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Since 1998 I have worked with large corporations (McDonald's, Toyota, GE, Marriott, Coca-Cola, Prudential, Abbott, Kiewit, Holder Construction, Subway, Jack in the Box, and many others) and a wide variety of medium-sized and small businesses both as a teacher (more than 500 keynote speeches and seminars) and as a coach (more than 1,500 Executive Coaching sessions and over 3,000 hours on site observing executives in the flow of their normal work day). From this real-world research, I have found that the organizations that sustain their success through economic good and bad times generate results in three primary ways. This includes what happens inside the business (primarily leadership), what happens outside the business (primarily branding), and what connects the inside and the outside of the business (primarily innovation).
In this white paper are a few practical ideas for each of these three essential areas that you can use right away to sharpen your skills. As you do so, you will keep your organization steadily ticking and generating sustainable, profitable growth.
Leadership
Leadership means influencing what other people think about in ways that generate better sustainable results both for the organization and the people in it. This definition places the emphasis on the importance of being a long-term leader as opposed to a short-term one. A short-term leader focuses only on getting a good result today, regardless of how it will affect results in the future. A long-term leader focuses on making decisions and influencing people to achieve good results in the short term in ways that will allow his or her organization to continue to succeed again and again in the future.
Schedule Thinking Time
Tom was the Vice-President of Operations of about a five hundred million dollar business unit in a large corporation. I was working with Tom as an Executive Coach. Tom and I got along very magglio jersey well. One day he said to me, "Dan, I have a problem." I said, "Tom, what is it?" He said, "My boss thinks that I'm not very strategic or creative, and I don't know what to do about it." I said, "Tom, it's ok. I've seen this situation many times in the past, and here is what I suggest you do." Tom picked up a pen, and said, "This is going to be important. I'm going to want to write this down." I said, "Tom, here is what I suggest you do. Block out one hour a week to really think. One hour a week where you get away from your boss, your peers, your employees, your customers, your suppliers, your family, and your dog. Go to a place where no one knows you. Take out a blank sheet of paper. At the top of the sheet of paper write down one business outcome that you want to improve or one business issue that you want to resolve. "Take that issue or that outcome and turn it into an open-ended question. Answer the question from a variety of perspectives for thirty-five minutes including your perspective, your boss's perspective, your employee's perspective, your customer's perspective, and your competitor's perspective. Write down as many ideas as you can. Over the next ten minutes look at all of your ideas and combine some of them together to make even better ideas. At the end of forty-five minutes select your single best idea, and then take the last fifteen minutes to put together an action plan on moving the idea forward. Then go back into your regular work week." I said, "Tom, I really believe that if you will do that one hour a week you can have a tremendous impact on all of the other hours in your work week." Tom put his pen down, he looked at me, and he said, "Dan, that is the single dumbest idea I have ever heard. If I go off to La-La Land to think, people will make fun of me. You don't understand. People don't pay me to sit around and think. People pay me to get things done." I looked at him and said, "Tom, I do understand. People don't pay you to get things done. They pay you to improve results. If you will invest one hour a week in really thinking about your business, I believe you will have a tremendous impact on the results you generate." Tom said, "Fine, I'll try it." Three weeks later I saw Tom again. He said, "Dan, I just want you to know that I tried your thinking idea." I replied, "How did it go?" He said, "I wasted three hours that I could have been getting a lot of stuff done." I said, "Hang in there. It takes time to produce a good idea." Two more months went by, and the topic came up again. Tom said, "Dan, I landed on an idea in operations that we've never tried before, and I don't know if I should try it or not." I asked, "Tom, magglio jersey do you think it could have a positive impact on your most important desired business outcomes?" He said, "I think so." I asked, "Do you think it will have a negative impact on your business?" He said, "I don't think it is going to." I said, "I suggest you go ahead and try the idea." Three more months went by. I saw Tom again, and he said to me, "Dan, I just want you to know that I now schedule an hour a week to think and everyone on my team schedules an hour a week to think. However, I still have one problem with you." I asked, "What is it?" He said, "Why didn't you tell me to do this when we first met?"
I did not have a very good answer so I don't want to make that mistake twice. Effective leaders take time to think. Consequently, I encourage you to schedule one hour a week to really think. Take one hour a week and get away from your boss, your peers, your employees, your customers, your suppliers, your family, and your dog. Go to a place where no one knows you. Pull out a blank sheet of paper. At the top of the sheet of paper write down one outcome you want to improve or one issue you want to resolve. Turn that outcome or that issue into an open-ended question. Then answer that question from a variety of perspectives including your perspective, your boss's perspective, your employee's perspective, your customer's perspective, and your competitor's perspective. Come up with as many ideas as you can for thirty-five minutes. Take the next ten minutes to combine ideas together to develop even better ideas. Then select your best idea and use the last fifteen minutes to put together an action plan on how you are going to move that idea into motion. Then go back into your normal work week. I think if you will do that for one hour every week eventually you will have a tremendous impact on your desired results.
Answer The Four Critical Leadership Questions
Over the past quarter-century the topic that I have studied the most by far is leadership. One lesson I have learned is that leadership is not a label. I have never seen a label or a combination of labels that guarantees a person will be or will not be an effective leader. I have seen effective male and female leaders, young and old leaders, tall and short leaders, introverted and extroverted leaders, and leaders from a vast number of ethnic groups. Another lesson I've learned is that every effective leader answers The Four Critical Leadership Questions. None of them called it this, and most of the time they didn't write down these questions. However, every effective leader I've observed or studied has worked to find the answers to these questions and then persevered to implement his or her answers.
The Four Critical Leadership Questions are:
1. What is the most important outcome I want to improve in our organization and why do I want to improve it?
2. Who do I need to influence in order to improve that outcome?
3. What do I need to influence them to think about?
4. How will I influence them?
I encourage you to take out a sheet of paper and write down your answers to these four questions. Here are some additional thoughts for each of them.
What outcome do magglio jersey I want to improve for my organization and why do I want to improve it?
Leadership is not acting. You can't just walk into a room and say with a deep voice, "Let's go out there and rock the world." Leadership has to be geared toward improving some outcome. On your sheet of paper, write down the specific outcome you want to improve in your organization. Be as clear as you can be about what it is you want to have happen. Then write down as many reasons as you can think of as to why you want to improve that outcome. If you do that for a variety of desired outcomes, you will begin to see that one, or at most two outcomes, will rise above all the others in terms of their importance.
Who do I need to influence in order to improve that outcome?
After you identify the desired outcome, then write down who needs to be involved in improving that outcome. Be clear about whom it is that you need to influence. Which individuals do you need to influence and what types of groups do you need to influence?
What do I need to influence them to think about?
What is it that you want these people to be thinking about in order to improve that desired outcome? Is it cost efficiencies, is it better customer service, is it searching for ideas that can generate better short-term or long-term profit, or is it something else? Get very clear in your own mind what it is that you want these people to focus on. You can't do all of the work yourself. By influencing what certain people think about you can enhance their impact on the desired outcome. Notice that the question doesn't say, "What do I need to tell people to do?" Telling people exactly what to do all of the time is micromanaging. At best, micromanaging can improve results in the short term, but it can also generate three massive long-term problems. You might end up with employees who can't think for themselves, a lack of a leadership pipeline, and/or good employees who end up leaving to go to another organization where they are allowed to think for themselves. If people are just doing something because they are told to do it, what happens when you're not there to tell them what to do? The key is to identify what you want them to think about when you are not present. For example, if your desired outcome is to have customers who are vastly more loyal to your brand than your competitors, you might influence your fellow employees to think about the value of significantly more loyal customers. Once people start thinking about that outcome they can come up with all kinds of ideas on how to improve the customer experience. If they buy into the idea that vastly more loyal customers will improve their careers over the long term, they may very well focus to an even greater degree than you do and in more of a hands-on fashion than you can toward improving the customer experience on a consistent basis.