By Nicos & Koralia Timotheou

Success is the delivery of value! This is the blunt conclusion of multi-nation, lengthy research –mainly carried out by our associate Prof. Dr Andrew Kakabadse*.

Value differs from organization to organization and from individual to individual and evolves constantly with time.

The sole sustainable way of creating value and hence wealth is through delivered value! 

Leaders who seek to create value as 'perceived value' are doomed to fail. They try to build on a ‘vision’ detached from reality.

Successful businesses follow a 'strategy plus engagement multiplied by alignment' [P +(E x A)] method⁽¹⁾! Failing ones stick to “strategy first, structure then”, i.e. trying to formulate the ‘right’ strategy at first and then to secure alignment and engagement.

Delivering value demands gathering evidence and constant questioning of reality!

Unfortunately, many leaders –Chairmen, CEOs, MDs, GMs- are evidence averse! And this in the era of ‘big data’, analytics and ‘business intelligence’! They ‘politicize’ strategy formulation and ‘shut-down’ whomever of their executive and non-executive colleagues ‘dare’ interrogate ‘their’ strategy by disincentivize them, if not humiliating them as ‘confusing’! In Cyprus, the recent unfortunate stories of the big banks and other public corporations are examples of companies which tried to implement ‘faulty’ strategies which were not ‘interrogated’ and were not based on hard facts.

Successful leaders not only believe in evidence but demand it! They base their belief on their real experience, on their successes and failures. They demand hard evidence continually, by building around them the right culture:

• They build up their team by ensuring that there will  exist diversity of independent thinking! They encourage their stakeholders to raise questions and express their views, opinions and suggestions. They seek to gather both hard evidence –real, objectively collected numbers and soft evidence –emotional, subjective data. 
   
• They place importance on the quality of evidence! They believe not only that 'detail is the criterion of quality' but also that 'detail is the criterion for success'. Hence, the methodology for collecting, analyzing and interpreting evidence is of crucial significance.
   
• Leaders who believe in evidence-led management are good listeners!
  
   
• They use hard data to encourage sincere dialogue and independent debate. They go to the extent of provoking stakeholders to express their views and listen to the rest of the team. They therefore allocate all necessary time for exhausting the debate. 
  
   
• And they do it in a structured method, so that at the end of the discussion, alignment and engagement are achieved.

Research shows that leaders fall in one of three types:

• The ones who try to replicate their past process, be it strategy or value proposition and end up failing, discovering sooner or later that meanwhile the world has changed and the past cannot be replicated anymore! They live in the past!
   
• The ones who formulate a ‘perceived’ strategy and/or value proposition and end up failing trying to implement a strategy which is detached from reality. They live in their dream! 
   
• The ones who strive to deliver value implementing their mission on the basis of hard, fully interrogated evidence. They succeed!

Successful leaders recognize that their ‘brief’ is holistic and that managing culture, process and people is as important as implementing the corporate mission and vision, always respecting reality (hard evidence) and corporate values with the sole aim of delivering value.
 ___________
⁽¹⁾ The Successful Formula – How Smart Leaders Deliver Outstanding value, Andrew Kakabadse, ISBN: 978-1-4729-1684-6

3.10.2015