Insight: the cognitive and Athlete Minded leader

Grant Alexander was at the Management Fair on November 13 and 14, 2018.
Several of our experts led roundtables with our partners from the “Tente à Palabres.”
The Tente à Palabres brings together 7 partners, all experts in Management and Transformation issues in complementary areas. Involved in supporting HR Directors and CEOs in building and developing strong leadership teams over time, Grant Alexander continuously reflects with its peers and clients on agile and high-performing management questions. Shared reflections around roundtables organized by the Tente à Palabres during the Management Fair…

Roundtable: The enlightened manager: Cognitive and Athlete Minded Leader
Led by Sybille Delaporte, Talent Management Director, and Violeta Hulot, Executive Talent Assessment Manager at Grant Alexander, in collaboration with SBT, this conference focused on models that allow understanding the manager in their environment and optimizing their performance.

What does it mean to be an enlightened manager?
It means being aware of the surrounding environment and how it evolves. It means knowing how to adapt and develop over time the assets that will allow deploying optimal performance.

Toolbox…
A VUCA world
The acronym VUCA stands for Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity and describes the current environment, increasingly complex, volatile, uncertain, and ambiguous. In a VUCA world, projects, priorities, and strategies change rapidly to adapt to volatile situations. Visibility is reduced, and beyond the short term, uncertainty and the unknown prevail. Knowing how to account for this world and adapt to it is a prerequisite for any form of agile management.

The Cynefin model
Different situations require putting oneself in the mindset of an enlightened manager.

Simple situations
Complicated situations
Complex situations
Chaos situations
The way these are approached builds the expertise and experience that create the ability to react, adapt, and construct:
Experiential (simple + complicated)
Expertise (complex + chaos)
It is about moving from expertise to experiential to adapt to the VUCA world.

Athlete thinking: the ACCEDER method
The A.C.C.E.D.E.R method is a development methodology that maps 9 mental strengths and helps the manager ACCESS their optimal performance state and express their full potential. The concept of Flow underpins this methodology. And good news: it can be practiced and developed!
Thus, a manager’s success will depend not only on professional skills but also on their ability to adapt to the company in which they operate, its environment, culture, and objectives. An enlightened manager will know their strengths and limits, be determined, have a powerful purpose with meaning, and know how to decide here and now with full awareness.
The 9 mental strengths act as a system and are complementary. Developing them will allow reaching flow (the fun zone) and thus one’s optimal potential.