Pathways to Developing Future Thai Leaders

Pathways to Developing Future Thai Leaders

Last year I wrote a seven-part series reviewing the initial findings of our unique and groundbreaking research into the Thai leader of the future, "The Emerging Future of Thai Leadership". We worked with Bruce McKenzie, a world-renowned expert in systemic thinking, to use cutting-edge systemic methods investigating which skills and capabilities Thai leaders would need locally, in the Asean Economic Community and globally. At that time — Phase 1 — we found six key capabilities that Thai leaders would need to develop to be effective leaders amid the emerging realities of the future Asean workplace.

Those six capabilities are building organisational resilience, enhancing flexibility through innovation, the ability to communicate across generations, the ability to build trust, a willingness to learn continuously and an ability to think of both short- and long-term solutions. Each one alone is useful, but when used together the benefits are greatly magnified.

Why are these skills needed? As discussed in the earlier articles, we live in a time of change. There is almost no aspect of any industry or organisation that has not changed dramatically in the past 20 years, and the rate of change is increasing.

Globalisation has made the world a smaller place, and competitors we previously never heard of are now essentially in our backyard. Asean will accelerate this shrinking of the competitive workplace. New technologies are opening up new markets and making others shrink. The only predictable factor in all of this change is change itself.

Future Thai leaders must be able to handle change if they are to succeed. The six capabilities identified in this study are essential skills for surviving and thriving in an environment of change. In this way, Thailand will become an Asean leader and not one of the led.

Given these reasons, Phase 2 of the study used more systemic methods to delve further into how to develop strategies for building these capabilities. Using the skills, knowledge and experience of a large number of Thais with different backgrounds and experience, we asked them to compare their current experience of these capabilities with what they should be and help us to create a number of systemic strategies to achieve these goals — that is, strategies that would not only help develop one capability but also support the development of other capabilities. We validated the strategies using systemic techniques and international review and fine-tuned them into the strategies we are presenting here.

At least one strategy was developed to improve each capability, and often several strategies were developed to cover different aspects of some capabilities — for instance, strategies for enhancing resilience are "Risk Mitigation Leadership", "Engaging Uncertainty" and "Future-Oriented Leadership". In all, 12 strategies were identified and defined, to be used as mutually supportive methods for developing each capability.

Each strategy was defined and developed using systemic methods, creating "step-wise" development paths. The steps are ordered in a way to support both immediate and long-term development. By separating each strategy into "Perform Now", "Perform Soon" and "Perform Later" steps, we were able to create mutually supportive, flexible plans that built capabilities in both the short and the long term.

These strategic development plans are the heart of any attempt to build these capabilities systemically. Each one is designed to be flexible, with each step and each phase supporting each other. The plans are the bricks used to build the entire process, and designing these well is key to the success of the entire capability development process. Further, these strategic pathways are a means of assessing the current status of an organisation's leadership regarding each gap.

A high degree of flexibility and support is needed within each strategic plan, as each company, institute and organisation is different. Each has different strengths, different weaknesses and different surprises. In order to create known outcomes from widely variable starting places, the plans must be flexible and resilient. They need to take advantage of the strengths that exist and use them to help support development of the weaknesses. The plans must be able to adjust to the reality of each situation and still be able to deliver the result desired.

Each plan can also be supported and helped by others. There is a lot of synergy in and coherence between these strategies and capabilities, and each increases the flexibility of the entire process — for instance, the skills that make a person good at long-term planning are generally skills that help to make a person both flexible and resilient. Likewise, the ability to consider long-term consequences, plan several alternative scenarios and make contingency plans are skills that help all three capabilities.

Let's look at one skill — learning to consider different scenarios. It is useful to at least three development strategies — risk mitigation, future-oriented leadership and accommodating short- and long-term outcomes. If a leader has trouble with scenarios in future-oriented leadership, learning a similar skill as part of risk mitigation or future-oriented leadership will help. The skills will reinforce each other, producing a more capable leader.

This is the first of a five-part series on "Future Thai Leaders 2020", a study done by APMGroup and Bruce McKenzie. This article is an introduction to Phase 2 of the study. In the next four articles, I will discuss the 12 strategies we developed in greater depth and review in detail how these work and why we believe they are so important to the future of Thailand's leadership. For more information about previous published articles of this research and APMGroup, visit www.apm.co.th/media/press-release.php


Arinya Talerngsri is managing director at APMGroup, a local organisational and people development consultancy. She can be reached by email at arinya_t@apm.co.th

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