advice or have comments about leadership and career specialization.

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Job Security, Flexibility and Maths!

Three interesting articles have caught my attention recently. I will briefly outline each before concluding with a few remarks.

The first one was about a new trend emerging amongst South African students. According to research undertaken at 23 tertiary institutions by the employer’ branding specialist Magnet Communications; for the first time in six years students are looking for job security over the allure of leading balanced lives. “It seems that the economic slowdown has affected the perceptions of graduates entering the workforce”. The research has revealed a further interesting statistic that 48 percent of students want to become managers of people in their field. Much can be inferred from the desires for job security and management appointments as expressed by these Generation Y’s, which is in stark contrast with the popular opinions that their career wish lists are topped by desires for socialization and flexibility.

This brings me to the next item that of flexibility.

In 2006 the European Commission published a Green Paper adapting Labor Law to ensure both flexibility and security. It has given birth to a new word or term: flexicurity, an amalgam of flexibility and security. The motive is to combine a more flexible labor market with stimulation to secure a move towards new, more productive jobs and protection against a fall into protracted unemployment and poverty. It provides a solution to the dilemma of how to maintain and improve competitiveness while it makes at the same time full use of the potential of social policy as a production factor. Despite the balance being delicate, the pursuit of win-win strategies for both employers and workers lies at the heart of this concept. In practical terms, companies in the United Kingdom have adopted internal policies such as introducing flexible systems of retirement, including taper-off retirement e.g. people could opt to work for fewer than five days per week; offering staff the option to work an agreed number of days per annum; and allowing staff to carry forward leave days and the opportunity of selling back leave. The Green Paper is also in line with the modern trend of supporting shorter and more flexible work hours per week.

Maths! The mere thought or mention of it makes most foreheads and palms sweaty!

It is widely accepted that the annual results of South African school leavers consisting of low numbers of students qualifying in maths exacerbates the skills shortage which undermines the competitiveness of the economy and the creation of productive jobs. According to the CEO of the Landelahni Recruitment Group, if you are one of the few who achieved a good maths result, IT could be a career opportunity since the sector has a shortage of skills and is currently importing. In 2008 the Lord Mayor of London remarked on the need for qualified accountants to support growing a developing economy and many more high paying professions can be cited all with a prerequisite and requirements in maths.

This brings me to some concluding remarks on the topics of job security, flexibility and maths.

We must learn to overcome our fears for maths and numbers! Our society must roll back the stigma that states the sciences are too difficult and that our children do not have the innate abilities and talents to master it. After all, these are exact sciences that can be learned. In the words of my grandmother, whom I think quoted the famous sportsman Gary Player “… practice makes perfect…!” Those individuals who have a firm command of maths in the form of statistics, accounting and business calculations enjoy preference in employment and income opportunities for precisely the right reasons: they can investigate and solve problems through empirical means and they have advance deductive reasoning skills to arrive at unique and innovative solutions.

These individuals will be first in line for managerial promotions and thus securing their futures and enjoying the benefits of higher wages, allowance for flexibility to balance their demanding careers with family and giving expressing to their desires to be sociable and making meaningful impacts with their talents. Employers will do everything in their power to attract, reward and retain these qualified people in an effort to keep organizations staffed with the best of the best.

My advice to the Millennium Generation, and to adults in the workplace (because there is one thing the fast moving modern economy have taught us, which is you are never to old to learn a new skill) is to enroll for courses with numeracy requirements and to keep going at it until you have commanded the computational requirements, because inevitably the career prospects are better!

The Association of Business Executives (ABE) offers a wide range of courses in business maths and statistics leading towards credits in international degree programs! ABE also has colleges throughout the world offering tuition services and classroom support for students. Don’t hesitate to contact me on hendrikb@abesa.co.za should you require advice or have comments about flexibility, job security and maths.