Insights

Understanding the culture and needs of Sales and Marketing professionals.

BTS interviewed 100 professionals in Sales and Marketing (including CXOs, sales and marketing leaders, L&D, digital, key account managers, and other commercial excellence roles) from various industries across the globe and identified current trends impacting their sales and marketing organizations.

This document outlines our research findings and best thinking on prevailing customer needs, trends in sales and marketing, and current challenges our clients face today. As we explore various topics, from digital transformation to new ways of selling, we will offer some insights and key takeaways.

Context is everything. When you’re swimming in the ocean and see a fin sticking out of the water, your brain concludes: "It's a shark, get out of the water!" But if you're in a pool, you think: "It's a kid with a swim toy that looks like a shark fin." In both situations, the context leads you to reach two very different conclusions and behavioral responses.

How people behave in any given situation is a function of both who they are as individuals (e.g., their personality, skills, past experiences) and the context in which the behavior takes place (e.g., the situation itself). In other words, context matters, and it is difficult to interpret an individual’s behavior without an understanding of the context they faced.

When it comes to using assessments during the hiring process, organizations have a vested interest in making certain that these assessments reflect the organization and job – the context. Doing so helps jumpstart onboarding by ensuring that candidates' assumptions about the organization, the job, and their suitability for both – that they invariably make during the recruiting process – are rooted in reality.

But assessments modeled after the organization and job are superior for another reason: They are generally stronger than generic assessments that cut across job type, level, organization, industry, etc.

1. More predictive. First and foremost, the closer the alignment between the assessment and the specific context in which the individual will ultimately perform (i.e., the job at the organization), the better the assessment will do in predicting future job performance. In fact, research demonstrates that highly contextualized assessments have incremental predictive validity beyond situational judgment and job knowledge assessments. This means that even after measuring candidates' job-relevant knowledge and how they would handle particular situations, highly contextualized assessments still reveal candidates' ability to perform the job that we don’t otherwise know from these other tools.

Why is this true? Because the best predictor of future behavior is past performance. For many years, this adage has been dubbed "the Golden Rule of selection." Think about it: What's the best way to predict whether an individual will be a good salesperson at your organization in the future? Answer: Observe them in the job of salesperson at your organization. The only problem in the pre-employment context, however, is that you cannot observe a candidate perform a job they do not have… Or can you?

Assessments designed to reflect the realities of an organization and job often take the form of a simulation – sometimes completely automated; other times involving role plays conducted by trained assessors. In essence, these assessments let candidates "try the job on for size" – explore the situations and challenges faced, engage in dealing with the situations, etc. Such work samples provide the opportunity to, in essence, perform a job that candidates do not yet have, thus enabling conclusions about how they would perform the job if hired.

2. Less adverse impact. Not only are highly contextualized assessments, such as simulations, highly predictive of future job success, but they also have lower risk of adverse impact. In fact, a seminal meta-analytic research study – looking across many years of other research studies – found that simulations comprising role-plays or presentations have about 50 percent less risk of adverse impact (i.e., sub-group differences) compared to other assessment tools. This decreased risk of adverse impact translates into a more diverse group of candidates deemed qualified for the job, ultimately leading to a more diverse workforce.
3. Higher face validity. Finally, because highly contextualized assessments look like the job, candidates see the relevance of these assessments for the job to which they've applied. Candidates understand why you are asking them to perform some task or answer particular questions because the assessments make sense in their minds given what they know about the job. This is known as face validity, which highly benefits the organization. This underlying concept can decrease the risk of candidates challenging the results of an assessment, improve perceptions and impressions of the employing organization, and increase job offers acceptance rates.

All three areas of highly contextualized assessments are paramount on their own, and together highlight the importance of tailoring pre-employment assessments to the organization and job. They serve the dual purpose of teaching candidates about the job, while also assessing their capabilities and alignment with the organization's needs.

The employment decision is important for both the candidate and the employer, and it benefits both parties to ensure that candidates are assessed in an accurate and authentic manner to make the best, most informed decisions possible.

Recently, while coaching a frustrated Chief People Officer, he vented to me about his company’s plan to bring back the workforce – 3 days in the office, two from home. The leadership team would prefer to have everyone in every day, but they know that will make it almost impossible to recruit new hires and could further damage their already falling engagement scores. And now, they are struggling with a whole set of new problems: how do they track who’s coming in and when, and what do they do about those who aren’t following the guidelines? Why don’t the employees appreciate that the “gift” of flexibility that is being bestowed upon them? It seems like whatever solution the company offers some portion of the work force is unhappy.In talking with executives, this story comes up over and over. The leaders want things to go back to “normal” – meaning pre-pandemic times – and employees want something else. And they are puzzled by how to respond. Yet when I ask if they are partnering with their employees to find solutions, I often get blank stares in return. The idea of asking employees what they want in this situation seems to horrify many leaders.

Missing a big opportunity for buy in and guidance

Based on my own days as a CHRO navigating this kind of challenge, I am struck by how much these leaders are missing by taking this view. There are clearly so many advantages to involving your workforce in their future workplace! We are all in this together after all – and designing the workplace of the future should be exciting and fun.Imagine the enthusiasm for the outcomes that will follow if representatives of all levels and departments contribute to the solution and the deeper understanding of business needs that would come from their involvement. And by pulling in key leaders, they will benefit as well, because they will develop better insights and respect for the challenges and constraints many employees are experiencing.

Why leaders are afraid

I realize leaders are afraid to involve their workforce when considering their workplace of the future and other changes. Why? I see 3 primary reasons:

1. It takes too much time
2. Employees may lack the critical business insights needed to make informed decisions
3. Participation might lead employees to have unrealistic expectations for the outcome

It’s true, the planning and preparation can take longer, when getting more input and involving more people. And sometimes employees don’t have the “big picture” regarding the business needs. And, if you aren’t careful, participants in the change may have unrealistic expectations. But I can tell you, having had the pleasure to lead many corporate teams that had a balance of members from all parts/levels of the organization, these challenges are easily mitigated. And worth managing, because the outcome will lead to better business outcomes, provide sustainable solutions, and increase employee engagement and commitment.

Paving the way for a quantum give back

I’ve led and watched successful teams help their companies drastically change their performance management approach, implement department re-organizations, enhance their employer brand, and develop new sales strategies. In each case, the additional time upfront saved us time later when we avoided re-work and re-communication due to poorly conceived ideas. We carefully set the stage by explaining the challenges and needs and ensuring that the team consisted of individuals from a variety of levels throughout the organization to ensure a strong business focus.We also made it clear to the participants the criteria and boundaries that were involved, who needed to approve it, and how their recommendations would be managed. I have found time and time again, our employees are grown-ups and if treated that way, will behave that way. They can handle being told no if they understand the “why” behind the “what." In fact, I have had employees approach me after townhalls and other group meetings, where the leadership had to say no to some employee requests, with a handshake and a thank you for being transparent and trusting them to understand and support good business decisions.

Asking your employees for help gets you more than you can imagine

Perhaps my favorite example of a time when a team of employees and leaders worked together to improve the business was with an organization that was working on improving the employee perception of their Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB) efforts. The company was very committed and had implemented many solutions to ensure improved representation and inclusion for all, and especially for their women and people of color. And yet, they were confronted with a steady decline of employee perception of company commitment to DEIB. To change this perception and make things better, the organization spent months engaging over 100 of their employees and leaders in teams to find ways to improve.Within one year, the organization really moved the needle:

• Numerous organizational and programmatic changes were firmly in place based on the teams’ recommendations and employee perception rose from 78% favorable to 83%.
• Deep friendships and connections were made across those teams and leadership opportunities emerged for many of the employees that participated, an important goal of the initiative in the first place.
• The executives involved were surprised and delighted by the new insights and awareness they gained from the process, as well as the progress made on a complex challenge.

Was one year a long time to take to achieve all of that? I don’t think so.I have been afraid before, too, for the reasons mentioned here. But I promise you, if you take the time to do it right, you will soon forget your fears and find there’s a better way of operating: improving the future with your employees – not doing it for them or to them.

STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN and SAN FRANCISCO, CA — BTS GROUP AB (publ) a world-leading strategy implementation firm, was recently named a Top 25 Sales Training Companies 2022 list.

“We are grateful for this recognition as one of the world’s leading sales training companies,” said René Groeneveld, Global Head of BTS’s Sales and Marketing Practice. “In 2021, BTS continued to deliver world-class solutions in a mostly virtual, increasingly-hybrid environment. Our efforts to support sellers, sales leaders, and marketeers innovate their communications enabled them to reach and exceed their sales goals amid continued uncertainty.

”Companies on the list submitted a comprehensive application, which included their offerings for training and retention, innovative solutions, unique contributions to the sales training marketplace, and response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The main criteria for evaluation included:

1. Depth and breadth of training offered
2. Innovative offerings (courses, methodology, or delivery methods)
3. Contributions to the sales training market
4. Strength of client satisfaction

To evaluate applicants for the list, the Selling Power team surveyed and considered feedback from over 340 of their clients. Here are some of the comments:

“Our sales managers that went through the training said it was the best training they had ever received as part of a sales organization.”

“The prep work, training, and follow-up after training are all world class.”

“Outstanding, key to our sales transformation.”

“Not only is the training content excellent, but the delivery and interactivity of the sessions really help participants absorb and apply the techniques.”

Selling Power advises CROs, sales VPs, and sales enablement leaders to leverage the list to find the right sales training partner for success in the hybrid-virtual environment.

Customer empathy is key for sellers who want to win in today’s hyper-competitive environment. This ability to anticipate customer needs, produce thoughtfully tailored solutions, and drive meaningful outcomes for clients is not an innate ability that only a few select sellers possess, but a skill that all sellers need to actively cultivate.Developing customer empathy begins with gaining a deep understanding of your customers’ business, otherwise known as industry acumen. Industry acumen provides the critical foundation for customer empathy by helping sellers identify customer pain points, key goals and metrics, and the critical business drivers and care-abouts for each function within an organization.If sellers and organizations are willing to invest in building industry acumen, they will most certainly reap the rewards. In the case of one cloud services provider, sellers with industry acumen training delivered a 31% higher pipeline than their peers. Facilitating industry acumen leads to bigger, better sales opportunities. So, how do you help your salespeople develop industry acumen?

1. Practice makes perfectOne of the best ways to embed new skills and knowledge is through practice. By leveraging role-plays or AI-powered platforms to simulate conversations with customers, sellers learn to “walk a mile in their customers’ shoes.” These simulated experiences immerse sellers in the opportunities, challenges, and strategic decisions faced by executive teams in specific industry verticals. Sellers also gain an understanding of the care-abouts for different functional executives (e.g. Chief Financial Officer, Chief Marketing Officer), overall developing a strong sense of industry acumen.

2. Customization is keyEvery organization is different, but individuals within your go-to-market team will likely require different levels of skill-building. For sellers who are entirely new to vertical selling, training must begin by building a foundational knowledge of their industry vertical. On the other hand, there may be members of the team with backgrounds in vertical selling who need a more tailored approach to improving client conversations.It’s also critical to consider different levels of specialization. For example, mastery of the healthcare industry in general may be enough to get by at one company. At another company, however, it may be crucial to drill down on Provider, Pharmaceutical, Medical Device, and Payer verticals to reach the level of sophistication needed to converse with industry executives.

3. Collaborate, collaborate, collaborateFor this verticalized, go-to-market approach to be successful, many groups within the company must work together. The sales enablement team can no longer just deliver sales skills training – the team must also work with product management and with marketing to create customized value propositions and use cases for different verticals.

Developing industry acumen is made easier by leveraging simulations, whether standard, self-paced ones or fully customized and facilitated experiences. Investing in sellers’ abilities to connect more deeply with their customers will result in better solutions, which will ultimately lead to larger deals and faster time to close those deals.

Senior leaders must frequently choose to devote their time to the company’s long-term strategy or focus on short-term execution. Often, the need for achieving quarterly earnings wins out, and leaders will lean towards the latter. With their time already monopolized by meetings, damage-control, and financial analysis, it’s too easy for senior leaders to slip into focusing exclusively on short-term activities. As one biotech executive said, “I think about strategy on my commute to work and my commute home. I don’t have time during the day.”

Most executives recognize the need to focus on both strategy and execution; however, what remains is how to do so. In an interview with an energy company’s board member, BTS consultants asked, “What makes an ideal CEO?” The interviewee expressed the need for a “bungee CEO” who could move quickly from big picture- to detail-oriented work. "Bungee CEOs" lie at the midpoint between strategy-focused CEOs, who are too far removed from day-to-day operations and struggle to connect with employees, and execution-focused CEOs, who run the risk of being perceived as micro-managers.

At a time when unforeseen shocks such as the Covid-19 pandemic have made it even harder to focus on long-term strategy, here are four principles senior leaders can implement to achieve balance between strategy and execution.

1. Strategic pivots and scenario-planning

In the past, many executive teams thought that rapidly changing a company’s strategic direction would reflect poorly on the team to the board, because that meant the strategy was ill-conceived. However, with the increasing volatility of global markets, it’s become more critical than ever to anticipate and make quick strategic pivots.

One way to anticipate pivots is by leveraging scenario planning. For one senior executive team surveyed by BTS, identifying the worst-case scenarios and possible solutions for the business helped them to be better prepared for the pandemic. During a strategy session prior to the pandemic, these executives imagined the impact of a global pandemic on their industry. The leaders created a “playbook” that would enable them to make strategic pivots in weeks rather than in months, ultimately increasing their odds of surviving a shock without taking drastic action. In this case, these leaders was able to leverage their solution when the pandemic hit, so that its strategy could remain intact while its tactics for execution evolved. Clearly, scenario planning can pay great benefits in the long term.

Another kind of scenario planning is called “war games,” where executive teams break out into two groups to discuss an idea. One team presents the idea in a positive light, while the other argues the opposite. This exercise creates conflict within the team, helping leaders practice healthy, animosity-free debate so they are prepared for when the stakes are higher. Experience with war games is particularly useful in situations where there is strong ownership for an initiative and coming to a consensus is challenging.

2. Trust, the linchpin between strategy and execution

CEOs set the tone when it comes to building a culture of trust amongst senior executives. Cultures built on trust allow leadership teams to focus on what is best for the entire organization, rather than any one person or function. Trust is also the foundation for setting a team-wide strategy. As mentioned by one CEO, “We can argue as a team, but once we leave the meeting room, we all have to agree on a common message.”

Frequent strategic pivots are a very real part of today’s business environment. While these shifts will inevitably leave some negative effects on employee engagement, one way to circumvent this is by adopting a policy of radical transparency. By taking the time to explain the reasons behind a change, you will increase the chances of buy-in from your employees, which is critical for making any shift.

3. Risk-taking

Every risk comes with potential for failure, but in order to balance strategy with execution, senior executives must allow and even encourage their people to take risks. Without overly “scripting” out the future, leaders need to provide their teams with both the goals and the guardrails within which to accomplish them.

Senior leaders need to encourage teams to “fail fast and cheap,” using each attempt at executing an idea as an opportunity to gain insight for a future iteration. The risk-taking mindset is also an asset for senior leadership teams. As stated by one COO, “You need to have a short-term memory and not dwell on mistakes.”

4. Create a culture of psychological safety

Some employees fear that sharing bad news will adversely impact their career, so creating a culture of “psychological safety” where employees feel safe to share problems is critical for ensuring teams communicate problems quickly when they arise. This is imperative because failing to address problems early on can have a compounding effect. When errors identified at lower levels go unreported to senior leaders, leaders will often continue to make decisions that drive the business down the wrong path, unaware of the impact they are creating.

Executives who lead in a punitive fashion are particularly prone to employees withholding critical bad news. For example, one professional services firm’s CEO was nicknamed “Mushroom” because his team felt it best to keep him in the dark, just as growing fungi are, while they fixed the issues at hand.

Creating a culture where reporting issues early and often is encouraged is particularly important in matrixed organizations, where a small issue within one group may cause a large issue in another. Bad news travels slowly in these hierarchical organizations where information must go “up the stove pipe,” slowing down decision-making and exacerbating once-small problems into large ones. Therefore, senior leaders must establish the psychological safety necessary to ensure open communication from the lowest level possible.

Focusing on strategy and execution simultaneously has never been easy for senior leadership. Challenges already associated with rapid changes in technology, customer preferences, and the global economic environment have only increased with disruptions such as Covid-19. To address the dilemma of strategy versus execution amid such continued seismic shifts, senior leadership teams must pivot strategy, plan for worst-case scenarios, create cultures of trust and psychological safety, and allow for risk-taking.

Some of the teams I work with report to a boring leader, and it’s a problem. As someone who works with leadership teams, it’s easy to spot when this is happening because the clues are usually obvious. During meetings, the team is multi-tasking, they are checked out, and they’re often quiet, only offering thoughts when called upon by the leader to do so. Not surprisingly, the team retains little, to anything, that was discussed in the meeting, which often results in – you guessed it – more boring meetings and discussions on the very same topic.

Being boring isn’t just a benign idea or an interesting notion. It’s a behavior that presents serious consequences for leaders and teams because the negative impact on productivity and execution is real and here’s why: Boring leaders beget underperforming teams. When a team is led by a boring leader, it’s almost a guarantee that you see a team focused more on compliance and getting the work done, versus real engagement and energy to work together in an above-and-beyond way.   That may be because boring leaders often are the last ones to see this behavior in themselves, and consequently, they don’t recognize how their behavior is doing their teams a major disservice – a boring leadership style never brings out the best in others.

What does it mean to be a boring leader? The answer may surprise you.

Most of us can be a little bit boring

It’s easy to hear the word boring and think that it applies to someone else.  Personally, I hate the idea of others thinking I’m boring, but here’s the thing. The opposite of boring isn’t being charismatic, energizing, or rah-rah. That’s why it’s easy to think this concept applies to anyone besides us, because it conjures up an image of someone droning on about a dry topic in a monotone voice.

In the context of the workplace, boring leadership often takes on a different look, staring with a lack of awareness about the audience. When a leader is seen as boring, it’s often because they assume that what matters to them matters equally as much to others. We know that in practice, it just doesn’t work that way. This lack of awareness creates a dynamic where you’ll see the boring leader doing more talking than listening, asking few questions, reading slides or reporting out information, and then wondering why the audience is so quiet or unresponsive in the meeting.

The opposite of boring isn’t charisma, it’s curiosity

Here is a very cynical - and effective - place to start if you want to break the habit of being boring. Assume your audiences do not care. Even iif it is the board, your investors, your CEO, even if you’re talking about a matter of great importance. When you start from that cynical point of view, it forces you to ask yourself better questions and get deeply curious about your audiences. For example, rather than assume your board cares about how you’ve evolved your customer value proposition, you might ask yourself:  If they don’t care about this, what do they care about?  Is there any connection between our evolving customer value proposition and that issue? You might also wonder: Why am I assuming they would automatically see the value in this idea? Is it obvious why this is a good idea to others?  You could even ask yourself: If I imagine I am one of my board members, would I remember or understand why we decided to focus on our customer value proposition in the first place? Audiences will only care once they understand the value in your ideas and how that value applies to them. When we’re boring, we simply forget to connect those dots for the audience.

If you want to stop being boring, stop talking about boring things

Several years ago, I was invited to attend a meeting run by a Chief Audit Officer on reporting and I’ll be the first to admit that I was not chomping at the bit to attend what I anticipated would be a major snoozefest. (To all my beloved Chief Audit readers, forgive my ignorance.) Imagine my surprise when this meeting turned out to be one the best I’ve ever attended. What made the discussion so energizing was the leader himself, who had called the meeting together because of legislative changes requiring a major shift in reporting across the company. It would have been easy for the leader to focus on the challenges of making these changes, how tough it would be for the team, the difficulties ahead in managing workload.

To be clear, those challenges were very real, and the leader did address them, knowing that these were valid concerns on the minds of his employees. But he also focused on the future, painting a very powerful picture of what life would feel like once this project was behind the team. He engaged them in the vision of what it could feel like in six months, when the project was completed.  As he led the team in discussion, it was interesting to observe the team’s reaction. They went from panicking about the changes to seeing this effort as something that could make them better as an audit team. They began thinking about how the reporting changes would be a short-term hassle, but in the long run, it would help them finally break free from creating hundreds of low-value reports they dreaded generating in the past.

How to shift the balance

It’s easy to talk about what is difficult, tough, or challenging, but the problem is, it’s boring, it motivates absolutely nobody, and it keeps us stuck. After a while, it just gets boring to talk about the workload, the lack of resources, how busy we are, how tough our market is, the challenging quarter we just got through, and so on. What’s crazy is how often we do this inside companies, and it’s incredibly counterproductive, because in most cases, the conversation never really evolves beyond how tough things are. Start to pay attention to whether this a pattern you fall into, and simply shift the balance, so that you’re also talking about solutions, about the future, or about what we can control to influence a different outcome instead.

Being boring isn’t a personality defect; it’s something that can happen to the best of us, and the good news is that with simple behavior changes, we can improve in this area quickly. To start, ask yourself questions like:  Do others really engage in my meetings? Do I find myself talking mostly about challenges and how tough things are? Do people describe me as inspiring? Do I do enough listening and asking questions? Become curious about your responses and consider where you can put a few simple changes into place. It’s worth the effort, because when we can do more to inspire and engage others, we inspire and energize ourselves, too.

STOCKHOLM & SAN FRANCISCO -- BTS GROUP AB (publ), a world-leading strategy implementation firm, was recently recognized by Gartner as a Leader in the Magic Quadrant for Sales Training Service Providers.

“We believe that being recognized as a Leader in the Magic Quadrant for Sales Training Service Providers is a testament to our sales and marketing client partners — as a result of your trust, we’ve been able to develop and deliver innovative, world-class solutions for both training and transformation that unlock the next level of success,” said Rene Groeneveld, Global Head of Sales and Marketing at BTS.

According to Gartner, “Leaders have strong execution and vision scores and broad service portfolios that improve sales performance through skills and process training. Leaders have some of the most comprehensive and wide-ranging services of all sales training providers with offerings aligned to support seller execution of all parts of the sales process. Leaders are a step ahead with technology — specifically, AI and tight integrations with clients’ sales platforms such as sales force automation, LMS and enablement platforms, which allow them to measure progress and ensure adoption of new behaviors and best practices. Leaders serve a diverse customer base in terms of industry and are well-staffed to provide industry-specific expertise, tailoring engagements to make the learning more applicable to sellers. Leaders’ willingness to tie pricing to client success may be attributed to their high client retention and overall win rate.

A Leader may not always be the best choice for every customer. A focused, smaller vendor that is not a Leader can sometimes provide superior support and commitment. Other vendors may provide a specialized capability that is essential for some organizations. A vendor that focuses on a specific vertical market or within a limited geographic area may not be a Leader in the overall market, but it may be a competitive option within its chosen market or area.”

“Companies need sales and marketing partners who offer innovative solutions that meet them where they are and take them further than they thought they could go,” said Groeneveld. “For more than 20 years, our focus has been developing a breadth of offerings that empower sales and marketing teams to engage their customers in new ways. We’ve invested heavily in technology and digital learning tools to ensure that learning is seamlessly integrated into the flow of work and inspires true behavior change on-the-job.

”Read the full report here.

*Gartner, “Magic Quadrant for Sales Training Service Providers”, Shayne Jackson, Doug Bushée, Debbie Bender, Elizabeth Beard, February 28, 2022.

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GARTNER and MAGIC QUADRANT are registered trademarks of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved.

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

Rainforest Trust is a non-profit conservation organization devoted to preserving biodiversity and saving endangered rainforests through strategic land purchases, community engagement, and global partnerships. By allocating 100 percent of its donations directly to conservation action, Rainforest Trust offers wildlife and tropical ecosystems the critical protection necessary to help maintain a healthy planet for all species.

BTS made its first donation to Rainforest Trust in 2010, acquiring 100 acres of rainforest. These first acres contributed to the creation of Las Tangaras Reserve in Columbia – one of the most critical rainforest sites in the world, which is inhabited by tens of thousands of residents in rural communities. More recently, BTS’s conservation efforts include safeguarding Nicaragua’s El Jaguar Reserve to prevent tropical deforestation and the resulting carbon release. Since its initial land purchase in 2010, BTS has made numerous donations, which have protected over 63,000 total acres.

The pandemic has presented Rainforest Trust with some recent challenges, which include slowing land purchases, preventing community meetings, and reducing income from tourism. However, as part of its commitment to sustainability, BTS has continuously provided support to Rainforest Trust’s conservation initiatives. As a result, Rainforest Trust experienced substantial protected-area creation in 2021, and now hopes to build on this success heading into the new year.

‍We invite you to join us in making a lasting conservation impact.

SHANGHAI, CHINA – Bank of China (BOC), one of the world’s largest and China’s longest-operating banks, has been selected to receive an Association for Talent Development (ATD) 2022 Excellence in Practice Award for its “Private Bankers Performance Enhancement Program.”

The program, designed in partnership with BTS GROUP AB (publ), a global professional services firm, developed private bankers’ sales skills and incited mindset shifts from "product-oriented" to "customer-centric.”

“It is a great honor to be [recognized for] our rigorous research, excellent project design that enabled [shifts in participant] mindset, and meticulous follow-up action tracking and mentorship that promoted business performance,” said Ying Wang, from BOC’s Shanghai Advanced Academy. “The program received good comments from nearly 1,000 participants, and [recognition from ATD proves] that the project is at an international leading level… We are also very grateful to our partner BTS for their strong support.”The workshop immersed participants into the business using a customized business simulation. Three months after implementation, participants completed over 800 action plans, which reported increases of:

• 238 million USD in newly-added assets
• 1.55 million USD in newly-added, non-interest income
• More than 300 new private banking clients

“[This award speaks] to our commitment to designing programs with real business impact,” said Patrick Fei, BTS’s EVP and Asia Managing Director. Alex Xie, Director at BTS, added: “We are grateful for our client’s partnership and the team’s adaptability in ensuring the program’s success, and are glad to make a positive impact on the business and its people.”

ATD’s Excellence in Practice Awards recognize exemplary, well-designed, strategic, and sustainable workplace learning and talent development practices. This year, the program received >140 entries in 13 categories.

Board directors have a high stakes job, and even more so in times of turmoil, change and challenge.

While one of the Board’s key responsibilities is managing company risk, the nature of that risk has changed dramatically in our current environment. This leaves many Boards focused on an outdated definition of business risk that in this pandemic-influenced world is failing to meet the new bar to ensure business continuity and growth. And that bar was irrevocably raised in March 2020, when the workplace as we knew it changed as companies shuttered their doors and overnight became virtual.

What’s changed and why it matters to boards

The sudden move to remote work and the cascading changes, challenges and even opportunities that came with that sea-change have had a well-documented impact on the workplace culture. The “Great Resignation” that is now sweeping across all corners of the work force is the biggest indicator of change, and while this is an empowering movement for many employees, it is systematically upending plans for growth and even survival for companies in many industries. Leadership teams everywhere are newly laser focused on employee engagement and turnover, on retention and development, on inclusion and collaboration, as they seek to navigate a hybrid operating model, maintain business continuity, and deliver on growth agendas. Once considered the “that’s how we do things around here” backdrop that human resources and leaders managed around, the question of culture is now front and center in corporate strategy conversations. Getting culture right from the top of the house – and retaining and growing the talent needed at all levels of the enterprise – will make or break a company’s future.

What this means to Boards is a profound shift in where they need to focus when it comes to understanding and assessing risks to the business. Boards historically have focused on audit risk, reputational risk, cyber risk, and risk to the company value. Today, Board agendas must include culture and talent risks as significant disruptors to business progress and value. In many ways, culture risk IS one of the most critical business continuity risks, as more and more employees vote with their feet, and companies lose essential workers and key talent. The flight to “healthier cultures” where the employee value proposition is well represented means a drain on knowledge, productivity, morale, and growth for the companies they left behind.

The board as culture steward

We see this impacting Boards in several ways, from what they talk about with the CEO and each other, to how they organize to support this new role, to what they can bring to the table to elevate the conversation. Consider these 3 shifts as critical to your duty to guide and steward the company.

1. Have the culture conversation.

Boards we work with – particularly those at the leading edge -- are getting more involved in asking the questions of each other and of the CEO: if attrition has increased, why? What do employee engagement scores tell us? What is being said about the culture on GlassDoor? What steps are we taking to support engagement and collaboration in a hybrid work model? How is CEO/executive compensation linked to culture? Why are we doing it this way? In the past Board members would stay away from this conversation, but it’s time to wade in with both feet.

2. Make the talent strategy a core responsibility.

Legacy committee structures leave no room for critical conversations about culture and talent risk. On many Boards, talent conversations are limited to succession planning with a focus on “replacement planning” at the top levels of leadership. Assessing talent risk based on culture lacks definitive accountability at the Board level and is often left to the CEO and CHRO. If the topic is raised, it might occur in a Compensation Committee process, or in the Nominating & Governance Committee, but culture risk lies across all of these, making its ownership uncertain. The time has come to reimagine this risk as living in a Human Capital committee, whose job it is to connect across committees and keep the necessary line of sight.

3. Bring outside knowledge and insight.

Many directors sit on multiple boards and have a broader perspective of practices that they know exist elsewhere. They can bring that knowledge and insight to the dialog with the CEO and the rest the Board. This requires Board directors to see themselves outside of the more traditional siloed committee structure and having a stewardship if not a fiduciary responsibility to share knowledge. This requires the Chair or Executive Committee to facilitate the connections and recognize that there may be opportunities missed if the full Board isn’t participating in these critical conversations.

5 culture questions to ask at your next board meeting

If you want to ensure your Board is focused on culture as a key priority, add these five questions to your agenda for the next meeting:

1. How are we incorporating an assessment of culture risk in our Board meeting agenda now? How can we ensure that dialog?
2. How well is the CEO and their leadership team tuned into work force trends and risks in their company? What are the engagement and talent metrics being used, what are the trends, where are the trouble spots?
3. What is the CEO and Leadership team’s plan for managing and mitigating culture risk to ensure business continuity?
4. What can we do as a Board to support and enhance that plan? As individual Directors?
5. How do we need to restructure the way we work to ensure we embed a focus on Culture Risk?

As a Board director, if you are not addressing the impacts of the Great Resignation and actively querying or supporting your management team on how work force planning and changes to ways of working are impacting business continuity, you are missing a significant area of risk for the company strategy and long-term value. In the future, company culture will represent the single biggest risk to a corporation’s health, competitiveness, and opportunity to thrive.

STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN and SAN FRANCISCO, CA– BTS GROUP AB (publ), a world-leading strategy implementation firm, was recently recognized by Training Industry, Inc. as a Top 20 Sales Training and Enablement Company.

“We are honored to be named one of the world’s top 20 sales training companies once again,” said Rene Groeneveld, Global Head at BTS. “In 2021, BTS continued to deliver world-class solutions in a fully virtual environment, a space which accelerated innovation. Our maturing virtual and digital capabilities have unlocked possibilities that help our sales and marketing clients achieve success.”

BTS was selected based on the following criteria:

• Breadth and quality of program and service offerings

• Industry visibility, innovation, and impact in the sales training market

• Client and customer representation

• Business performance and growth

“This year’s [recipients] provided quality training to their customers… and the readiness to adapt to their needs,”

said Jessica Schue, Market Research Analyst at Training Industry.

“With virtual transitions and new tools for learning, these companies prepare their customers with the best offerings and innovations to help keep them up to date with new selling trends.”

Tom Whelan, Director of Corporate Research at Training Industry, adds:

“These organizations provided quality service to their clients, offering an exclusive learning experience. While constantly evolving to adapt to their clients, [they] bring unique capabilities to sales training to grow their learners’ skills.”

E-learning designers are still catching up to what brand differentiation experts have known for a long time. Experience matters.

Consider Bubly, a maker of sparkling water, recently purchased by PepsiCo. Bubly doesn’t try to differentiate at the product level: in a blind taste test between Bubly and LaCroix, participants were unable to tell one from the other. Instead, Bubly focuses on the consumer’s experience of the product.

To begin, there’s the enthusiastic welcome: each can features a pull-tab greeting that mimics text messages – “hey u,” “hiii,” or “yo,” – simulating the kind of playful rapport you might have with friends and family. Next, the product’s peach, pineapple, and grapefruit-toned cans and smiling logo work together to convey positivity, creating a look and feel that aligns seamlessly with its slogan: “no calories. no sweeteners. all smiles.” Finally, Bubly gamifies buying. As writer Elizabeth Demolat points out, no store stocks all twelve flavors at any one time, leading to online and in-person buzz about where to find specific flavors. This strategy, along with the release of a variety of limited-edition flavors, has essentially turned “the act of purchasing a product into a treasure hunt.”

Bubly’s brand differentiation leverages enthusiasm, emotion, and excitement—experiential elements that echo the design pillars of best-in-class e-learning. Here’s how to incorporate each.

1. Enthusiasm

Find new ways to breath energy into the experience. Take, for example, a short, animated video that uses action film motifs to explore emotional awareness in the workplace.

The sequence begins with an establishing shot of a manager providing constructive feedback to an employee. The action moves quickly into the employee’s brain, which is set up as a command center. A group of intelligence agents, straight out of Mission Impossible, look on with alarm. One more word from the manager on “areas for improvement,” and the emotion-regulating amygdala will be triggered, hijacking the employee’s normal reasoning processes. The intelligence agents strategize, introducing different tools and techniques that can be used to regain perspective, and the learning journey begins to take shape.

Greeted with a fresh, playful take on a critical workplace competency, learners are primed to go deeper.

2. Emotion

How do you get beyond the rational regions of your brain – the ones that “control language, but not decision-making” – to tap into feelings and emotions? One particularly creative course on human anatomy leverages powerful visuals to reach learners on that deeper level.

Participants begin by learning that there are more nerve cells in the brain than stars in the Milky Way, observing a close-up of the brain’s circuitry dissolving into tiny specks lighting up the night sky. Because the underlying anatomy remains hidden, medical-aesthetics practitioners learn that they will essentially be working in the dark. The stars fade out slowly, one by one, until there’s nothing left on screen but total darkness—a strange, slightly unnerving experience that drives home the importance of understanding anatomical structures on a visceral level.

3. Excitement

Give people something they’ve never experienced before by challenging the norms of typical training.

Data-protection policies, for instance, are critical safeguards wherever they’re in place, but existing e-learning on the subject is almost always designed as a passive, one-way transmission of information. One exceptional data-protection course takes a different approach, using live-action video and a dramatic soundtrack to depict a privacy breach occurring in real time.

While this can get gimmicky, immersing learners in a volatile environment with uncertain outcomes builds tension, a key lever for creating buy-in.

‍So, how can we help clients build better learning experiences?

‍Many clients see digital learning as a product, one that looks a lot like what’s already out there: didactic, uninspired, dull. By nudging clients toward digital learning courses that mirror what they already know about branding, we might just be able to help them build experiences that stand out in a crowd.

In 2020, COVID-19 radically changed everyone’s lives forever, with social distancing, mask mandates, and travel restrictions becoming our only means of survival. These measures, while lifesaving, crippled many businesses and accelerated the growth of others. The virus’s spread caused the global economy to plummet and then quickly rebound, inducing worldwide whiplash. We spent 2021 adjusting to this new world and bracing against new and unexpected shocks, such as global supply chain issues, the return of inflation, and severe labor shortages. So, what does next year have in store?

In early 2021, Executive Networks surveyed Chief Human Resources Officers from the world’s largest companies as part of a research project called the Back2Better Initiative. These 71 CHROs – who lead companies with a mean employee count of 69,000, and an average annual revenue of $19.5 billion – weighed in on the future of organizations, leadership, work, the workplace, and workers.

In this paper, we’ll explore how three of the themes from the Back2Better Initiative – remote and hybrid work, organizational and personal purpose, and company culture – played out in 2021, and how they’ll impact the world of work in 2022.

STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN and SAN FRANCISCO, CA – BTS Group AB, a leading global strategy implementation firm, was recently named a Top 20 Assessment and Evaluation Company by Training Industry.

With decades of experience in the assessment and industrial/organizational psychology space, BTS’s assessment team leverages customized business simulations to create the best assessments possible. BTS’s offerings range from individual and group assessment to executive coaching, action planning, enhanced 360-degree feedback and more. BTS assessments are digitally-enabled, highly contextual experiences grounded in scientific research, providing psychological and psychometric rigor in delivery, process, and evaluation, and can be administered onsite or remotely, providing effective assessments from anywhere in the world. 2021 experiments to BTS assessments include gamified simulation with competency scoring, situational judgment tests embedded in gamified delivery, and Ipsative scoring in trait and mindset diagnostic.

Selection to the 2021 Training Industry Top 20™ Assessment and Evaluation Companies List was based on:

• Diversity of assessment capabilities.
• Quality of evaluation techniques.
• Industry visibility, innovation and impact.
• Strength of clients and geographical reach.
• Company size and growth potential.

“It is an honor to be named one of Training Industry’s Top 20 Assessments and Evaluation Companies,”

said David Bernal, Head of BTS Assessments.

“We are excited to continue developing new assessment technologies and advancing these capabilities in the future.”

STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN and SAN FRANCISCO, CA — BTS Group AB (publ), a world-leading strategy implementation firm, was Certified™ by Great Place to Work® for the second year in a row.

This prestigious honor is based on validated employee feedback about their experiences working at BTS, which is gathered using Great Place to Work’s rigorous, data-driven For All methodology. This year, 93 percent of employees said BTS is a great place to work – 34 points higher than the average U.S. company. Great Place to Work® is the global authority on workplace culture, employee experience, and leadership behaviors proven to deliver market-leading revenue, employee retention, and increased innovation.

“It is an honor to be Certified™ by Great Place to Work® for the second year in a row,” says Melissa Friedman, Head of People Experience, North America at BTS. “Amidst multiple challenging years, the BTS employee experience has always been a top priority and I think this is represented by our scores. We are proud that employees have reported a consistently positive experience.”

“Great Place to Work Certification™ isn’t something that comes easily – it takes ongoing dedication to the employee experience,” said Sarah Lewis-Kulin, Vice President of Global Recognition at Great Place to Work. “It’s the only official recognition determined by employees’ real-time reports of their company culture. Earning this designation means that BTS is one of the best companies to work for in the country.”

Chances are if you’re like any of the leaders I’ve worked with over the years, you may have a bit of each of these common communication styles show up in you from time to time when it comes to how you interact with the C-suite. Here’s what I’ve learned. These styles are incredibly easy to see in others and less so in ourselves, and they can interfere with leaders being as good as we can be in front some of our most important audiences. I’ve experienced them all and so have my clients, and the good news is that once you see it in yourself, you can address it.

Here’s a look at three common styles:

‍1. The Overcompensator

‍The Overcompensator mantra is this: I want you to know how much we’ve been working on.

You know you’re with an Overcompensator when: In every meeting or presentation, they seem to have an endless amount of activity to report on, with slide after slide that lists initiatives, projects, or updates.

The subtext is this: We have been very busy, we have been putting in tremendous effort, we have been doing lots of things, we are taking [insert important issue in here] very seriously. This tends to show up in board meetings and quarterly business reviews. Overcompensators may be some of your busiest, hardest-working leaders who also overemphasize activity instead of demonstrating results.

If you lead a team of Overcompensators, you might say, “Let’s stop talking about what we are working on and start talking about where we are producing results instead.”

‍2. The Expert

‍The Expert’s mantra is this: If I share enough information with you, you’ll see why I’m right.You know you’re with an Expert when: In every meeting or presentation, they present far more information than you want or need.

You’ll get plenty of details and data, but it may not necessarily help you make a decision or understand the bigger picture, with lots of ‘what’ but not enough ‘so what.’ Experts can be accused of too much talking (particularly when answering questions), being in the weeds, boring the audience, or overpreparing (after all, you never know when you might get asked a tough question).

What Experts can work on: A ‘less is more’ mindset driven by better judgment and discernment, so they include the right information (not all the information) in their messages.

‍3. The Assumer

‍The Assumer’s mantra is this: I already understand what you want and need, so let’s move to next steps.You know you’re with an Assumer when: You feel rushed or sold.

As the name suggests, Assumers tend to make assumptions about their audiences. It’s why they will leave a meeting and think there is agreement to a next step only to be met with silence or inaction. The problem for Assumers is that nobody else necessarily thinks there is a problem to the degree to which they do, nor do they have the commitment yet to solve for it. Assumers can be accused of lacking curiosity, not asking enough questions, or believing the audience has bought in prematurely before that is actually the case.

What Assumers can work on: Proving to themselves and others that their audiences care as much about solving for an issue and addressing a challenge as they do before moving to action.If you see these styles show up in your team, share this article with them and use it as a jumping off point about what may be interfering with their impact and how to show up differently with high stakes audiences.

In a future post, we’ll look at a few more common styles – the Unknown, the Defender, the Needy.

To be successful in today’s environment, it’s critical for organizations to go beyond the six major data technologies – Business Intelligence, Data Analytics, Data Science, Data Engineering, Artificial Intelligence, and Big Data – and adopt a Data Culture. Many leaders wonder – what even is a data culture? Why does it matter for my organization?

An insatiable thirst for data

The demand for the technological subsector based on information, along with its storage and processing, is only growing with increasing speed. Searches for terms related to data on Google and other search engines have multiplied by more than 9 times in the last decade. Furthermore, the demand for purely technological job positions, mainly associated with the creation or expansion of “analytics” departments, is only the tip of the iceberg for what the world of data is capable of offering.

This growth has occurred for a reason. In today’s world, a company’s turning point for accelerating growth, if you’re focused on the technological side, is when the entire workforce has adopted a true data culture – they understand both how to leverage data and why it is important.

Raising awareness around Data Culture

This cultural shift, when the entire workforce adopts a data culture, is where the true potential of data lies. Digital services and e-commerce companies monitor all variables related to their business, which allows them, among other things, to anticipate changes, increase adaptability, and improve prediction. More traditional companies, even if highly digitized, generally waste too much of the data they generate. This is often due to a lack of practical knowledge or references of what they can do with it.

Entire organizations don’t need to understand Machine Learning algorithms or how to configure data services in the Cloud to be competitive, but it is important for employees to understand the basics of the world of data. This allows them to consider the possibilities it offers, and to obtain the knowledge that allows them to take advantage of the millions of pieces of data that a company uses daily.

Data-Driven Companies

This type of company – one where most employees understand the world of data and leverage the data to make decisions – is just another way to describe what has been commonly called a data-driven company, or a company that leverages data-driven decision-making. Google, Amazon, Netflix, and King, the creator of the infamous Candy Crush, are all good examples of companies who use data-driven decision-making practices.

What do these practices consist of? The list is long, ranging from the most classic statistics to prediction algorithms with neural networks through text mining. Some examples of data-driven decision-making are:

• Using A/B Testing methodologies in departments such as sales or marketing to add value to the services offered and improve efficiency.
• Dynamically readjusting the online sales catalog based on the time and day of the week to maximize the visibility of certain brands’ most popular products.
• Automatically classifying communication with customers into categories (for example, sales, technical service, sales, etc.) to speed up the flow of information in the appropriate department.
• Analyzing workers’ productivity and performance based on factors such as time or workload to adjust their schedule or distribution of functions in order to increase not only their performance, but also their comfort.

Implementing a Data Culture in your organizations is critical for future success. This type of culture allows everyone in the organization to understand the potential of data and how to leverage it in decision-making. This empowers every employee, from the senior level to the front line, with the tools to be a change agent, driving the business to the future.

How do you more effectively drive learner engagement and concept retention in your digital learning courses? Sound is key. Why? Sound elicits emotional responses which make moments more memorable, and also shapes your unique sense of space, time, and reality. Adding a layer of sound would amplify presentations of any kind.There are three elements to consider when incorporating sound into digital learning courses: sound effects, voice talent, and transitions.

1. Engaging sound effectsPractitioners of mindfulness meditation focus on the present moment in order to reach a particular mental state. The present moment is always changing, of course, depending on the surrounding constellation of smells, sounds, sights, and feelings. Try to isolate the ambient sounds in the air, and you will come to appreciate both the limits of your focus and the omnipresence of sound. Note, too, how memories involving both sight and sound are more vivid than those derived from just one sensory channel.Sound effects can perform numerous functions: emphasize a particular point, underscore a key concept, balance serious content with humor, and more. Try, for instance, to imagine films such as Star Wars, Titanic, or The Godfather without their orchestral scores and soundtracks. Just as sound effects are critical to each story on an emotional level, they can make the digital learning experience more meaningful and memorable.Consider using ambient sounds that are colloquial to your learners, such as the "ding" signaling the arrival of a new text message, or the "whoosh" of sending an email. Using these sounds tactfully throughout your presentations will increase learner engagement by initiating states of excitement, focus, or reflection. However, be sparing in your use of such effects, as space is essential for the appreciation of sonic subtleties.
2. Appropriate voice talentYour choice of voice talent is critical – any recognizably-human voices invoked for digital-learning purposes must align with your organization’s cultural DNA and corporate identity.For the digital learning course in question, be sure to consider its subject matter, audience, and tone. After identifying each, decide whether a stodgy accent, homey lilt, or something else entirely would facilitate the most engaging learning experience. Once you have a few options, be sure to send samples to your client for feedback and approval. Reactions to voices, after all, are highly personal.
3. TransitionsTry now to pinpoint all the recurring noises around you, whether infrequent or ever-present. Depending on where you are, you may hear the low hum of a fridge, the persistent honk of a horn, or even the steady beating of your heart. These periodic sounds, absorbed subconsciously, signify the passage of time and transformation of your surroundings.Transition sounds, like the famous musical motifs in each aforementioned film, aid in memory retention by stimulating an emotion, foreshadowing an event, or accentuating a concept. In digital learning courses, transitions work best at the beginning and end of a module. That said, if placed tastefully throughout a course, transition sounds will add polish, build a brand, and encode content in a memorable way.

These are just a few of the ways that sound can be used in your digital learning courses as a design pillar, making training more engaging and enjoyable. Whether you meditate or passively absorb your surroundings, sound adds texture, depth, and meaning to the fabric of our lives. How will you use sound to build your next creation?

STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN and SAN FRANCISCO, CA —BTS GROUP AB (publ), a world-leading strategy implementation firm, was recently named to Selling Power’s Top 20 Virtual Sales Training Companies 2021 list.

“We are honored to be recognized for our virtual training capabilities,” said Rene Groeneveld, Global Head of BTS’s Sales and Marketing Practice. “In 2020, we pivoted to deliver best-in-class solutions to our clients in a fully virtual environment. We continued this work in a hybrid-virtual environment in 2021. We are humbled by our clients’ continued partnership and inspired by the results they have achieved.”

Companies on the list submitted a comprehensive application, which included their offerings for both training and retention, delivery methods, and response to changing market conditions. The main criteria for evaluation included:

• Strategies to keep participants engaged
• Breadth of virtual sales training offerings
• Methodologies for participant retention
• Innovation of offerings and/or delivery in response to customer needs or changes in the marketplace
• Strength of client satisfaction and client feedback

Selling Power also considered feedback from more than 250 clients, which included:

“Usable, to-the-point training delivered effectively and supported well. What more could you want?”

“Close, professional, and absolutely satisfying collaboration — they know what they are doing and perform at the highest level.”

“In just three months since our conclusion, we’ve seen our pipeline grow by 14% in dollars, and, more importantly, by 34% in number of opportunities.”

Selling Power advises CROs, sales VPs, and sales enablement leaders to leverage this list to find the right sales training partner to deliver best-in-class virtual sales training.

C-suite succession is rising to the top of the agenda for many Boards and executive leadership teams, as the tenure for CEOs continues to grow shorter.

Even before the pandemic, the failure rate of new C-suite placements was increasing and costing companies millions of dollars. As we're moving into the latter half of 2021 and 2022, we already see an upward trend in C-level transitions.

The Boards and CEOS we work with know that they need to get these highly visibly changes right. The risks are higher than ever as we continue to navigate Covid and back to office/hybrid work decisions, while looking for leaders who can deliver growth and energize a diverse work force.

The good news is that despite these odds, there are important lessons to be learned about how to avoid missteps. We recently convened a conversation with senior HR and executive leaders to share those insights and advance our understanding of how to help Boards and C-suite leaders get it right. The following highlights should help you start the conversation in your own company.

Sharing an expert perspective

I was delighted to have the opportunity to moderate a panel discussion with Karen S. Carter, Chief Human Resources Officer and Chief Inclusion Officer, Dow, and Board Director, Southwire and Lynn Dugle, Board Director, Avantus Federal, Micron, TE Connectivity and KBR, and former Board Director. These leaders shared a view on where C-Suite succession goes wrong, how to do it right, how to work with the board and the CEO to make CEO succession a company’s strength.

Key highlights

Several important themes and priorities emerged from the conversation:

• Change: Disruption will continue to impact markets, workforce planning, health policy and leadership. Change is happening at an increasingly rapid rate, and how we select and prepare C-suite leaders needs to change with it. What worked before won’t work anymore.
• Diversity: The need for diverse C-suites – and for the Boards that work with them – is an imperative that requires a comprehensive strategy to include building a deeper bench of diverse candidates and greater diversity at the board level.
• Partnership: The CHRO is on the front lines of leading succession strategy. A close partnership between the CEO and the CHRO is critical to the succession process, and in intervening to ensure diversity is consistently sought, encouraged, and supported starting with selection and following through to development, stretch assignments and support.
• Leadership behaviors: The cost of poor leadership is felt in the “Great Resignation” of 2021. Talented employees are voting with their feet and leaving even those companies that are performing well. Leader behavior is how culture is felt and should be front and center in the succession conversation.
• Transparency about the role: Not every successful executive is a willing candidate for promotion. C-suite roles are all-consuming and it’s important to have transparent conversations with those in the pipeline to make sure they really understand – and really want – the job to make sure the right people make it into the roles.

Recently, a client who had just been promoted to a CTO role began our advisory conversation saying:

“I want to fully step into my new c-suite role, and I’m concerned I’ll fall back into comfortable habits. This role is going to require me to think and lead differently and I want to hit the ground running. What do you recommend?”

This is a common concern of the senior executives we work with who are stepping into high-profile, high-stakes roles; perhaps this is where you find yourself right now. You’re thinking about how you’ll live up to the high expectations placed on you and how to keep the best of your current leadership style while stretching to embrace what’s possible for you at the next level. You’re concerned about how to show up each day in the way that’s expected and, quite frankly, the way you’ve always wanted.‍

These roles are a lifetime in the making and a lot is at stake.

And yet, so many comfortable habits can get in the way of stepping up, such as:

• Diving too far into the weeds,
• Being uncomfortable with having fewer details,
• Being unwilling or unable to trust your team,
• Letting your calendar be overrun by unnecessary meetings, and
• Focusing too much on your area of the organization at the expense of having an enterprise-wide view.

Now that you’re in a C-Suite role, your allegiance must be elevated to the C-Suite team. This can be hard to embrace because you feel connected to the teams you’ve developed and led for so many years. If you have a technical background, you probably love the details—and of course, the details are probably most comfortable for you.

Yet, embracing the uncomfortable is what you’re being called to do. If you don’t let go and embrace this discomfort, you won’t be the leader you need to be, and things will eventually go south.

As this client continued talking about her concerns and aspirations, it became clear that there were areas of her leadership focus and style that she needed to approach differently. To create a comprehensive list, we conducted a visioning exercise of her future state one year into the future. Through this process, she came up with a somewhat lengthy list of how she wants to be seen. Her list included themes we commonly see leaders moving into C-Suite roles looking to develop and enhance, such as:

• Spending dedicated time strategizing and creating/communicating a vision — Communicating a compelling vision is one of the biggest opportunities for C-suite leaders to create followership and inspire action. Our research shows that out of the 15 qualities of executive presence we measure, this one is often rated lowest.
• Enabling the leaders in the organization to make more decisions — Being intentional with how decisions will be made and clarifying how you expect your team to make and communicate decisions is vital in C-Suite roles to empower others to deliver on the vision. Read more about intentional decision making
• Helping leaders expand their thinking of what the future can look like — The first step is listening to understand what your leaders currently see as possible and then, through demonstrating humility and inclusiveness, engaging them in dialogue to expand the collective thinking. When done well, this takes time, yet has huge payoffs in terms of innovation and engagement in new future states. Read more about leading innovation here.
• Showing up as a creative leader who takes appropriate risk — Our research indicates that those exhibiting this trait are seen as confident and credible leaders. Modeling this behavior as a C-Suite leader creates alignment and energizes the team about what’s possible for the company, and for their roles.
• Building trust and respect with new C-Suite peers across the organization — It takes time to be viewed as a trusted peer. It requires resonating with colleagues from their perspective while sharing a well thought out Vision and demonstrating Practical Wisdom. It also requires demonstrating Composure when engaged in challenging conversation and being comfortable with constructive conflict.

Looking at her list, this new CTO commented that one of the most highly regarded leaders at her organization, who is still remembered 10 years after his retirement, had many of these qualities. And, she reflected that these themes had also been identified by her colleagues through her Bates Executive Presence assessment (ExPI^TM.) It became quite apparent to her that now is the time to embrace these new habits to truly embody an influential presence in her new role.‍

Mapping the gap‍

After identifying her future state, we applied a gap analysis to determine the distance between her current state and this envisioned future state. Once she knew how big the gaps were for each area of focus, she identified a list of actions to bridge each gap. Additionally, we took a look at her ExPI^TM to confirm her analysis of how big the gaps were and with which groups of colleagues.

Of course, this is only a starting point. She’ll need to review and modify this list periodically throughout the year. However, this first step was a big one, one this leader found inspiring and energizing—especially related to areas that seemed daunting at the beginning.

Tips to get started

This is a powerful process, whether you have an advisor or sounding board to walk you through it, or whether you do this on your own. It requires asking yourself the tough questions to see a potential future state; to challenge and expand your thinking about what’s needed and possible; to be honest about the gaps; and to determine how you’ll get there. And you’ll want to dedicate enough time to relax into the thought process to truly expand your point of view.

Set aside an hour, and:

• Grab a few pieces of paper and a pen, maybe one with your favorite color of ink
• Sit a comfortable chair, in a place where you won’t be disturbed—preferably not in your office and potentially outside to help you think more broadly
• Take a few deep breaths to relax your body and your nervous system
• Ask yourself these questions and jot down everything that comes to mind, without editing:

It is now one year from now and I’ve fully assumed my new role; my organization is crushing it and our business is thriving, what am I doing that’s working well? How am I leading differently than I was a year ago?

• Now look at each item on your list and give it a rating to indicate the gap between where you currently are and that new aspiration, using a 3-pt scale
• Jot down three+ ideas for each item on the list regarding how to close the gap
• Hold yourself accountable to the items on your list and review at least quarterly to check on your status

Leveraging feedback and insight from others to help to close the gap

To get even more granular about where to focus your efforts, invest in getting feedback and input from others on their perceptions of the gaps and also the strengths you have to leverage as a C-suite leader. A 360 assessment like the Bates ExPI^TM can shine a light on the areas to focus on first, where you can most readily move the needle to achieve the changes you are looking for. Often, our own perceptions of our behaviors are different from how others view us, making 360 feedback a critical arsenal in closing a leadership gap.

Senior executive roles give you an opportunity to shape the culture of the organization and to act as a role model for leaders throughout the enterprise. Devoting time and energy to this exercise will pay off handsomely when you find yourself realizing your vision a year in the future. And, you’ll be well on your way to leaving a lasting-legacy of outstanding leadership.

STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN and SAN FRANCISCO, CA – BTS GROUP AB (publ), a world-leading strategy implementation firm, won 31 Brandon Hall Group Excellence Awards in partnership with clients. These represent some of BTS’s best solutions delivered to a variety of clients, including:

• Bank of China
• Bayer
• Bowmans
• China Minsheng Bank
• Chevron Corporation
• Corning Incorporated
• Game
• HDFC Life
• Indra Sistemas
• Johnson Matthey
• Pitney Bowes
• Repsol
• Salesforce
• Schindler Group
• Thermo Fisher Scientific
• Tiger Brands
• Vale

“More than ever, it’s an honor to be recognized for our partnerships with clients,”

said Rick Cheatham, CMO at BTS.

“Especially after the challenges 2020 presented, we are privileged to continue delivering best-in-class solutions, whether virtually, in-person, or in a hybrid environment – always in collaboration with our clients.”

These awards include 21 gold, 6 silver, and 4 bronze, ranging from Best Inclusion and Diversity Strategy to Best Learning Program Supporting a Change Transformation Business Strategy.

“Brandon Hall Group Excellence Awards in 2021 provide well-deserved recognition to organizations that went above and beyond to support their stakeholders during the COVID-19 pandemic,”

said Rachel Cooke, Brandon Hall Group COO and HCM Excellence Awards Program Leader.

Brandon Hall Group CEO Mike Cooke mentioned,

“We added several categories to specifically address critical needs, including how organizations addressed the new dynamics of work and embedded the principles of diversity, equity and inclusion in their HCM practices.”

Entries were evaluated by a panel of independent, senior industry experts, BHG analysts and executives, based on fit, design, functionality, innovation and measurable benefits. Find the list of winners here.

Are you in a leadership rut?

It’s a hard question to answer because of the nature of ruts. You often don’t realize you are in one until you’re out of it. This is particularly true for senior leaders, who have demanding schedules and packed calendars, which may further delay the realization of being in a rut: You’re just too busy to notice.

Why is this a problem? For leaders, the risks of being in a rut extend beyond being caught in a boring routine or stuck in an emotional funk. Left unchecked, company innovation and performance suffers, engagement and morale may drop, and good talent leaves when leaders and teams fall into ruts. Leadership ruts are serious business, but what makes them hard to see is that the signs often appear in small ways. How do you know if a rut is sneaking up on you? Here are a few indications.

1. No bright spots on the calendar. Recently, I asked a client, “What are you looking forward to on your calendar?” There was a long pause. He replied, “Not much.”  If this feels like you, it’s an important area to explore, because calendars aren’t just timetables, they mirror how we spend our days. So, take a few minutes to review your calendar on a regular basis. Too many days in a row without bright spots has an impact. Over time, it can hurt our motivation, engagement, creativity, and we may not even realize it is happening to us. Think about it this way. Are you really at your best at meetings you don’t look forward to? Eventually, too many of those impact a leader’s performance in all kinds of ways.
   
   How to address: Recognize that a great calendar won’t just happen by itself. It’s easy to get caught into a trap of thinking that we don’t have control over our calendars or buy into the old story that work shouldn’t be about fun. As good as you are, you’ll be even better if you have days to look forward to and a calendar that energizes you, so commit to making small improvements in your calendar (more bright spots and fewer meetings you dread) and you’ll yield instant results.
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2. Too much of the same. Being in the same role for a while isn’t necessarily a sign you’re in a leadership rut, so the caveat here is that “it depends.” If you’re in the type of company where most people advance or move into different roles every 18-24 months and you haven’t, it’s an area to explore. While you’re at it, consider other aspects of your work that haven’t changed in a while, whether it’s the people on your team, the work you’re engaged in, or the number of new situations or people you’ve encountered. This can lead to a blind spot buildup and dull our ability to stay fresh, embrace change, or expose ourselves to diverse people and experiences that enable us to think differently.
   
   How to address: Deliberately force yourself to mix it up, and this is particularly true if you’ve worked at the same company for most of your career. Raise your hand to do something new on a regular basis that is a stretch for you. Over the years, I’ve had clients do everything from speaking at a major client event, to living overseas, to attending a Tony Robbins seminar and walking over hot coals. This is also a time when leaders engage a coach or join groups of other like-minded leaders to get exposed to new ideas. Whatever you choose, put it on your calendar so you know it will happen. A few small tweaks can create major change and transformation.
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3. You’ve stopped dreaming big for yourself. Being in a leadership rut can often start from a place of good intentions. Perhaps you’ve been leading through a challenging time and you’ve been focused on getting through the issues at hand. The question to ask yourself is when are you not in a period like this?  If it’s always code red, all the time, it’s easy to stay in a permanent state of firefighting. This produces the worst kind of leadership rut, where we are never able to get beyond the urgent and tackle the important, and it can lead us to some dark nights of the soul, where we wake up, 10, 20 years later and regret not tending to our longer-term goals, hopes, and visions for our own lives.
   
   How to address: Make daydreaming as important and strategic an activity as any other high priority in your life and treat it seriously. Set aside time to sit in your favorite chair in a quiet corner of the house with your pen and notebook and answer some simple questions for yourself, like, “What do I dream about?” or “What do I want to do that I haven’t done yet?” Daydreaming is about unfiltered, unedited thinking, and it is where some of the best ideas for your life and work can happen. The first few times you do this, you may feel uninspired or cringe at the word ‘daydreaming.’ Forget about all of that and remind yourself it is what the most enlightened, productive leaders do to get even better.
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Falling into a rut can start off innocently, like always going to the same restaurant and ordering the same thing off the menu. In leadership, it’s risky, because it limits our ability to be everything we can be for our organizations, our teams, and ourselves. Toughest of all is the fact that other people may recognize we’re in a rut long before we do. The good news is that we can address this with a few simple changes, and when we do, leadership becomes vibrant, energizing, and returns to technicolor again.