1. Conversations: HC2020 and beyond
12th October 2018
Sandton

2. Who is Ntombi Langa-Royds
56 year old Black African woman
Mother to a 29 yr old and a 17 yr old
Wife, Mother and Mother in Law, Daughter, Friend, Sister etc.
Holds 2 legal degrees
Holds NED directorships in various companies
Attempted Entrepreneur
“Student and observer of Life”

3. Why are conversations important?
Understanding
Alignment
Growth
innovation
Misunderstanding
Misalignment
Stagnation and integration
Downward spirals

4. Education sector and curriculum
Changing world: Keeping up with it? What is the true impact of this revolution and do we need to worry about it?
Financial services
Insurance industry
Education sector and curriculum
4th industrial revolution
Climate change and its effect on day to day lives
Scarcity of water
Bitcoin
Bankable market
Insurable items
Importance of analytical skills.. Careers of the future

5. …Stir in Complexity What’s next?! Analyst and investor expectations
Growing workloads
No cushion of surplus talent
New technology, new tools
24/7/365 demands
Information and cognitive overload
Breathless pace of business
Ongoing restructuring
Blurring boundaries
Uncertainty, time, ambiguity
Regulatory
pressures
What’s next?!
Everything flows, nothing stands still. The only constant is change.
- Heraclitus

6. We Need New Strategies to Engage Talent
Old: Acquire and Retain
New: Develop, Deploy, Connect
“Buy” talent and keep in seats
“Engage” by focusing on what matters
Develop
Building capabilities to achieve personal and business goals
Deploy
Creating experiences to perform to full extent of abilities
Develop
Deploy
Retain
Acquire
Engage
Connect
Connect Cultivating networks of high-quality relationships
Organizations that focus on these 3 things
“acquire and retain” talent

7. Encourage productive conversations
More than active listening
Generate awareness about how language
Influences learning
Creates or shuts down energy
Ongoing performance conversations
Leaders as coaches
Ongoing, not episodic
Avoid “Judgment Day”
Integrate mentors—not just boss
Emanate Fridays and the energy that stirs
Tap into social media networks and learn what drives them
The performance of our organizations depends on the quality of our conversations.
- Hubert Saint-Onge

8. Stimulate networks of high-quality relationships
Social Network Analysis
An x-ray of the way that work gets done
Who goes to whom: For knowledge? For advice?
Who trusts whom?
Who holds things up?
Awareness is first step
Orchestrating change based on insights is harder
Personal network tools
Networks of high performers richer and more diverse across
Functions
Hierarchy
Race and gender
Places network analysis in hands of individual to
Understand own networks
Compare networks to those of high performers
Create strategies for strengthening networks

9. Design physical space to foster connections
70% of learning occurs through informal interactions
How to organize people to stimulate learning and performance?
Physical layout has big impact
Often takes a back seat to systems and technology
Group people around strategies and projects, not departments
Provide a mix of space
Formal areas for teaming and collaboration
Quiet space to think and reflect
Informal areas to relax and converse
NB this may mean the end of the traditional office space

10. Communication
“Communication is the glue that binds various elements, coordinates activities, allows people to work together and produce results” Human resource management in South Africa, 2006
“Two Monologues do not make a dialogue”
Jeff Daly actor and writer

11. Why communicate at all? Even more important today because:
Companies are larger and global
Mergers occur very often
Global diversity and presence occurs more frequently
Management styles have moved from strictly authoritarian to more collaborative styles
Labour market more integrative and is not territorial specific
Market and product mixes more varied.
Improves Human connectivity!
Fourth industrial revolution and technology

12. Things to remember about Conversations
Remember that the conversation is the relationship.
We effect change by engaging in robust conversations with ourselves and others
Each conversation we have…… either enhances those relationships, flat-lines them or takes them down.
Fierce Conversations by S. Scott 2002

13. Fierce Conversations
“ When you think of a fierce conversation, think passion, integrity, authenticity, collaboration. “
“Think cultural transformation!”
“Think leadership!”
Fierce conversations: Susan Scott, 2002

14. Fierce Conversations (an option)
7 Principles exist according to Susan Scott:
Master the courage to interrogate reality: No plan survives its collision with reality and reality has a habit of shifting- market and economies change at work and at home
Come out from behind yourself into the conversation and make it real: When the conversation is real the change occurs before the conversation is over.
Be here, prepared to be nowhere else: speak and listen as if this is the most important conversation you will ever have with this person. It could be!

15. Fierce conversations
4.Tackle your toughest challenge today: Burnout doesn’t occur because we are solving problems it occurs because we are solving the same problem over and over. The problem named is the problem solved.
5.Obey your instincts:
Don’t just trust your instincts – obey them! Tune in! Pay attention! What we label as illusion is the scent of something real coming close.
6.Take responsibility for your emotional wake:
The conversation is not about the relationship; the conversation is the relationship

16. Fierce Conversations 7. Let silence do the heavy lifting:
Memorable conversations include breathing space. Slow down the conversation so the insight can occur in the space in between.

17. Tips about Conversations
Life is curly. Don’t try to straighten it out! Change is the most significant constant in our lives today!
The traditional practice of annual strategic plan sessions( booze ups!) is a thing of the past, rather teams must get together quarterly to answer the question “what has changed since we last met?”
“The corporate nod” is a significant reality- watch out for it!

18. Tips about Conversations(2)
Remove the word ‘but’ from your vocabulary and substitute it with the word ‘and’.
Conversations are best launched when there is a well defined idea offered as a spring board for everyone's thinking and discussion.
When someone takes up your invitation to challenge your strongly held opinion, resist the temptation to defend your idea immediately.
Adapted from Fierce Conversations, Susan Scott, 2002

19. Tips about conversations 3
Relationships are important in conversations
Relationships are hard work but they are easier when we can talk to each other
Complexity is enhanced by generational, gender, race, sexual orientation and all the other “ isms” in our lives
Remember that this is synergistic and makes it more interesting…. All the same is boring!
Difference is great because it opens the door to learning and a different conversation/ experience/opportunity

20. Tips about conversations 4
We all wear multiple hats
We need to remember that we are all on the same journey… of survival
Gratitude is an important part of the process.
Listening is a skill… if you don’t use it you loose it!

21. So the question is what are the conversations we should be having?
Conversations about the future and what it holds
Conversations about where we can be stretched the most and therefore grow the most in the given time
Conversations about what I didn’t get right in the last cycle and what I have learnt as a result
Gratitude conversations daily….

22. What are the skills we “may” require?
Listening vs hearing
Engaging vs Telling/imposing
Empathy vs sympathy
Openness vs rigidity
Agility vs complacency
Hunger for learning
Humility vs arrogance
Assertiveness vs conformity
Fluidity vs Clear largely defined, structured purpose

23. Intonations in Language
And vs But
May vs Must
Never vs Possibly
I vs Us/them NB
Inclusivity, transparity and openness are the key!

24. Quotes from Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela
“ What counts in life is not the mere fact that we lived. It is the difference we have made to the lives of others that will determine the significance of the life we lived”

25. In the end:
“Life is short so enjoy the ride and don’t fill it with regrets.”