Strategic Discipline Blog

Friday on my return from a meeting with the bone marrow transplant program and my transplant doctor (Dr Silverman) I had time to consider commitment as my wife and I drove back to Cedar Rapids from the University of Iowa.  The numbers given us about bone marrow transplant weren’t particularly encouraging.  Only about 15% of bone marrow transplant patients make it beyond a couple of years and get into complete remission of their cancer.   Appalling!  You thought the numbers are disappointing for people lying on their resumes.

Are you familiar with the difference between the chicken and the pig in a bacon and egg breakfast?  “In a bacon and egg breakfast the chicken is involved, but the pig is committed.  Be that pig.”

Last blog, Save Time Recruiting & Hiring with Topgrading’s SnapShot ended asking why most business owners aren’t practicing Topgrading.  In many companies the CEO or owner is the egg rather than the pig.  In my position with AML I am the pig.  Hard to say I have any other choice?  My wife is just as committed, Thank God.  Since marrying we’re connected at the hip and what one does affects the other.

In my case I’m committed.  I’m all in.  There are not alternatives.  No choices.  I am as committed to my outcome as Hernando Cortez and his troops who landed in Mexico on the shores of the Yucatan in 1519, when commanded them to “Burn the Ships.”

Most of us aren’t that committed to anything, let alone Topgrading.  Jim Collins in Good to Great reminds us that the jewel to attain first in building a great organization is people. "I would have one priority above all others: to acquire as many of the best people as I could. I'd put off everything else to fill my bus. The single biggest constraint on the success of my organization is the ability to get and to hang on to enough of the right people."

So do you believe that 90% success rate in hiring A players is unattainable?  Do you believe it’s too much to pay to find out how to invest in and develop Topgrading?  Do you believe Topgrading is too difficult to do with your size organization? Or is simply too much work to lead, challenge, and develop the mindset in yourself and your team to reach this level?

Success is about discipline.  Positioning Systems version is Strategic Discipline.  It’s a specific focus of determining the right priorities, developing the proper metrics to achieve these priorities and then meeting rhythms to continually communicate and reach them every day, week, month, quarter and year.

Each quarter we ask our clients to Assess their teams.  Is there leadership team progressing in the number of A players they have?  Is it time you made the same assessment of your organization and commit to Topgrading?