Learning to Fly – Leadership & Performance in The Boardroom

Citation

Hinks, J. (2001), "Learning to Fly – Leadership & Performance in The Boardroom", Facilities, Vol. 19 No. 10, pp. 363-364. https://doi.org/10.1108/f.2001.19.10.363.1

This is a very practically‐oriented book, aimed at the incoming director (or senior manager preparing for directorship). It emphasises practical solutions to making this transition, and was selected for review on the basis that for facilities managers seeking or being offered directorships, the successful transition into a corporate leadership role involves an emphasis on a new set of competencies, some of which they may need to develop, and many of which will not be widely recognised as associated with the FM remit.

The preface opens with the comment that the single most‐difficult problem facing newly‐promoted senior people is how to make the transition from operational to strategic focus. The authors note that poor decisions,or simply good decisions poorly communicated will both be potentially damaging, and that directing – providing vision and leadership – is distinct from managing.

The authors start from the position that the failure “to adapt businesses in changing climates is in part the result of a focus on managing”. Also that 92 per cent of directors surveyed by the Institute of Directors, received no formal training for their directorial role. The book emphasises the need for strategic rather than operational focus, and leadership – and that the transition to this, which the authors approach from a coaching perspective, has to be tailored to the individual needs of the director. The book focuses extensively on coaching, a one‐to‐one facilitation of learning on the job. The focus is on creating future success, not on analysing past problems.

Written for the general audience of director and senior manager, the book opens with a discussion on the implications for the director of changing public and stakeholder views about corporate governance, which the authors summarise as creating new corporate drivers – such as a societal wish to move “from the ‘values‐less’ society of the 1980s; the association of poor corporate governance with business under‐performance or failure; and a growing view that companies tend to fail to cope with the demand and pressures they currently face”. These changing dimensions of business responsibility and propriety are taken as the context for board directors, which the authors suggest have led to change being a constant, and to corporate success being dependent on innovations in products and services. However, these dimensions require a flexibility within the organisation which breaches the artificial boundary between core and non‐core (whose boundary is it anyway?), and beyond simply managing.

It is from here that the distinction between management and directing is discussed in more detail. The authors draw a distinction between controlling and problem‐solving or innovating and inspiring. They suggest that rather than seeing themselves at the top of a pyramid, directors may be better to think of themselves as being at the centre of the organisation; and that they should change their style from command and control to facilitating and coaching (so, as FM, is your job to facilitate in a parallel sense, or actually to control facilities?, and where does FM sit in the organisation?).

The text moves from outlining the changing and changed roles of director to a detailed but highly‐readable discussion on the qualities required for modern leadership. This is supported by analyses of iconic leaders, and some very well presented analyses of good and poor examples of leadership. A range of practical self‐help guides makes the issues thus raised very accessible for the reader. The book concludes by discussing coaching, a mechanism advocated by the authors to “achieve relevant, focused organisational learning and growth by concentrating on the personal development of the organisational leader”.

So is the book of use to the FM? I think so, since as a profession, and as individuals, the challenges for FM to make greater contributions to business effectiveness and competitiveness lie in advancing the FM role to the strategic and directorial level. I feel that the issues it addresses are analogous to the challenge facing FM itself, and to individual leaders attempting to develop their professional role in this way. But as the authors indicate, the scale of the lack of training means that bridging the gap between operational management and senior leadership is unlikely to be facilitated for the rising FM – they will have to be self‐starting. Here lies the value – the book provides a clearly‐structured approach to the issues, and the coverage of the coaching aspects appears to offer a valuable start point for identifying and negotiating the coaching that would support individual FMs faced with the opportunity of making the transition to directorship. I found the book inspiring, and sufficiently useful that I have returned to it since my first read‐through. The plain and unambiguous style kept the issues clear and in conjunction with the exercises I was able to apply the principles to my own context. While the book is clearly written around the coaching technique, it remains a good tool for challenging the “managing” mindset generally. It offers the reader a useful illumination of the roles and characteristics that today’s director should aim for – a useful wake‐up call.