Strategic Discipline Blog

Right now you should be deep into your annual planning or already have completed it.  In preparing our coaching clients for annual planning we always ask the company to complete a short five question employee survey to gather information.  Questions include what the company should start, stop and keep doing.  (Send me an email Employee Survey if you’d like these five questions.)  Discovery like this is important for the business in looking ahead.   Remember the movie “Titanic?”  “Iceberg dead ahead?”  Many times the people at the tactical level of our business know much more than we give them credit for, and frequently they see the obstacles, challenges and opportunities far better than we or our mangers and departments heads can.

You’re packing books, fulfilling orders to customers.  Making sure the right number of books are included and sent properly.  It’s not your real job.  No, you’re real job is founder, president, chief executive officer (CEO), and chairman of the board of one of the largest corporations in the world.  This is something you do each year to detach.  Remove your mind from what you do every day and get it occupied in the trenches, so your mind can do what it does best, be creative.

Who is the founder, president, chief executive officer (CEO), and chairman of the board of one of the largest corporations in the world whose annual detachment exercise helped him to come up with an idea that transformed his business and industry?  I’m sorry.  I’m afraid I’m going to make you wait until my next blog. 

At the Growth Summit in Phoenix Gazelles created a fun video I’d like to invite you to view.  It’s a fun presentation of what many company’s face in terms of planning and detachment.  How do you conquer both?  If your business is struggling to execute on your annual and quarterly plans, Strategic Discipline through a steady dose of the Rockefeller Habits tools is Positioning Systems’ recipe for success.   

In Leadership Discipline – Emotional Intelligence I promised to provide you with four of the eight traits of transforming companies that Todd Klein “Built to Change” author presented.  Instead here’s one of the four – Detachment.  Detachment is characterized as:  Companies that embrace the value of periodically doing absolutely nothing are more transformative than their constantly action oriented counterparts.   It’s what we call proactively inactive:  these companies stop, measure, plan, and retool with greater frequency, regularity and purpose.

Here’s my problem. I’d like to give you as much as I can in small doses the impact ideas you can apply and learn from the Fortune Growth Summit in Phoenix.  On my flight back Friday I scanned my notes (reviewing increases retention).   As I poured through the pages I attached sticky notes to each segment I felt was worth a blog topic or idea.  It required 49 post it’s!   Not all of these teach a lesson on Strategic Discipline (What my marketing people demand I stick to in my blogs).  Yet all have valuable lessons for your business – anyone of which could provide you with a breakthrough.  With that in mind I plan to select the best ideas from the 49 topics I identified and deliver them to you in the days and weeks ahead.  Still I thought you might like a quick overview of the speakers and a little on each of their specific topics. 

As today’s Fortune Growth Summit came to a close one of the coaches next to me, Howard Shore, whispered that this might be the best Growth Summit yet.  I’d have to agree.  Verne Harnish always wraps up the show with a short conclusion, several sponsor messages and today a comedian who is also a Jewish Rabbi.   Rabbi Stephen Baars offered excellent comedic relief as well as an exceptional message on thinking.  More of that in another blog.  Todd Klein, author of Built to Change and Sally Hosghead, consultant and author of Fascinate: Seven Triggers to Persuasion and Captivation had great messages and ideas all share in the coming weeks. 

The first day of the Fortune Gazelles Growth Summit is an avalanche of information.  I’ve already collected 18 pages of notes containing many incredible insightful ideas for you to apply to your business.