1. THERETURNOF
THEMANAGERTHISTIMEIT’SPERSONAL
CONSULTATIONEDITION|APRIL2015

2. 2 3
04
Managers matter
08
Where are all the great managers?
12
The Magnificent Seven
16
Relate
18
Coach
22
Energise
24
Innovate
28
Thrive
30
Direct
32
Execute
34
Manager leaders: the forgotten level
36
Unilever case study
38
References
CONTENTS

3. 4 5
MANAGERS
MATTER
Most of us who work until retirement
will have responsibility for managing
other people. It’s a tough and
often lonely job.
Managers don’t get much love.
In popular culture they’re usually portrayed as buffoons or beasts,
whilst within the corporate hierarchy, middle managers tend to
be seen as inefficient, ripe for cuts or a permafrost layer that
prevents the CEO’s inspirational vision from being realised
by the worthy worker.
Managers of people are not only
derided externally in the media and
internally by their corporate chiefs,
but they are also given one of the
greatest challenges in company life:
how to understand, organise and
motivate people to work together
to achieve more, better and faster.
Much of the time they’re expected
to do this with only rudimentary
guidance and little release from all
the other corporate demands.
This report is for them: people
who manage people. It’s also for the
executives of organisations whose
search for competitive advantage can
lead them to spend vast sums on
fancy IT systems and glamorous
marketing campaigns that deliver
uncertain outcomes in indeterminate
time scales. As this report will show,
the surer answer to their productivity
conundrum is much closer to home.
How to win
In the recession of the 1980s, strategy
determined which organisations
came out strongest. Rigorous analysis
trumped intuition on where to focus
limited resources for maximum gain.
By the downturn of the early 1990s,
the companies with the cleverest use
of technology found the fast track to
recovery. Some used it to streamline
their supply chain, others to better
understand their customers.
Emerging from the financial crisis of
2008, the fittest companies focused
less on strategy and smart systems
and more on process and control,
minimising risk. Which brings us to
today and the realisation that an
over-reliance on process has sucked
out initiative, engagement and
innovation; it has been used as a
surrogate for good management.
Now the fittest companies are those
that focus on talent – where
employees feel their contribution
matters and that they work in
an environment which allows
them to flourish.
And who is it that creates this
unique atmosphere? The
overlooked manager.
Money for nothing
The great news for those holding the
company’s purse strings is that good
management costs little and
delivers a lot.
MANAGERS MATTER

4. 6 7
The team at Stanford’s Graduate School
of Business measured the daily output for
23,878 workers matched to 1,940 bosses
over five years from 2006 to 2010,
resulting in nearly 6 million
measurements1
. The workers came from
a wide range of industries and
companies but all did routine, computer-
based work, e.g. retail checkout operators,
airline gate agents and call centre workers.
As each worker had, on average, four
managers/supervisors a year, it was possible
to determine the impact of a good manager
compared to a poor one.
Replacing a poor manager with a good one
increased productivity from the same team
members by a whopping 12%. That’s greater
than the increase provided by many a costly
(not to mention disruptive) IT investment. It
was also greater than the boost provided by
adding an extra employee to the team (11%).
The electronic games industry is creative,
knowledge-based and requires swift,
efficient implementation. Each new game
has two managers: the designer, who leads
the creative team, and the producer, who
leads the team that makes it all happen.
In a robust study by professors at Wharton
Business School, the quality of both
managers was found to have a significant
effect on the success of the game. The
quality of the designer accounted for 7.4% of
the variation in revenue, and the quality of
the producer, 22.3%. That’s almost 30% of
the success of a new game credited to the
quality of the two managers leading it2
.
It’s clear that swapping poor managers
for good ones improves performance
across industries. But what about within
the same company?
In a large US manufacturing firm, managers
who demonstrated effective communication
Change from the middle
The traditional route to delivering change is either top down
or bottom up. But what if both are flawed?
Trickling initiatives down through a management hierarchy is
unpredictable – will those in the upper echelons really change?
– slow and by the time change reaches the front line (if it ever
does) a new change is needed. Starting with the front line is just
as precarious. Once the initiative has passed, managers tend to
return to things just as they were.
The UK banking division of Santander transformed branch
customer service by equipping branch managers (and their
immediate boss, the regional manager) to make real, sustainable
and energetic changes. Some effort went into stopping senior
groups from getting in the way, and individuals from the front
line were asked for their views at the start of the programme. But
the bulk of the effort, and investment, went towards changing
how managers, and ‘managers of managers’ thought, felt and
behaved.
Before the programme started, Santander was among the worst
rated organisations (not just banks) in the UK for service. Within
eight months, Santander branch banks were at the same level as
their peers. Santander went on to win ‘best branch bank for
customer service’ two years in a row.
Casestudy
Great managers lead to better store performance
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
-0.2
-0.4
-0.6
Correlation
Net profit Controllable costs
Transformational
management
Structured
management
Fig.1
and inclusiveness, gave feedback well,
encouraged innovation and created career
development plans saw a 50% increase
in sales. The impact of managers was
greater than a host of other HR factors,
including knowledge accessibility and
workforce optimisation3
.
Great managers also led to improvements
in net profit and controllable costs within
different branches of a Dutch supermarket
(Fig. 1)4
. Employees were interviewed to
determine whether managers had a
structured leadership style (defining roles,
establishing routines, focusing on efficiency)
or the more effective transformational style
(building relationships, painting an energising
vision of the future, encouraging innovation,
helping employees thrive). Six months later,
the branches in which transformational
management was present reported
significantly greater profits and reduced
costs, as well as improved efficiency, general
communication and readiness to innovate.
There are plenty more studies that make
the same point: managers who focus on
getting the best from their people not only
boost individual performance across a huge
range of measures, but also boost results at
the team and organisation levels5
.
Compared to most other kinds of business
outlay, astute investment in the quality of
management is more certain to deliver a
greater financial return faster and for longer.
And yet most companies invest less in
management development than in the
desk, chair and computer that the manager
uses. In the UK, the average spend on
training per person is £2,5506
; in the
US it is $1,1697
.
MANAGERS MATTER
Good management delivers
immediate returns in front line
service roles but what about in
more complex environments?
Wise leaders are already changing where they place their bets.

5. 8 9
WHERE
ARE ALL
THE GREAT
MANAGERS?

6. WHERE ARE ALL THE
GREAT MANAGERS?
10 11
Most people who have to
do it find managing people
a struggle. In a survey of
150 leaders, 68% admitted
they really don’t like
being managers8
.
So what’s going wrong?
Our experience working
with many of the world’s
leading companies suggests
five common pitfalls.
01.
Management
doesn’t count
for much
When it comes to rewards,
promotions and praise, being
a great people manager tends
to count for less than making
a strong individual contribution.
SVPs and partners in global
banks and management
consultancies tell us that while,
officially, they are assessed on
people leadership, what really
affected their bonus and
promotion prospects was
‘hitting the numbers’. Even
outside the high-octane
world of global finance
and professional services,
it’s not uncommon for poor
people managers who create
high personal value to be
better rewarded than
excellent managers whose
personal contribution is
nearer the average.
02.
As well, not instead
People management is usually
an extra responsibility that is
added to managers’ current
duties, meaning they’re
expected to fit it into ‘magic
time’ while still delivering on
everything they did as an
individual contributor. It’s little
wonder then, that managers
spend as little as 10% of their
week actually managing front
line employees and that this
time is often spent checking
compliance or fire-fighting
immediate problems9
.
What people management
should really be about is
organising others to do much
of our old job so we can
contribute greater value to
the business. But this specific
and challenging skill is one
few managers are encouraged
to develop.
03.
Seeking the
impossible
Some companies publish
over 100 competencies
or expectations for their
managers. This tends to have
two adverse results: managers
feel swamped and stop trying,
and competency frameworks
lose their currency.
The answer lies in making
people management sound
simple, doable and, above all,
worthwhile, which means
focusing everyone on the few
management skills that will
have the most impact.
04.
Management
development:
little and late
Management and career
development seem to be
inextricably linked: in order
to progress, you have to
manage, regardless of whether
or not you’re suited to it.
In theory, this shouldn’t be
a problem: management
is a learnable skill. The trouble
is that training happens too late
(or not at all), and when it does
happen, it rarely addresses the
challenges that most new
managers face. In a global
survey, only 10% of respondents
said their company’s front line
manager training was effective
in actually preparing them to
lead people10
.
What managers want (and need)
is an ongoing programme of
‘quick hits’ on tackling tricky
situations: dealing with
someone who’s subtly
undermining them, or moving
from team member to manager
without alienating old friends.
They also want a little-and-
often approach, which offers
opportunities to try out their
new skills, reflect on what works
and get feedback on what they
could do differently.
05.
Good = popular
One of the biggest (and
most common) mistakes
managers make is trying to
be pals with the people they
manage. (Remember Chandler
in Friends?). Trying to be
popular almost always leads
to ineffectiveness and loss
of respect.
So, why do so many managers
fall into the trap? In part,
because their organisations
push them. 360° feedback
(which usually means upward
feedback from direct reports)
can become a substitute for
assessing a manager’s
effectiveness. If your people
like you, you must be doing
a good job.
The reality is that very good
managers can, for a while, be
deeply unpopular, while poor
and ineffectual ones can be
thoroughly liked. Upward
feedback provides useful insight
but it shouldn’t be taken as the
whole picture, or anything
close. The real test of a manager
is in their team’s performance:
both the results they achieve
and how they get there.
WHERE ARE ALL THE GREAT MANAGERS?

7. THE
MAGNIFICENT
SEVEN

8. 14 15
THE SEVEN
TALENTS
The team of psychologists at Mind Gym
have analysed more than 100 peer-reviewed
studies to unearth the factors that make the
most difference to manager performance.
They aren’t exhaustive, far from it. If you want
to focus managers on what will make the
most difference, this is where the research
says you should point them.
There have been two recent and notable
meta-analyses that carved up the masses of
data in rigorous and meaningful ways. The
first meta-analysis (popularised by the SHL
Talent Management Group) spoke of ‘The
Great Eight’ manager competencies11
. The
second (by John Meriac and colleagues)
reliably reduced 168 manager dimensions
into seven core skills12
. The two lists were
not only very similar, but they also mapped
onto Google’s work with people analytics
(see below), and Yukl’s Flexible Leadership
Theory13
. This allowed Mind Gym’s
psychologists to create a simple but
robust model: the seven talents.
Over the following years, the seven talents
have been tested in a wide range of leading
organisations. The results have been emphatic.
The seven manager talents now form the
core of management development in some
of the world’s most admired companies,
including Unilever (see page 36), and are
being introduced in dozens more.
A first among equals
One talent stands out above the rest. Relate
sits in the centre because is it like a prism,
able to multiply or dilute the effect of the
other six talents.
A manager who can form, reinforce and repair
relationships with their team will get
a disproportionate return on their efforts
in the other areas. Conversely, a manager
without this skill will find that, however
much they excel at the other six talents,
they will never have quite the same impact.
Why? Because the quality of relationships
determines how team members perceive,
interpret and respond to everything their
manager does – an interaction that is known
in organisational psychology as the ‘leader-
member-exchange’ or LMX. When a team
member has a poor relationship with their
manager, they’ll look for the worst, feeling in
the out-group rather than part of the in-group.
A good relationship means that the manager
gets the benefit of the doubt. Team members
will trust their manager’s actions to be in their
own best interests, and reciprocate accordingly.
Everyone feels part of the in-group.
The team at Google gathered more than 10,000 observations
to find out what defined the most effective managers from the
rest. They identified the eight most important attributes which
are consistent with Mind Gym’s seven talents.14
After a programme of training, individual coaching and
performance reviews based on Google’s eight attributes,there
was a statistically significant improvement in 75% of their
worst-performing managers, which was very good news
for almost everyone.
Casestudy
THE SEVEN TALENTS
ENERGISE
COACH
INNOVAT
E
THRIVE
DIRECT
EXECUTE
RELATE

9. 16 17
Create, strengthen and manage relationships
with your team members
RELATE
The best working relationships aren’t
friendships or ones that maintain harmony
at all costs. They are relationships that get
the best results for the business from
the team.
Individuals who have good relationships with
their managers are healthier, happier15
and
have better careers16
. They also perform
better17
(putting in more discretionary
effort18
), are more innovative19
, more resilient
during change20
, less likely to leave21
, and
better at responding to feedback22
.
Relationships between team colleagues are
also highly significant. In a study on NHS
wards, Professor Michael West (a member of
Mind Gym’s Academic Board) demonstrated
a correlation between strong teamwork and
reduced mortality23
.
Building appropriate relationships with direct
reports, and ensuring they exist between
peers, requires a complex set of skills that
most of us develop throughout our career.
The greatest opportunity for business is to
give these skills to managers as they reach
the first rung of the corporate ladder rather
than wait until they step off it.
In it together
A manager’s first step to building good
relationships is to be clear about what the
team is here to do. This can take the form
of goals and targets but it will be more
compelling if a manager can clarify a team
purpose and build a shared identity to
motivate and inspire24
.
As well as being crystal clear about what we
are here to do, it pays to be clear about how
we are going to behave towards each other
and how we achieve our goals. This form of
more explicit contracting sets expectations
and makes it easier for everyone to respond
if expectations are breached.
Managers Sans Frontières
In order to get the best from their teams,
managers need to strike a delicate balance:
focus too heavily on the relationships
themselves and the goals slip out of reach;
ignore a team’s needs, and commitment
will falter. The answer? Boundaries.
The most successful managers keep the
relationships appropriate. They achieve this,
often unconsciously, by maintaining a
suitable balance between being too close
and too distant.
Category Too close The right range Too distant
Priority Relationship
Outcome
Output
Feedback Only praise
Descriptive
Overwhelmingly
critical
Poor
performance
Ignore and
forgive
Raise, discuss, move on
Draw
generalised
conclusions
Team members’
wellbeing
Protective
Attentive
Unaware
Manager’s
personal life
Indiscreet
Selective
Guarded
Team dynamics Colluding
Impartial
Uninterested
Availability Interfering
Accessible
Absent
See themselves
as…
Friend
Manager
Boss
Mind Gym’s psychologists, with the help
of Professor Janet Reibstein (who sits on
Mind Gym’s Academic Board) have, for
the first time, tried to define the range for
an appropriate manager-direct report
relationship. In summary it looks like
this (see Fig.2).
The challenge with boundaries comes when
they are breached, whether by the manager
herself/himself or by their direct report.
You’ve worked late nights, your boss is on
your back, you’re not getting much attention
at home – it’s only human to want a bit of
appreciation. Tempting though it is, as an
exhausted manager you must avoid looking to
your team for empathy or positive strokes. If you
do, then a boundary is crossed and it will be
doubly hard to rebuild it.
Equally, if you’ve ever managed a direct report
who frightens you slightly, you know what it’s
like to be on the receiving end of an intimidating
demure. Imagine said direct report makes a joke
which is subtly at your expense – others smirk
or laugh. A boundary has clearly been crossed
but what should you do, as the manager,
without looking like you don’t have a sense of
humour or begrudging your team’s reactions?
At the heart of Relate is understanding what the
boundaries are for appropriate working
relationships, keeping to them where possible
and repairing them when they are breached. It
isn’t easy but it is critical.
Fig.2
The most successful managers
keep their relationships
appropriate.
RELATE
Example profile of a manager

10. 18 19
The Stanford study which found a 12%
increase in productivity when poor
managers were swapped for great ones25
revealed that the single most important
difference between poor and great
managers was the degree to which they
coached their team.
Good manager coaching increases reports’
wellbeing, resilience, attitude to work,
and ability to achieve stretching goals26
,
as well as doubling the impact of training
programmes27
. Organisations whose
managers coach demonstrate 21% higher
revenues than their competitors and, in a
huge global analysis by PwC, the standard
estimate of the ROI for coaching was 700%28
.
From PRACTICE to GROW, there’s no
shortage of coaching models. Yet, despite
all these acronyms, the quality of coaching
in most companies is mixed. Often
managers are trained to coach based on
what makes a good ‘executive coach’, rather
than what makes a manager a good coach.
When it comes to improving performance
there are six aspects of coaching that have
the biggest impact on a manager’s ability
to coach: their motivation, their mindset
and four key behaviours.
At Mind Gym we packaged these under the
title of ‘Commercial coaching’ and tested
them with branch managers in one of the
UK’s leading telecommunications companies.
In 55% of branches that improved
performance quarter on quarter the manager
also reported using commercial coaching
techniques. In the branches where
performance declined, none of them did.
Against a control group, in branches where
commercial coaching was used, the team’s
ability to hit their revenue targets rose by 29%.
Commercial coaching is simple,
flexible and undeniably effective.
Enable others to be the best they can be
COACH
COACH
Increase in productivity
12%
Higher revenues
21%
Ability to hit
revenue targets
29%
ROI for coaching
700%

11. 20 21
Distracted Focused
Prejudging Curious
Weakness-focused Strengths-focused
I’m okay/you’re not okay I’m okay/you’re okay
Parent/child Adult/adult
Performance Potential and performance
MINDSET
I believe in you
Managers who believe people’s abilities are fixed and cannot be
improved make ineffective coaches. But managers who have a
‘growth mindset’30
, who believe that everyone can learn, develop
and grow (even if it takes a lot of hard work) see much greater
returns on their coaching investments31
. This is necessary but it
isn’t sufficient. Here are a few other things that make up a healthy
coaching mindset.
BEHAVIOURS
A new way
to coach for
performance
MOTIVATION
I believe it will
help me
For managers to coach well, they must believe it’s in their own
best interest. The trouble is, coaching is like dieting – the
sacrifice is immediate and painful, but the benefits don’t appear
until much further down the road. The trick then, is for managers
to find a long-term motivation: “It will make my job easier in the
long run”, “I’m leaving a legacy”, “This will encourage the most
talented grads to work in my team”. Leaders can also do their bit
to encourage managers to play the long-game: measuring
managers on longer-term goals and behaviours makes them
more likely to coach their teams29
.
WHAT IS COMMERCIAL
COACHING? There are six ingredients
in commercial coaching: a
manager’s motivation, mindset
and four key behaviours.
COACH
The managers of yesteryear approached development like an
apprenticeship: showing employees exactly what to do and how
to do it. Not only was this demotivating for the individuals, the
‘monkey see, monkey do’ approach also left them woefully
ill-prepared for new and unexpected situations. More recently,
the pendulum has swung the other way, with reports left to work
things out for themselves, helped by a manager who only asks
questions: “What do you think you should do?” or the eternally
infuriating “What would you say if you did know the answer?”
Coaching is at its most effective when managers flex between
‘ask’ and ‘tell’32
(balancing advocacy and inquiry), encouraging
self-discovery but using their own expertise to facilitate the
employee’s learning. Mind Gym’s psychologists synthesised the
findings of three key research papers33
on coaching for
performance, to create four key behaviours that will help
managers do just that. They are:
Enable: create a learning environment where coachees
can fail and flourish
Challenge: use insightful questioning to help coachees to raise
the bar and think differently about their most pressing challenges
Observe: pay attention to an individual’s learning and provide
specific and descriptive feedback in the moment
Guide: use your expertise and status to show and smooth the
way, highlighting progress and successes
They fit into the learning cycle like this:
Review
How did
that go?
Try it out
What will
you do?
Move
forward
What can
be done
better?
Observe
Guide
Enable
Challenge

12. 22 23
ENERGISEGive hope, build momentum and share your passion
Emotional energy (both positive and
negative) is infectious34
. This is called
emotional contagion and it leaves managers
with a choice: act as they please and hope
their moodier days won’t affect their team
(they will) or ramp up the positive energy
and spread it through the ranks.
Thankfully, there’s no innate skill required
to be an energiser, and no one personality
type works better than another – quietly
passionate can be more effective than
jump-and-shout evangelism.
The benefits, meanwhile, are endless.
Energised teams are more creative35
,
collaborative36
, efficient37
, focused38
and decisive39
. They’re better at solving
problems40
, better at handling conflict41
,
and less likely to be absent or leave the
business42
. What’s more, positive energy
spreads through organisations, multiplying
performance as it travels. When one team
member energises another, the performance
of both employees improves43
.
So how can managers start generating and
conducting energy through their teams?
Here are five ways to spread the zest.
ENERGISE
It’s easy to feel energised at the start of something. But when a
team has been soldiering on for weeks, or they’ve hit a rough
patch, their energy won’t last without help. At this point, one of
the most powerful things a manager can do is show them the
progress they’re making. In a study of 12,000 people, ‘showing
progress’ was the single most important thing managers could
do to improve their team’s day-to-day enjoyment of work47
.
Creating and celebrating mini milestones throughout a long
project, starting each week with a progress story, or using
one-to-ones to celebrate personal development are just some
of the things managers can do.
05.
Progress
Over time, positive emotions help us to build new skills and
resources, as well as increasing our levels of creativity,
inventiveness, ‘big picture’ focus, and resilience45
. Managers have
two key parts to play in fostering positive emotions in their team.
The first is affirming people so that they feel valued. The second
is giving people ‘hope’, which psychologist Charles R. Snyder
defines as both the willpower (motivation) and the waypower
(skills and opportunity) to achieve your goals46
.
04.
Positivity
Passion doesn’t have to mean jumping around in forced jubilation.
What people want above all from their leaders is authenticity44
, so
if demonstrations of extrovert levels of excitement aren’t their
managerial style, managers shouldn’t try to fake it. But they should
find their own version of passion – a quiet, unshakeable faith, for
instance, or intense levels of focus. However their passion
manifests itself, expressing it in the right way is crucial. The best
energisers use language that is optimistic, engaging and decisive.
02.
Passion
Does my work matter? Our job could involve anything from
generating record profits to saving lives, but if we feel it’s futile
we won’t be able to muster much energy. Managers can unearth
purpose by considering three questions: what motivates me on a
personal level to do what I do? How do my efforts contribute to
a collective purpose? What is the ideal outcome of my work?
Helping your team visualise the outcome gives an extra boost of
energy through generating emotional connections. Paying
attention to the ‘why’ is as critical as the ‘what’ when it comes to
energising people.
01.
Purpose
Creating a climate of positive energy is as much about reading
and responding to other people’s emotions as emitting your
own. The best managers are present – not just physically, but
mentally and emotionally. They leave their own worries at the
door, tune into how their team members are feeling by
observing tone of voice, facial expressions and body language,
and don’t respond until they are truly ‘in the room’.
03.
Present
Rob Cross, Professor of Management at the University of Virginia, has been leading new research,
mapping how energy spreads in large organisations48
. In a highly energised organisation, Cross’s
mapping diagrams look like the one on the left – the majority of people are conductors for
energy, passing it on to others. In organisations where energy is low, the diagrams look like the
one on the right: there are fewer conductors, and the energy stops when it reaches people who
are unable to pass it on. Some people don’t have any lines at all. These are ‘energy sappers’ who
don’t conduct, receive or create energy.
Networkingwithadifference

13. 24 25
Create a community that’s willing and able to innovate
If we asked you to name 10 highly innovative
companies, who would you choose? Apple?
Google? Dyson? Whoever you picked,
chances are they would have two things in
common: a constant stream of new
products and services, and a visionary leader.
While there’s no doubt that these are linked
to innovation, what really sets the trailblazers
apart is something more mundane. It’s the
ability to keep noticing and changing things.
Not just the big things but the tiny, seemingly
insignificant details.
What’s more, the driving force behind this
behaviour isn’t usually an ingenious CEO but
a manager who can create a community
that can innovate by setting the stage, rather
than leading from the front49
. It is they who
encourage innovation by deciding which
ideas to champion, which to reshape and
which to kill, and it is they who nourish
innovation every working day.
Welcome to the club
Managers can teach their reports all the
innovation skills under the sun. They can
praise them and encourage them until the
cows are not only home, but brainstorming
in the shed. But without the right culture,
innovation will wither and die.
The right culture is one that supports teams
through the challenges they will face at all
five stages of innovation, and creating it
involves a multitude of changes, from
practical steps (building innovation time
into the working week) to attitudinal shifts
(encouraging reports to see even the most
basic process as ripe for improvement).
INNOVATE
INNOVATE
Implement
Scale up to implement and
commercialise, if relevant
Context
Provide a strong framework
which clarifies your team’s
purpose, values and ways
of working
Form
Help shape initial ideas into
something viable
Create
Welcome ideas, however
unformed, whoever they
come from; pose questions
to challenge and gather
fresh ideas
Select
Choose concepts to focus
on; test a prototype or
experiment with pilots;
revise, decide whether to
ditch ideas constructively
with a clear rationale

14. 26 27
Situation Stifler Nourisher
Tends to talk about Outputs Ideas
When something goes
wrong, focuses on
What went wrong
and why
What to do to prevent
something similar happening
in future
When chairing a
discussion
Gives their views first and asks
if there are any questions
Listens first, then gives
their views
In project/team
meetings
Pushes to decide on actions
and agree responsibilities
quickly
Encourages everyone to
share their views and probes
to elaborate
When people disagree
Comes down on one side
of the argument and
explains why
Validates and celebrates the
value of different opinions
Opinions Consistent in their views
Changes their mind as they
learn something new
In setting goals Sets unrealistic targets
Sets stretching but
achievable goals
In time horizon Focuses quarter by quarter
Focuses on the long term
as well as the short term
In relation to change
Prioritises maintaining
stability
Constructively challenges
the status quo
When facing an idea
Keeps a realistic focus on
current constraints
Tests feasibility
Rejects an idea
Without always sharing
the reason
With a strong rationale
With a network
Prefers to share an idea once
fully formed or implemented
Seeks input and tests ideas
In experimenting
Manages the risk by keeping
close control
Sets a clear framework for
experimentation
In translating ideas
into practice
Can minimise real concerns
others hold about details
Respects the details of reality
Fig.3
Leading for innovation
While your managers don’t necessarily
need to be innovative, there are consistent
behaviours they’ll need to develop (and
just as many they’ll need to put out to
pasture) if innovation is to thrive. The
aim should be to move from innovation
stifler to innovation nourisher
(see Fig. 3).
The power of discovery
In most organisations, innovation skills are
rarely taught and barely valued. ’Generators’
(those who are restlessly discontent with the
status quo) are worryingly underrepresented50
because the emphasis is on execution skills
over innovation. It’s a bias that is pronounced
in organisations at every level – right the way
up to the CEOs51
. The truth is, we need both,
to differing degrees depending on the
organisation. In the Apples and Dysons of
this world, innovation and execution skills
aren’t just equally valued, they’re intertwined:
one cannot exist without the other.
The good news is that innovators
demonstrate key discovery behaviours that
can be taught52
. We don’t have to be born
innovators but instead by developing our
curiosity, our exploration, our connections
and our willingness to experiment we can
all create a culture where innovation
can flourish.
INNOVATE

15. 28 29
THRIVEBeing at your best more of the time
In recent years, organisations have begun
to invest heavily in employee wellbeing.
The average annual spend per employee
has doubled in the last five years53
, and 95%
of organisations now offer some sort of
wellbeing initiative (compared to 57% in
2009)54
. Sadly, none of the workplace gyms,
bowls of free fruit, or visits from the GP seem
to be making much difference. Two thirds of
UK employees still feel overwhelmed55
, and in
the US, 50% of employees assume they will
work while on holiday56
.
At the heart of the problem lies a common
misconception around responsibility.
Organisations feel a duty to ‘fix’ employees,
when their role should actually be to equip
employees with the psychological tools
needed to take responsibility for their own
wellbeing and control what they can control.
With the right tools, employees can choose
to spend more time feeling energised, alive
and challenged through learning. They can
choose not just to survive in an increasingly
demanding workplace, but to thrive in it.
THRIVE
AmodelofThrive
Stagnant
High vitality
Low vitality
Growing
Recharging
Languishing
Thriving
Bound for burn-out
Of course, nobody can thrive all the time, but
employees can learn to be more aware of
their recurrent patterns – how they move
around the four quadrants and what tips
them into a particular box – so that they can
spend more time in the two orange boxes.
Those who manage this are more creative
(three times more, according to one meta-
analysis57
), more productive, more satisfied,
and less burnt out58
.
Unsurprisingly, the best way to create an
organisation of thrivers is to start with
managers. Once they are thriving, they’ll not
only provide a model for employees to
follow but be better equipped to help them
along the way. Focusing on a few key areas
can make a striking difference to managers’
ability to thrive over time.
Mind over matter
Managers who thrive do so by choosing how
they think. They are aware of the toxic
thinking traps they fall into most often such
as ruminating, unhealthy perfectionism and
creating what some psychologists have
termed ‘catastrophic fantasies’ and they
choose to avoid them by reframing their
thoughts more positively.
They’re also kind to themselves, a trait that
countless studies have found crucial to thriving,
from Paul Gilbert’s work on compassion59
, to
Brene Brown’s findings that being vulnerable at
work actually increases our wellbeing60
. And
finally, they harness positive experiences and
emotions, building psychological resources
that help them thrive in the longer term61
. Three
questions are key after a positive encounter:
What did that make me grateful for? What
resources did it build in me? What’s the one
positive thought I can keep with me to
use in the future?
Walk the walk
Actions often speak larger than thoughts in
terms of thriving, as proved by Professor Elaine
Fox62
(who sits on Mind Gym’s Academic
Board). There are three key choices that
thriving managers can make in their actions:
noticing what has made them feel good in the
past and building it into their lives (we are
staggeringly bad at predicting what will bring us
joy in the future); surrounding themselves with
people who boost them further when they’re
already thriving; and developing habits that
protect their ability to thrive (e.g. creating habits
that enhance connections with others – one of
the few sources of lasting happiness)63
.
Themodernaddiction
Most of us are struggling with a very damaging addiction to the
instant gratification of smart phones, whose ‘ping’ causes our
bodies to release dopamine.
The average person checks their phone 150 times a day64
and
gets anxious after only 10 minutes away from it65
. Some people
even feel their phone vibrating when they know it’s switched
off66
. And on average, employees can only focus for seven
minutes before changing screens67
. Many of us tell ourselves
we’re multitasking – and getting lots done in the process. But
since our brains only hold between five and nine pieces of
information at once68
, switching back and forth between endless
activities simply wastes attentional energy.
We’re at least 25% less effective when we multitask69
. But our
skittering attention has more serious consequences: it leaves us
unable to switch off and recharge, which is damaging to our
physical and emotional wellbeing. No wonder stress costs the
UK economy £10bn a year70
. Individuals who thrive (even in the
toughest times) are those who can break out of technology’s
addictive cycle71
.

16. 30 31
Set the direction of travel, making it clear
who is driving what
DIRECT
Clear direction is one of the three factors that
drive superior business performance
according to a major study by McKinsey (the
other two are accountability and a culture of
trust)72
. It isn’t easy to get right. In recent years
there has been a significant shift in leadership
research away from trait-centred theories (all
about the leaders’ personal qualities) to
situational leadership, and more recently to
collective or distributed models, where the
emphasis is on mobilising people towards
common, collaborative goals, and framing
those goals in a way that makes sense to
them73
. Meanwhile, research has also found
that micromanagement not only reduces
employee engagement but also
performance74
. It seems clear that managers
need to step back. The question
is: by how much?
Box top leadership
Creating a vision for the future is essential
but it will need wings. Employees need to
understand why this vision was chosen, what
alternative visions were rejected and how the
vision is most likely to affect them. The term
‘Box top leadership’ stems from the traditional
puzzle of jigsaw which had the picture of the
completed work on the top of the box. When
managers do this well, their colleagues will
make more consistent judgements when
faced with a new ‘piece’ and no
one around to ask.
In it together
Of course, there’s little point in managers
setting out a clear direction if they can’t
convince their people to come along for the
ride. One of the most effective approaches
for gaining employee buy-in is what Louis Fox
calls ‘spiritual leadership’75
. Managers share
the organisational vision in such a way that
employees not only understand it but
develop their own personal interpretation and
reasons for believing in it. They are able to tell
the story of the organisation’s future in their
own way, to the people that matter. In other
words, they’re not just singing from the same
hymn sheet, they’re part of the same religion.
Get some perspective
One of the dilemmas managers face
when providing direction is knowing
how close to get.
Rosabeth Moss Kanter, a Professor of
strategy at Harvard, has spent over 25 years
working with business leaders researching
strategic thinking and decision-making. She
found that to be great at directing,
managers need all perspectives – from the
bird’s eye view (big picture thinking,
long-term focus, delegating the details) to
the worm’s eye view (near-term focus,
directing the details), and every view in
between. Those who set direction best are
able to shift vantage point regularly and
seamlessly. She also found, however, that
most people have a default preference and
so need to master consciously switching
their perspective76
.
DIRECT
Zoom out too far and they
could miss something vital;
stay too close and they could
lose sight of the bigger picture
or morph into the dreaded
micromanager.

17. 32 33
Deliver on promises, on time, in style and through others
EXECUTE
There isn’t much sexy about ‘execution’.
But when Mind Gym team asked the people
at the top of companies, – from Paul Walsh,
when he was CEO of Diageo, to Luis
Miranda, when he was Chairman of IDFC
(who built more power stations than the
Indian government)77
– what they most
want in their managers, the answer was
unequivocal: the ability to execute.
When RBS studied the impact of a tier of
regional management, they were surprised
to discover that the ‘best’ managers had the
same impact on branch performance as the
‘worst’. The hyperactive regional manager
kept coming up with new activities and
distracted the exhausted branch employees
so much that they weren’t able to follow
through. The more lackadaisical regional
managers would give instructions on their
occasional branch tour but never followed
up so the branch team would nod in
agreement and then get on with things as
they always had done.
The key to effective execution is focus
and accountability.
Of the 17 traits that make organisations effective at executing79
,
at the top of the list was accountability: “everyone has a good
idea of the decisions and actions for which he or she is
responsible”. In companies that were strong on execution,
71% agreed with this statement; in organisations that weren’t,
the figure dropped to 32%.
The ABCD of accountability offers a simple checklist to ensure
that this is properly set up.
– Authority levels: what do your team have full authority
to do and where do they need sign off?
– Boundaries: what is in scope and what is not?
– Controls: how will you monitor progress?
– Deliverables: what needs to be delivered, how and when?
Of these, it is the ‘C’, Controls, that tends to need most
attention. Part of the answer is data, in particular information
that is a strong predictor of future trouble rather than
reporting on what has already gone wrong.
Controls also mean being clear about what deliverables are to
be expected and when, and then following up. Once a rhythm
for reporting has been agreed, it is important that everyone
sticks to it. Check in too often and a manager risks all the
pitfalls of micromanagement, including ending up doing the
work themselves. But fail to keep to the regular reviews and it
may well be too late when you find that someone has veered
off course.
Executing through others isn’t just about giving their reports
accountability and checking in on them. Managers must also
be accountable themselves for facilitating their journey by, for
example, providing the necessary air cover from more senior
management, helping to anticipate and remove road-blocks,
and building perseverance when the going gets tough.
Managers who find it difficult to get results tend to have trouble
separating being busy and getting things done. The urgency
addiction can take hold. Often with the best of intentions, they
try to do everything. The result is a lot of noise, an exhausted
manager and little to show for it.
The manager who executes well not only has a lot of energy but
knows where to point it. They identify what is necessary or likely
to have the greatest effect and concentrate their effort on that.
They also recognise that their time is the scarcest resource in the
team and so learning how to use that well will deliver a greater
return than almost anything else in their control.
To tell how well focused you are, answer four short questions:
– Which one aspect of my role can have the
biggest positive impact on my objective?
– What percentage of my time do I currently
spend on this?
– What percentage of my time should I spend
on this?
– How can I increase this percentage?
01.
Focus
01.
Focus
(cont.)
02.
Accountability
Attention
Low
High
EnergyLow High
Focused managers
Procrastinating managers
Detached managers
Busy managers
EXECUTE
78

18. 34 35
However much they’d like to
leave it behind, most senior
leaders still do a lot of
people management. And
the more senior they are,
the more important it is for
them to get it right – errors
can quickly ripple down the
management hierarchy,
intensifying as they go.
The most common mistake
that manager leaders
(sometimes called
‘managers of managers’)
make is to manage their
reports as if they are still
individual contributors (how
are you doing against your
goals?) rather than managers
of people (how are you
building the capability
of your team?).
Here are just a few of the
key differences between
these three very
distinct levels.
MANAGER
LEADERS:
the forgotten level
MANAGER LEADERS
Individual contributor Manager Manager leader
You do your job well You coach your direct reports
on how to do their job well
You coach your direct
reports on how to manage
others to do their job well
You know how well you’re
doing and whom to ask if
you’re not
You’re in direct contact with
the people who do the work
and so have a clear view of
how each member of your
team is performing
You rely on data and
your managers to let you
know how their people
are performing
You use your technical skills
most of the time
You’re a technical expert and
you use that knowledge to
guide your direct reports
Your technical knowledge
may be out of date and is
likely to be less relevant
than your advice on how
to coach/motivate/lead
others to perform at
their peak
You’re responsible for, and
in control of, the quality of
your work
You oversee your team
members and can have
a high level of influence
over the quality of the work
that they do
You hold your managers
accountable for the quality
of their teams’ work, often
with little knowledge about
what those team members
are doing day-to-day (or
week-to-week).

19. 36 37
I learnt new knowledge and
skills from attending the
program
100%
The program was a
worthwhile investment100%
I have been able to
successfully apply the
knowledge and skills I
learnt to my job. Of these,
91% said they were able to
apply their learning within
just 2-4 weeks.
96%
The program has improved
my performance at work90.5%
The program has had
a positive impact on
my engagement
82.5%
The program was a
worthwhile investment in
my career development
95.5%
“Management development can sometimes
be perceived as the poor cousin to
leadership development, whereas the
reality is that you need both to succeed
and thrive. As well as the training transfer
data which is demonstrating the value
created by applying these skills back in the
workplace, one of the things I’m most struck
by is how this programme is reinvigorating
the sense of pride in being a great manager”.
Nick Pope, Global Learning Director, Unilever
Results
To evaluate the impact of the programme, a selection of managers
who took part in UMDP were asked a series of questions three
months later. Here is what they said:
Global management development at Unilever
Unilever CEO, Paul Polman, set the direction for the business
to grow from €40bn to €80bn whilst reducing its environmental
impact and making a positive social impact. It intends to grow
volume in every category, in every country, and central to achieving
these targets is talent.
The last employee engagement survey showed that line manager
capability was an area that, if improved, would significantly impact
the company’s ability to ‘win with our people’, which is a cornerstone
of the Unilever strategy.
The Unilever Management Development Programme (UMDP)
is the first time a single programme has been introduced to
build the capabilities of Unilever’s 15,500 supervisors, first and
second line managers across 33 countries.
The ambition was to build a scalable, customised, global programme
that can be delivered quickly, consistently to high quality, whilst
managing costs.
Although Unilever already had its own ‘standards of leadership’,
they chose to adopt the Mind Gym’s seven key talents that drive
manager performance because these are grounded in science.
Two programmes were created: one for first line managers and
one for manager leaders.
Each programme was built around the seven core talents but
designed and pitched for the specific audience. A manager that
experienced both programmes as they progressed up the company,
would recognise the core that runs between them and yet would
also learn something completely new.
A robust online diagnostic provided every manager with a detailed
24-page report revealing how their own self-rating compared with
the views of those they manage, their peers and their boss.
In order to deliver a standardised programme that resonated across
markets and cultures, a network of coaches was specifically recruited
and up-skilled to deliver the same core messages with local
relevance and cultural acuity.
At the time of writing, over 2,000 managers have taken part in
UMDP. In the next four years, all managers will get the chance to
partake in the programme and, in so doing, set a new performance
standard for Unilever.
CASE
STUDY
CASE
STUDY

20. 38 39
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