Pushing the frontier of leadership development

Mannaz is a front-runner in global leadership development. Innovation is driven by advanced global clients, by the best leadership facilitators around and through international studies of best practices. We are truly dedicated to taking leadership development to the next level.

Mannaz studies demonstrate the importance of getting leadership development into the work place, keep focus on ones’ own practical challenges, deliver competencies just-in-time for them to be applied, and develop leaders with their people and not in isolation from them.

Call us and we will be delighted to share our insights for your inspiration. Leadership and business performance can be taken to a new level.

What talent focused companies do

Companies that focus on developing their talent integrate plans and processes to track and manage talent, including:

• Identifying, attracting, recruiting and on-boarding qualified candidates with specific competencies – often through the use of assessment centres
• Managing and defining an appropriate reward system
• Creating growth opportunities through training and leadership development
• Formalising talent retention programmes and understanding why people leave
• Proactively managing promotions and transitions

The term “talent management” means different things to different organisations. To some of our clients, it is about the management of high-worth individuals or “the talented” whilst to others it is about how talent is managed generally on the assumption that all people have talent which should be identified and liberated.

Performance and potential

From a talent management standpoint, employee evaluation involves two major areas of measurement: performance and potential. Current employee performance in a specific job is a traditional measure of the profitability of an employee. Talent management seeks to augment this with a focus on an employee’s potential, meaning an employee’s future performance, if given the proper development of skills and increased responsibility.

Talent management decisions are often driven by a set of organisational core competencies as well as position-specific competencies. The competency set may include knowledge, skills, experience, and personal traits (demonstrated through defined behaviours).

Mannaz is able to take a holistic approach to talent development. Our carefully designed assessment and development processes are effective in providing high potentials with an understanding of how to exploit their talents to the benefit of themselves and the business.

A sound investment

When delivered appropriately coaching has been demonstrated to have a 5.7 times return on investment. This ROI is found to be related to improved quality of the interventions leaders make when they are present and connected to others.

Coaching is about creating meaning and can help bring harmony in management and life. Coaching is a venue for liberation, so that leaders can learn to live with greater integrity, authenticity and resiliency.

Mannaz takes pride in creating a coach-client relationship based on trust and mutual respect and strongly aligned to business imperatives and measurable success. All of our coaches have extensive experience in coaching and have a proven track record for delivering results for individuals and organisations.

Mannaz coaches are also actively involved in heading and creating leadership development processes at many levels in organisations across the globe. They consider both the personal needs of the leader and the business needs of the organisation in which the coaching takes place.

Leading change

In today’s climate, most organisations need to develop the ability for managers at all levels to be able to lead change.

Mannaz has vast experience of developing leaders at all levels who are capable of dealing with the resistance and creating useful change, through:

• The ability to lead organisational change is essential in a competitive market
• Leading change is difficult, because most people do not share the leaders sense of urgency
• Many would-be leaders focus on selling the solution rather than first convincing people that there is a problem.
• Many would-be leaders fail to invest enough time in communication and influencing
• Emotional and logical resistance needs to be acknowledged and worked with
• Leaders need to ensure that rewards, systems, structures etc. are all supporting the new strategy and not holding back the change process
• Leaders need to know they communicate through deeds as well as words – they need to role model the new way.

Leadership development equals successful execution

When strategy execution is considered, Mannaz studies of best practices demonstrate the importance of getting the corporate strategy into the work place, of focussing on ones’ own practical challenges in delivering results according to the new strategy, and of leaders being equipped with new competences just-in-time for them to be used to get people living the new strategy.

It is when all of these factors are in alignment that strategy execution gets into all corners of the organisation and the strategy is successfully executed. That is when leadership development demonstrates impact on corporate performance.

Not theory – reality

We have seen the link between successful strategy execution and leadership development numerous times in our work with clients.

Consider, for example, a CEO who had visited all corners of the global organisation to share the new corporate strategy with leaders at all levels. After a year he found the effort wasted and the strategy execution was not progressing satisfactorily. He decided to equip all leaders with the needed competencies and to have them take responsibility for the execution themselves. Mannaz was selected to enable all leaders to engage their teams in executing the new strategy. Also, leaders should be prepared for giving and receiving feedback as an important part of the new culture. The process started at the top and was cascaded throughout the global organisation. See the Rockwool case for more details.

Another example is an Italian tire maker where management decided to execute a global turn-around. For that they needed a new set of leadership practices. To replace the dominant control and command style, leaders needed to empower and delegate to achieve their goals. The top executive group defined the new leadership profile. Mannaz enabled all leaders to close their individual leadership gaps and to live the new leadership profile when effectively executing the new strategy. See the Pirelli case for more details.

The 360° feedback aim and use

Mannaz has, over the past eight years, worked to develop a 360° feedback tool, comprising three main categories: Management, Leadership and Personal Competencies, which can be used as a development tool for the individual manager.

The aim is to provide information to the manager about himself to give him the opportunity to develop his leadership skills and daily management practice.

The aim for the manager is:

• To get feedback on your managerial behaviour as it is perceived by others, for the purpose of adjusting your course and develop necessary competencies.
• To identify your own strengths and weaknesses
• To give input and solid data for a personal development plan
• To conceptualise management competencies, skills and behaviour
• To be able to discuss challenges and development possibilities for management and organisation with colleagues

The 360° feedback tool is based on extensive experience in management and corporate leadership development in public and private sector enterprises over more than 20 years; Danish and international studies on the future of management, as well as a solid theoretical foundation.