The recent announcement that Microsoft is purchasing Nokia for some £4.6bn/ $7.2bn was for many not a surprise. With a former Microsoft leader, Stephen Elop heading Nokia these last couple of years it was perhaps inevitable that the two would come together. After all one of his first strategic moves was to sacrifice Nokia’s beloved Symbian software and move to Microsoft’s Windows Phone.
In this article we look at the skills a business partner in today’s leading companies requires to have the appropriate impact. It will provide you with an opportunity to reflect and assess how you measure up. What do you do well and what might you need to develop or add to your skill set?
In this short article we will talk about what benefits they bring.
In this short article we will talk about why we use feedback tools for structured feedback and how they should be used.
A valuable tool for providing feedback to managers is a 180° or 360° instrument. Feedback is critical for managers and leaders developing an objective sense of self awareness and identifying their strengths and areas for development.
Facilitation is an important skill set that everybody has to some degree of proficiency. However to be able to apply it to achieve results with different groups of managers requires having both a good tool kit of techniques and a good understanding of when and how to intervene. These enable the facilitator to have the appropriate impact in helping the group or unit or department produce valuable results. It is a valuable additional weapon for the armory of HR professionals especially when they are stepping into a business partnering role.
On a recent visit to Finland to deliver a leadership program I took the opportunity to call in to see a number of other clients. An interesting fact cropped up. Three of the four companies I visited had recently restructured their HR function. In all three cases the dotted line relationship between the HR Vice President at head office and the HR Directors and Managers at business unit and country level was being replaced by a solid line. The local and regional HR professionals were now reporting directly to their functional head and no longer to the line of business manager.
Have you ever asked a colleague or key stakeholder for feedback on how you communicate and what effect this has on them?
Like all support functions in today’s world, the finance function is under increasing pressure to demonstrate value added services to the business. However many finance functions remain bogged down in detail and complexity; often dealing with accounting and budgeting as opposed to real business intelligence and simply reporting too many metrics and measures.
Two keys to influencing upwards are where are you starting from and what are the preferences and expectations of the senior leaders you need to influence.