[reflection] Is Balance the New... ?

Like anyone I hold my share of beliefs and values. For one, I'm a fan of rationality. That is the western heritage from the Renaissance times  that speaks to me: logic, reasoning, objective deduction. I equally value the concepts of harmony and balance. That probably comes more from the East and ancient old wisdom of Confucius et al. [Sidenote: when I see the skyline of Shanghai and the economic boom in Asia I sometimes wonder if they have forgotten the concept of balance themselves ... ] Anyway, over the last weeks some readings have reinforced my beliefs in balance, so I wanted to share that with you.

Is balance the new growth model?

This article on the Harvard Business Review "CEOs need a new set of beliefs" illustrates the growing belief in corporate circles that the short term focus on shareholder value needs to be balanced with the long term expectations of various stakeholders. Yes, the old 'shareholder vs stakeholder' debate is back from never leaving. I have never been a die hard fan of the shareholder model and in Europe it was never as sharp as in the USA - as if shareholders actually own the company... They do not. They own a piece of paper (at best- it is mostly virtual paper) that states they invested in a company and are therefore entitled to equal and correct information to base their investment decision on. That's it. That's the deal. Now the financial markets seem to suffer from manic depressive illness, companies of the knowledge economy do not rely as much on capital as their prime 'production factor', and other stakeholders have raised their voices. Customers got more voice and power because of the social web, NGOs protest and propose alternatives at every single G20 summit, workers are more self-steering and value purpose over pay, etc. Leaders allover feel they are 'stuck in the middle', doing a balancing act on the sometimes conflicting interests of many stakeholders. But in the end, will that balancing act not get us the new growth and sustainability we look for?

Is balance the new development goal?

As this is a blog on competence development rather than on economic tendenses, allow me to relate balance to our development goals by referring to the article "Great Leaders double profits and customer satisfaction" in Training Magazine. You can read the article as the business case for leadership (hint: you don't need to be the CEO to take part in it) and you can read the article from a learning perspective. It quotes a study by Zenger Folkman on the impact of 'poor' and 'best' leaders. But the researchers also looked at the strenghts and weakenesses that made you 'poor' or 'best'. Turns out that - and I quote-

• The data revealed that 100 percent of the worst leaders had two or more fatal flaws—that is, a competency at the 10th percentile.
• The key factor differentiating great leaders from their average or poor counterparts was the possession of a few profound strengths. In fact, 100 percent of the “great” leaders had several profound strengths—or an ability rated at the 90th percentile through a 360-degree feedback assessment. It was not the absence of weakness that was essential to their success; it was the presence of profound strengths.
• We found some “great leaders” who were not rated highly in technical expertise, problem solving, innovation, communication, and/or championing change. In other words, great leaders are not perfect, but they do have a few profound strengths. 

I'm going to make the strong assumption that the above holds for competency domains other than leading too. My interpretation of the article is as follows: you are 'good' when you are balanced. That means no very strong or very weak skills. But the deviation from the balance will determine if you are poor or great. A few terrible flaws will mark your performance down. A few great strenghts will make you stand out.
Also on the individual skill level, there is such a thing as too much. In leadership frameworks such as Lominger, overuse of a skill leads to derailment. So should the new development goal be balance with a few extras?

Is balance the new work team?

Individual competence development is all very nice, but really, what can you know and achieve on your own these days? Balance is also the key success factor when I read about the very popular Belbin study and team role type classification. In her 1970s research she found that teams work if they have a balance amongst their team members. To quote the Belbin site:

• the research revealed that the difference between success and failure for a team was not dependent on factors such as intellect, but more on behaviour. The research team began to identify separate clusters of behaviour, each of which formed distinct team contributions or “Team Roles”. 
• Whilst some Team Roles were more “high profile” and some team members shouted more loudly than others, each of the behaviours was essential in getting the team successfully from start to finish. The key was balance.

So is a balanced team the new work team?