Strategic Discipline Blog

One of my clients reminded me this week of an important leadership lesson.  Quit answering your subordinate’s questions.  I’ve blogged on this before The Problem with being the Chief Problem Solver, yet it bears repeating.  My client had one of his managers ask him “what should I do?”  Many leaders and managers would immediately provide an answer.  It’s fast, painless, and allows you to move on to your own issues.  Yet what does that teach?  What’s more what does it continue to do? 

Suppose you or one of your parents suffers from chronic hip pain caused by arthritis.  Drugs to treat the pain no longer provide relief.  The option becomes hip replacement surgery, invasive surgery that requires slicing open the thigh, wrenching the bone out of the socket, sawing off the arthritic end and replacing it with an implant.  In addition recovery from this surgery is long and painful. 

In my recent blog “Few Set the Bar At A Level” and newsletter “Make Your People Accountable” we discussed Topgrading and the importance of developing scorecards for each of your company positions.  This is important to raise expectations not only for new employees but your current staff as well.  A recent blog from the Sales Benchmark Index points out the value in screening for A Players by using Topgrading’s Career History form with all candidates.  Check out Does my initial application focus on 'A' players? to learn how the Career History form identifies potential A Players.

It’s possibly one of the most damning statements that can be made about a person or business.  It’s the equivalent of Jim Collins, “Good is the enemy of great.”

A singular focus [One Thing] can have a profound effect on your business.  In April of last year one of my clients [name withheld to protect business secrets] had Positioning Systems come to his office in California to conduct our Two Day Rockefeller Habits Workshop.  At the time their business was lagging 7% behind the previous year and struggling to get traction.   Among the many ideas and actions that had an immediate impact was to go through the Strength Based Leadership Test and identify where his executive talents were.  At the time the business was struggling to execute in the field and we identified several of the executive that had execution themes, reassigned them to positions were they could have the greatest affect and influence on the business.  We reassigned others based on their top themes and the results were almost immediate and dramatic.  By year end they turned their 7% decline into a 15% gain for the year.

Last blog I discussed the importance of rituals and routines in developing accountability.  A recent article in the New York Times caught my attention since it focused on successful companies and the importance of getting the right people to make a business great.  People decisions are extremely important to making your business successful, and too often we fail to recognize how keeping the wrong people in our business holds us back.  We don’t see this as a piece of the accountability puzzle.  

“I’d get up at 4:30 AM, exercise, read something inspirational, and then have a healthy breakfast.  That was my routine.”  My client was explaining why he decided to re-gage our coaching work.  When we were working together this had been his faithful morning regiment, every day. For the past year or better he explained he’d not been following this routine and he found his business and personal focus suffering. 

Ten to twelve inches or more of snow fell throughout the Midwest yesterday.  As I pulled and pulled on my snow blower to get it restarted I was reminded of the importance of customer and employee feedback which is a staple of our weekly meeting rhythms.  Had I paid attention to my own discovery during the last snow fall I wouldn’t have been stuck having to remove a foot of snow from more than half my driveway and sidewalk yesterday morning.  Why hadn’t I paid heed when my snow blower stopped several times when I last used it?

Saturday evening I attended my youngest son Noah’s concerts.  The coordination between orchestra sections and individual students at the sixth, seventh and eighth grade level can be challenging, yet it’s surprising how much harmony a group of 60 or more 12-14 year olds can offer.  This orchestra mixed students from the different high school middle schools in the area.  They only had a couple of practices and yet performed remarkably well.  When it comes together it really is inspiring.