Strategic Discipline Blog

Do you wonder why your people are so frequently unaccountable to the results you expect?  How often are you asking them to be accountable to your expectations?

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Topics: Accountability, weekly meetings, Strategic Discipline, meeting rhythms, meetings, daily huddle

Do you look forward to meetings?

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Topics: Good to Great, Strategic Discipline, meeting rhythms, Topgrading

President Obama’s address on Tuesday reminded me of a blog I wrote on Is Life Fair.  This blog is not intended to support a political agenda, yet when I watched Obama’s presentation Tuesday evening it struck me how differently I and perhaps a lot of my clients and prospects view the role of government. 

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Topics: Accountability, leadership, Topgrading

On vacation last week my family and I visited the Naval Air Museum in Pensacola.  The Blue Angels perform a practice session every Tuesday and Wednesday at the airfield.  If you’ve never seen the Blue Angels perform I highly recommend it. 
I’d seen them perform before when I was very young.  My father was a pilot.  He would take us to many air shows and I’d seen the Blue Angels as a child, although I don’t recall being as impressed or amazed at their precision and discipline as I was this time.  The show brought back memories of my dad, and made me realize the discipline lessons he taught me just by his piloting the small Cessna 172 airplane he owned.

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Topics: Discipline, employee performance, routine

A plate of beans!                   

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Topics: Bringing Out the Best In People, themes, employee performance, People, positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement

Positive reinforcement creates the highest value in the work place.  Why?  Because positive reinforcement generates more behavior than is minimally required.  It’s called discretionary effort.  This discretionary effort is the only way your organization can maximize performance. 

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Topics: employee performance, positive reinforcement

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Topics: Bringing Out the Best In People, positive reinforcement, Pearsons Law, metrics

Count me as naive or possibly someone who didn’t follow the Casey Anthony case close enough to be surprised by the verdict.  Just so you don’t think I’m totally out of touch I was stunned by the verdict in the OJ Simpson trial. 

The Casey Anthony verdict should remind you how frequently there can be a disconnect between your communication with your staff and the intended response and reception.  In a jury trial you are never aware of how the jury is responding.  The attorneys on either side are unable to question or receive feedback from the jury unless the jury specifically requests it.  Even then there is no direct back and forth communication with the jury.  How do you know how your employees understand your expressed communication unless you observe their response and ask for feedback?

Strategic Discipline requires meetings that provide customer and employee feedback.  The intention in these meetings is that the executive team is observing, listening and sensing the way employees are working and responding in the work environment.  These observations are to be reported on a weekly basis.   There should never be any surprises when this type of employee feedback is consistently provided.

If you were surprised by the Casey Anthony Verdict, asks yourself how well you feel your communication is working in your business.  Review the questions asked in Employee Engagement:  Answer These Employee Questions?  How well are you answering these important employee questions?  Do your employees know your top priorities for the year, the quarter?   Can your executive team write your strategy in one statement, let alone your staff? 

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Topics: Employee Feedback, Strategic Discipline, meeting rhythms

In Leadership’s Mission we discussed the critical need to satisfy spiritual resources first in building your business.  Win the hearts and minds of your employees and then the right strategy pays dividends.  The question becomes, how do you accomplish this and exactly what questions do my employees have that I need to satisfy.

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Topics: Strategic Discipline, Core Values, Core Purpose, meeting rhythms, Strategic Learning

Several of my clients and prospects have recently asked for my coaching help to elevate the management teams in their organizations.  The question often asked is how do you go about improving leaders and managers?

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Topics: Good to Great, Core Values, leadership, Core Purpose, Jim Collins