Studies of leadership consistently report that leadership ability is directly linked to subordinate performance, behaviors, and reactions including job satisfaction, positive mood, affective commitment to the organization, reduced turnover, reduced withdrawal behaviors, improved work performance, pursuit of more challenging goals, goal attainment, perseverance, higher resistance to stress, and value of progress Furthermore, subordinate reactions to inept leadership have been found to include turnover, malingering, insubordination, and industrial sabotage the links between leadership and auxiliary responses make a convincing argument for the need for more than empirical associations, but a deeper theoretical understanding of the leader Leadership Developmental Level (LDL) is examined as a predictor of leader performance. Also, this study is an attempt to understand what unique contribution the use of constructive-developmental theory and coaching may add to our current understanding of leadership and coaching culture. To do this, the predictive ability of constructive-developmental theory is compared to that of a known predictor of leader performance: Big Five Personality. This comparison allows us to answer the question, “Can LDL tell us anything about a leader’s performance that we couldn’t find out through a test of personality?” Only after answering this question can we begin to understand and measure those qualities that make leadership distinct from other constructs such as personality.

Changing the culture of an organization is a daunting task. The respondents – 80% of who were senior leaders – were asked how a series of coaching and mentoring activities could best contribute to achieving a coaching culture. Accurately, the respondents were presented with ten activities and asked to select the five that would most contribute to achieving a coaching culture. These results are shown in five themes emerged

From their responses:

1. “Seed,” the organization with leaders and managers who can role model coaching approaches.

Developing strategies to change a company’s culture soon leads to confronting the issue of scale. Specifically, how can a sufficient number of people in the organization gain the learning experiences they need to initiate, grow, and sustain culture change? The key to addressing this issue of scale is to select the right people, invest in their development, and position them as role models for the new coaching culture. In turn, as these people coach others, those who are coached will place special emphasis on utilizing and improving their coaching capabilities. The respondents recommended creating a cascading effect by using leaders as role models for coaching (75% selecting this activity) and providing them with coaching skills training 69%. The key is to make this training available on a selected basis, and not necessarily to offer coaching skills training to all employees 21%. This approach effectively deals with the issue of scale. Training all employees would be time-consuming and expensive. Whereas focusing the practice on leaders and selected managers and then having them be role models and cascade coaching behaviors throughout the organization ensures maximum return on investment and leverages scale to an advantage. About one-third, 35% of the respondents selected individual coaching for leaders and managers as a top-five activity. It seems that the respondents much preferred training leaders and managers to be coaches rather than being coached.

2. Link coaching outcomes to the business.

Linking coaching culture outcomes to business goals was recommended by half 51% of the respondents. This finding reinforces what we learned earlier about the gap between the importance and effectiveness of demonstrating the business value of coaching and linking coaching outcomes to business outcomes. While it is viewed as extremely important to do so, 97% of the respondents’ organizations were not viewed as being effective at doing so. This gap represents a significant opportunity for those who desire to create coaching cultures. One respondent suggested that “strategic goals and tactics are developed around coaching and specific performance metrics be developed for coaching behaviors,” as might be found in a competency model, thus further linking business outcomes to individual coaching outcomes.

3. Coach senior leadership teams in creating culture change.

Almost half 46% of the respondents recommended having their leadership teams receive coaching on how to create culture change. Earlier, we learned that only 20% of the respondents indicated that team or group coaching was being done. Aforementioned may represent another potential gap in what is needed to create culture change vs. what is currently being done. Closing this gap is vital because teams whose members focus on providing each other timely feedback, learning together and building upon their interdependent strengths typically show a higher capacity to achieve organizational improvement than organizations who do not follow these practices.

4. Recognize and reward coaching-culture behaviors.

Once the behavior changes kicks in, it is vital to reinforce the shift to increase its sustainability. Forty-three percent of the respondents ranked this activity among their top five choices.

5. Integrate coaching with other people-management processes.

Institutionalizing the change is critical for sustainability. Coaching approaches and behaviors must be integrated with the appropriate people processes so that these become a natural way of doing business. The respondents felt it was essential to incorporate coaching approaches into learning and development 43%, job-competency models 39% and talent-management processes 32%.

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Creating an Innovative Home Environment

A solid education begins in the home. Before a child attends school and throughout the educational process, learning must be nurtured at home as well as in the classroom. To develop a child’s love of learning and foster creativity, parents need to create a home environment that supports problem-solving, idea development, and a sense of individuality. The first step in creating an innovative home environment is to realize that learning is a social practice. Children learn by interacting. Whether it’s with parents, siblings, friends, or other family members, children need to be able to freely work, play, and in general interact with others regularly. An interactive approach is a key to providing a solid foundation for learning at home. To build on that foundation, parents should implement the following ideas and activities.

•    Focus on Concepts Instead of Facts – Facts are essential, and children need to have a certain amount of knowledge regarding facts but understanding and applying concepts will allow them to soar beyond basic facts.

•    Look for Learning Opportunities Everywhere – Reading with children and helping them with schoolwork are distinct activities parents should engage in, but there are so many other ways to promote innovation and learning while at home. Parents should invite kids to cook with them and try out new recipes. What can be added or taken away to make it taste better? Ask children to help with age-appropriate home repairs. If a family is able, they should plant a garden or take care of a pet. Many learning opportunities exist beyond the computer and a stack of books.

•    Encourage Self-Reliance – Being responsible and having to depend on oneself will help children become natural problem solvers. Even being responsible for simple chores will promote creativity and encourage kids to find better, more efficient ways of accomplishing tasks.

•    Take Advantage of Resources – Utilize the services of the public library, visit museums and parks, and take advantage of classes, concerts, and other free community events. Being able to see the world from different vantage points while incorporating the abundant resources most communities have to offer will help children understand everything they learn from a broader perspective.

Problems in the Current Public-School System

While establishing an innovative home environment that nurtures individuality and creativity is extremely important, tackling the issues in the public-school system is essential. The intense focus on standardized testing is one of the significant problems with the current educational system. This emphasis on tests and scores takes the focus off of the children and the activities that are specifically centered on their learning needs. While a system of accountability should be in place, the current method of measuring success through standardized testing discourages creativity and innovation in several ways.

•    Preparing for tests as well as taking tests is time-consuming. Aforementioned ultimately takes away from other meaningful projects and activities that children could be engaged in.

•    The stress of testing is creating a crisis among many educators. Many feel compelled to teach to the test to keep their jobs.

•    Standardized testing doesn’t necessarily do a good job of measuring what a student has learned. These types of tests usually are a one-size-fits-all approach to measuring learning. Students learn and demonstrate how they’ve learned in many ways that go beyond the methods used in standard tests.

Besides standardized testing, there are several other ways most public schools stifle innovation and creative learning. Sticking rigidly to grade levels keeps many students from reaching their full potential while putting pressure on others to accomplish academically what they are not ready for. Any physician will state that all ten-year-old are not expected to be the same height or weight. A wide range of physical sizes and characteristics at this age is perfectly normal. Why then do schools expect all ten-year-old’s to academically and intellectually be at the same level? Finally, in too many schools, teachers are tied to a precise curriculum. If three teachers are teaching fourth grade at the same school, often the administration expects each teacher to be on the same chapter, in the same unit, all at the same time throughout the school year. This may provide a certain amount of convenience, but it certainly doesn’t promote innovation and creativity.

Re-thinking the Current Educational System

Incorporating innovation in education means being willing to think outside of the box and take a new approach to teach and learning in the classroom. Training should be geared toward teaching children to think in ways that lead to innovation. Forming attitudes that are constructive to learning instead of test taking should be the goal of every school and the educational system. There are several steps schools can take to incorporate innovation into the educational process daily. The following are ways administration can help teachers create an environment that is open to change in the classroom.

•    Set Aside Time to Plan – Even if it’s just 10 or 15 minutes after a weekly staff meeting, allow teachers the time to brainstorm about everything from lesson planning to how to make group projects more hands-on for the students.

•    Allow Teachers to Help Select Professional Development – It’s a waste of time and money to send teachers to professional development they have no interest in or don’t feel will have any practical application in the classroom. Teachers are in the trenches every day and have a good idea of what they need help with and the types of tools that will assist them when teaching their students. Teachers should at least be part of the process when it comes to selecting the types of workshops and in-services they’ll attend.

•    Model and Reward Risk Taking – Teachers need the freedom to try new lessons and provide unique learning opportunities for their students without fear. If teachers are afraid that if new ideas fail in the classroom, they will receive a poor evaluation, they’ll be less likely to take risks and try new things. The administration must be willing to encourage and model risk-taking.

•    Create a Team Environment – Teachers should be colleagues, not competitors. Working together to share ideas and learn from one another should happen regularly in every school. Being able to do this successfully will then help the teachers to bring this sort of teamwork to their classrooms for their students to engage in.

Once teachers feel comfortable working together to create an atmosphere of innovation in their classrooms, there are several things they can do to pass on the same attitude to their students.

•    Create a Safe Place to Fail – It’s usually necessary to do things many times and try several approaches when inventing or creating anything new. Thus, failure is one of the best tools for learning. If children don’t feel they can fail in a supportive, nurturing environment, they are likely to give up on projects after the initial try.

•    Give Students a Voice – Children will feel more empowered if they are given an active role in the classroom. They should be given the ability to oversee projects and make decisions whenever appropriate. This also includes allowing them to debate and disagree among themselves. Teachers can help guide these discussions to ensure they are done properly and respectfully.

•    Don’t Impose Limitations – Teachers should try to give assignments that are open-ended and not surrounded by constraints. Instead of saying, “Write a four-page paper on elephants,” a teacher could say, “Write, say, and show me everything you can find out about elephants.”

•    Reward Attitude Not Just Results – In a classroom environment learning HOW to do things can be just as important as the results. Oftentimes-real life is more about attitude than actual ability. Perseverance, honesty, and staying positive should be encouraged and rewarded as well as effective results.

•    Allow Children to Get Messy – This not only means allowing a certain amount of real mess in a classroom but noise and confusion as well. This goes along with allowing failure, promoting creativity, and giving them room to find their method in the madness.

•    Promote Interdisciplinary Study – In real life, math is not separate from science, and history is not different from reading. Subjects are interrelated and build on one another. Dividing learning into neat subjects and categories is not the best way to promote a three-dimensional, diverse approach to learning.

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Strategy #1: Analyze Past Procurement History

One of the most significant areas overlooked by vendors pursuing government business is past procurement history of agencies. Looking at recent bids, RFPs and awards allow you to find the agencies that have purchased products or services related to your specialty. The buyers at these agencies should become your new targets for the future business. Why? They have a documented need for your solution, you know their essential requirements and concerns based on their previous bid or RFP specifications, you know when they last purchased, and you know who they bought from and, you may even be able to find out how much they paid. With this procurement history, you can have an in-depth conversation with agency buyers about upcoming purchases they are planning and their level of satisfaction with their current solutions.

Here are a few examples of how you can leverage past procurement history data to give you a competitive advantage in the public sector:

•    If you know your competitor’s standard warranty period, look for prior agency purchases from your competitors that fall within 6-12 months of the warranty expiration and start your outreach to the agency to ask about their plans for replacements of that product.

•    Have safety requirements or standards changed in your industry in the last few years? Reach out to agency buyers who purchased in the last 2-3 years to let them know about the new safety offerings your product provides. Find out if these new features can kick start a sales conversation about upgrading to your safer, or more efficient, latest-generation product.

•    For service contracts, call agency buyers 3-6 months before the contract end date to find out if the agency is satisfied with the level of service provided. An agency may have an opt-out or extension clause in the contract and reaching out to them may give you an opportunity to discuss your advantages over their current supplier.

Strategy #2: Leverage Term Contract Expiration & Renewal Schedules

Term contracts are time or ‘term’ based contracts that generally have fixed expiration dates and defined renewal and extension options, giving you the opportunity to know about upcoming projects well ahead of the renewal or contract expiration.

For any target agency, you should:

•    Use the early notice to start building a relationship with the buyers and decision makers.

•    Discover if they are satisfied with their current vendor.

•    Find out if they plan to extend the existing contract or open it up to competitive bidding.

•    Position yourself ahead of the incumbent by highlighting your unique selling proposition.

Understanding the agency’s plans with a contract and if there are any existing pain points, ahead of the renewal, gives you a competitive advantage in preparing your proposal for that agency.

Strategy #3:  Participate in Cooperative Purchasing Vehicles

Many agencies are adopting lean procurement models – they are seeking procurement vehicles and mechanisms that allow them to purchase goods and services without having to go through the expensive and time-consuming traditional competitive bidding (bids & RFP) process. One of the growing ways agencies are improving efficiency around procurement is through the use of cooperative purchasing. With cooperative purchasing, agencies can leverage existing contracts with cooperative associations or other state or local agencies to avoid the time and cost associated with drafting, publishing and awarding their custom contracts.

Finding cooperative purchasing activity can be challenging because, by nature, cooperative purchasing reduces the need for agencies to publish bids or RFPs for new work. You may see the initial proposal, RFP or award from the lead state (NASPO Value Point picks a lead state, for example) but you likely won’t see the subsequent purchases from other state or local entities using that contract.

Because of this, I encourage vendors to:

•    Identify the top buyers for your products and services using procurement history data.

•    Contact these agencies to find out if they are using cooperative purchasing to streamline their procurement process.

•    Identify what cooperative associations they use or what other agency’s contracts they tend to piggyback off of the most.

•    Inquire with those co-ops and neighboring agencies about how you can do business with them.

Strategy #4:  Research Agency Budgets and Future Spending Plans

•    Comprehensive market intelligence — real-time info, hard-to-find statements of work and labor rate analysis

•    In-depth customer profiling — detailed agency profiles, up-to-date organizational charts and technology trends

•    Contacts — reliable contact information and data on prime contractors to identify partners and gather competitive intelligence

Because state and local agencies must budget for future spending years in advance, there is a wealth of actionable government market intelligence available to savvy vendors who analyze agency budgets and spending plans for future bidding opportunities. This form of information is unique in that vendors can discover upcoming projects years before they approach the bid or RFP’s stage. Searching for keywords related to your product or service in agency budgets can be useful in some industries but understanding the ‘trigger events’ that drive future bidding opportunities in your industry and searching for those can be an even more effective approach.

What are trigger events? Trigger events are the types of projects that result in future bids and RFPs for the products or services you specialize in. For example, if you sell pool cleaning equipment, your trigger event would be agency spending plans related to a new aquatic center for a city or school district. Or, if you sell energy monitoring equipment, your trigger event would be agencies that are budgeting for energy conservation initiatives in the coming years.

Get creative and think about the trigger events that can drive future business for your firm:

•    Search agency budgets and spending plans for terms related to trigger events in your industry.

•    Contact those agencies to identify project managers, planners or key consultants who manage and specify requirements for the project they are your sales and marketing targets.

•    Showcase the value of your solution versus competitors to earn coveted status on the final project requirements.

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Talking to the customer is one part. However, understanding their needs for a product or solution that delivers value is paramount. I-Corp is a great way for academic teams to explore the business behind the science. Doing the math, coding, and running experiments don’t always translate into business unless you clearly understand the problem, as well as the market. We seldom think of scientists as doing anything that is going to be of any immediate practical or transactional value in our daily lives. This is also the case with deep science-based start-ups. There are some money managers and investors who understand the long gestation period for some of these advanced scientific concepts to fructify into commercially viable products,  there is little to no patient money at work with these start-ups. I usually challenge deep science start-ups to take a hard look at the low hanging fruit, research, or IP that can be licensed immediately, such as a process, software, or code. This may also involve an existing solution, product, device, or simply a better method that a company can use or license for immediate use as long as there are no arduous regulatory challenges. One example would be a surgical device already on the market, yet your solution creates some type of efficiency. All that said, it is essential to always talk to customers first to gain insight into the problem to be solved before you assume people actually want or need what you have been building.

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Understanding artificial intelligence (AI)

The term “artificial intelligence” was coined to describe what has become the logical extension of basic computing into methods that utilize the large sets of data, the lower cost of parallel computing and significant advances in algorithms into an advanced ability to classify, reason and interact. It is much like human learning, but depends upon digital systems, to support the process using highly sophisticated algorithms. This allows companies to use information for a variety of purposes. The capability of AI systems for business is currently in its infancy, and it is likely to permeate every market at every level.

How you can take advantage of AI today

One of the common ways AI is being utilized in today’s businesses is for strategically targeted marketing. AI systems allow companies to collect data on current customers and find potential customers with similar qualities. It can even change its methods, recognizing when purchasing patterns or demographics change. These details can help companies to maximize their marketing budgets.

Artificial intelligence can also help with customer service. You can serve customers at scale, providing automated acknowledgments, ticketing processes and satisfaction surveys to ensure that you keep the customers you have, while allowing responsive service that will enable you to take advantage of customer-to-customer influencing.

Tips for implementing AI

The new systems required for implementation of artificial intelligence may seem overwhelming for businesses that have depended on standard methods of operation, but managers can initiate a gradual changeover of policies if they follow a series of steps:

Learn everything you can about available systems – A variety of books and online publications are open to artificial intelligence and machine learning. The business world recognizes the impact AI will have on revolutionizing operations in the future, and some workshops and conferences are being held to explore its use in many industries. Essential personnel should engage in educating themselves on the options available for implementation and how their business can adapt itself to utilize the techniques and technology.

• • Brainstorm how AI can be used in your business – Once your team has a basic understanding of artificial intelligence and what it can do, have the team engage in ways to implement the systems into your business operations. Determine what problems AI can solve for your business. If you do not have the data sets needed for implementing such a system, consider how this information can be gathered and compiled.
  • Determine the financial value of AI systems for your company – Once you have targeted a problem that AI can help you solve, you must be able to calculate economic benefit it will have for your business. In some cases, the advantages will be visible, such as decreased need for outsourcing analytical capabilities. However, you should be ready to consider less visible benefits that can provide near-term gains for your company.
  • Recognize your operational shortcomings – Some companies have implemented systems that adapt quickly and thoroughly to AI capabilities. However, other businesses may require re-organization to update their methods to provide the data AI systems need. Take an honest look at what your current operations can afford and determine where changes must be made to accommodate more advanced techniques.
  • Be ready to bring in the experts – No, matter how well prepared your business is for adapting to the new technology; you will require consultation with individuals who know how to implement these systems into a company. Arrange to set up a pilot program to initiate AI into your business that can provide set-up, training, and analysis to ensure effective utilization of its capabilities.
  • Start small and build from cost savings – Research indicates that simple implementation of a chatbot can reduce support costs as much as 30 percent. If you field calls from customers frequently, this is an excellent area to begin your implementation of AI into your business. Using the savings, you can then add other technologies, such as machine learning that can make changes to programming on its own to make operational processes more efficient.

In closing, artificial intelligence promises to transform society on the scale of the industrial, technical, and digital revolutions before it. Machines that can sense, reason and act will accelerate solutions to large-scale problems in the myriad of fields, including science, finance, medicine, and education, augmenting human capability and helping us to go further.

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