Executive Coach for CEOs and Top Teams | Expert in Authentic Leadership | Keynote Speaker | Author | Co-CEO at Heimann Cvetkovic & Partners.
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When you picture a fragmented world, what do you see? Perhaps it’s the image of people heading home during rush hour after a long day’s work, glued to their phones and each other, disconnected but connected at the same time. Or perhaps it’s the view of a building, composed of a hundred little apartments that contain the lives of people who seldom interact, if not for a quick obligatory “hello” in the elevator. The truth is, fragmentation can go beyond what the eye can see. It can seep into our daily lives, but it also reaches as far as our workplaces, our politics and our societies at large.
Today, we are facing colossal challenges that could affect us all unless we take urgent action. As our world has become globalized, so have our issues. Interwoven, we now know that a particular problem affecting a country far away could have serious repercussions where we stand. Overcoming these challenges will depend on how well we can work together.
As individuals, we can only make a significant impact if we band together and take massive collective action. Governments and the private sector have the largest role to play, and if the corporate world so chooses, it can also play a big role in overcoming the challenges we face today.
Leaders and executives have more power than they think. But what is needed today, in order to harness that power, is a more communal approach to business. We need models to connect what is disconnected, to unite leadership in a world that is fragmented. At the World Economic Forum, which will take place in Davos from January 16 to 23, connection is at the top of the agenda. This edition’s focus will be on innovation and collaboration, modernizing the social contract and an increased focus on policy solutions. The front page of their website reads: “The sheer number of ongoing crises calls for bold collective action”—a stark reminder that the time is now.
As an executive coach, building connections is an integral part of my work. Since I began my career, I have been using models to facilitate connectivity within organizations. I created what’s known as the Leadership Alliance Model, a relationship forged between the board, CEO and executive team that is connected and authentic. This allows leaders to think in alliance with each other and with their stakeholders. But it can go beyond the doors of your organization and become what I call a Leadership Alliance Ecosystem.
Internally, a Leadership Alliance Ecosystem means that your team has integrated its five driving forces: shared purpose, compelling vision, leadership alliance behaviors, working together principles and leadership alliance mindset. As an organization, this means you are concretely moving in the same direction and working together to reinvent the future. In doing so, you also take a conscious approach to rewiring your organization for success.
Externally, this can be applied to stakeholders, who become alliances instead of competitors. By blurring the traditional hierarchical structure that has upheld companies in the past, you can work in unison with your stakeholders in order to stay engaged and be a force for good for people, planet and profit. And when I say “stakeholders,” I mean everyone from employees, investors and shareholders, customers, regulators, suppliers and partners, and industry federations but also communities, future generations and planet Earth.
Let me provide an example of how this can be applied concretely. When coaching an executive team, in order to reveal the disconnections within their organization, ask each member to share what they think is wrong with the company anonymously. Once everyone has the chance to express themselves, ask members to speak about an issue raised by one of their colleagues as if it were their own. This allows the leadership team to understand which issues are personal and which are structural. The structural issues—points of disconnection—can be clearly identified and the team can proceed to find solutions on how to reconnect. One possible outcome is that the team learns to set realistic expectations and take small steps to reach their goals.
This exercise provides a safe space where members not only feel comfortable raising issues but also hold each other to account. Applying the leadership alliance model outside of your organization can breed a sense of connectivity far beyond the four walls of your headquarters. Practice alignment, define your five driving forces and be curious—look for what is disconnected that needs connecting in our fragmented world. Add forging relationships where you not only see eye to eye with your stakeholders but can also hold each other to account. The Leadership Alliance Ecosystem provides a framework to establish connectivity in a fragmented world and unlocks the power of connected ecosystems by leading through strategic alliances.
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