Strategic Discipline Blog

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.

In our last blog NFL Winning Formula – Rhythm we discussed the value or routine in building a successful business model and how this mirrors successful sports team formulas.

You already know I’m a Packer fan, and of course this weekend they play the Chicago Bears in the NFC Championship game.  The Bears and Packers rivalry is the longest in the NFL.  It conjures up images and memories of Vince Lombardi and George Halas, figures that represent the trophies that are at stake this week and for the Super Bowl. 

Last blog I promised I’d have some insights from Jonathon Davis of Hire Better on A players and Multipliers.  Instead I’ll have that information next week. 

Monday evening I had the opportunity to work with a basketball official who in addition to having officiated in the Iowa High School tournament is also officiating at the college level and serves as a trainer to referees in this area.  It was a refreshing change from some of the other officials I work with, and I noticed that his professionalism and excellence made me up my game improving my overall performance.  

The NFL football playoffs started this weekend, and fortunately my team won [Green Bay].  In reading an article before the game I was drawn to a set of beliefs legendary San Francisco 49ers coach Bill Walsh had which he used to prepare for big games.  Several of the rules apply to business. They reminded me that too many business people approach their operations with no set of guidelines, nor any discipline to prepare themselves or their team for success.

How are you feeling about your business today?  We invest a great deal of time and energy on the Strategic Disciplines of meeting rhythms, metrics, priorities, and work process flow charts.  These are all objective elements to running a successful business.  There is another perhaps more subtle yet just as critical aspect to running a successful business and that is the subjective - the raw emotions that it takes to provide the energy that drives your business.

Setting objectives and priorities is over stated focus of any new year.  Most of all of us do it personally and even more businesses certainly demand it.  Strategic Discipline extends to recognizing the need for balance in the priorities and metrics you establish.  You can place so much emphasis on attaining a priority or metric you may lose sight of the affect this effort puts on other aspects of your business.  Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.  In our Rockefeller Habits Workshops we tell the story of Delta Airlines emphasis to have their flights arrive on time.  They reached their objective, however the affect of their efforts turned a positive into a negative when customers complained that their bags weren’t arriving on time. 

Dan and Chip Heath, the authors of Switch, How to Change When Change is Hard, and Made to Stick recently sent out a newsletter FIVE TIPS FOR (FINALLY) GETTING YOUR NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION RIGHT that suggest ideas gleaned from their research that I’d like to suggest you peruse as you consider making your New Year’s resolutions.

What’s the easiest way to initiate strategic discipline?  Start with a daily huddle.  Perhaps your people are accountable already.  Perhaps they have metrics that they measure each day so they know how productive they are.  Perhaps they never get stuck.  And finally quite possibly you never have miscommunication.  Even if you can answer yes to each of these you’ll find the daily huddle brings a marked improvement in communication, accountability, and performance.