How much can you learn from the events that took place on one section of the Somme on 1st July 1916? Well, according to Stephen Bungay, director of the Ashridge Strategic Management Centre and 15th Most Influential UK Thinker in the 2015 HR Most Influential rankings, quite a bit.
At the 2014 Corporate Research Forum's conference in Berlin, Bungay used the events of that notorious day to examine how decisions were made by both sides, the role of planning in battle and the “essence of leadership and followership”.
“The British army had an idea of discipline, which involved doing exactly what you’re told without questioning,” Bungay told HR magazine in an interview before his presentation. “The Germans had ‘independent thinking obedience’, which is totally different. It’s obedience in that you have to act in line with higher intentions; it’s the intentions that matter, and everyone has common ones. It’s independent because you don’t wait to be told what to do; and it’s thinking because you look at the situation and make the call.”
To find out how these two ‘organisations’ got to these two very different places, Bungay goes back 50 years. “The German model is one of the first well documented models of empowerment in the modern age,” he said. “They hired entrepreneurial individuals as officers, gave them common concepts of doing things, emphasised individual initiative, adopted a set of simple rules people could follow to help in uncertain circumstances, and recognised they’re going to be operating in an environment of chaos.”
In contrast, the British view was “you control the chaos by managing it”. “There was very little direction setting,” Bungay explained. “It’s a mechanical view of the organisation as a machine.”
The German view that “leadership is about motivating people to do the right thing” meant they prevailed that day on the Somme, despite having far fewer resources (and even if they eventually lost the war).
For Bungay, this example perfectly demonstrates what he calls the ‘Executive’s Trinity’ – managing, leading and directing, all of which are different and involve different skills. (See graphic below.)
Management is working out what resources are needed for a job and allocating them accordingly; leading is about motivating people to do the job; and directing means taking on authority, responsibility and the duty of directing. Bungay refers to managing as “physical”, leading as “emotional” and directing as “intellectual”.
“Any individual may be called on to manage, lead or direct at any given time,” Bungay explained. “The number of people who are equally good at all three is vanishingly small. As these three things are very different, we have preferences of our own.”
That means it’s incumbent on HR to think about the ‘trinity’ when it comes to recruitment and development. “You want to be looking at all three because the organisation is going to need all three,” advised Bungay. “It becomes more important in dealing with the top team. The organisation needs to be managed and led as well as directed. Often what you need is a top team that has all three. It might be that the CEO is the director, the COO is the leader and the FD is the manager, for example. You’ve got to keep the trinity in your mind.”
“Psychometrics won’t necessarily give it to you, because these are skills and psychometric test personality types,” he added. “Nobody’s born a great director; you have to learn it.”
When it comes to development, “you’ve got to be clear what you’re developing [people] for”. “It’s about self-awareness,” Bungay explained. “Training in management is easier because these are skills most people can pick up. Directing involves understanding strategy, and for all the strategy courses there are around, it is generally poorly understood and poorly practised.”
