Strategic Discipline Blog

Trends have become an increasing focus in our Gazelles coaching practices with our customers each Annual Planning session.

The pace of change (VUCA - volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity) makes it increasingly critical for you as a leader to learn, adapt, and innovate.  You must continue to expand the horizon of your depth and understanding of the changes affecting your customers, your employees, and your competition.

To fall behind with so much at stake, means obsolescence or extinction. 

erne Harnish - 5 Trends for 2017 – shared these five trends highlighted in his latest Fortune column:

1. Mimic Mother Nature - Jay Harman, author of The Shark’s Paintbrush, presented how Biomimicry is now going mainstream at our Growth Summit in Dallas last year. Nature has solved ingeniously many problems we face in our businesses. Check out this page to learn all about using biomimicry for problem solving.
2. Embrace Artificial Intelligence – Verne suggests, “Quit worrying about getting replaced by robots and figure out how to use artificial intelligence (AI) to grow your business.” Check out The Grid to see how you can get AI to develop your website.
3. Join a Learning Circle – Just like Collective Intelligence in Strategic Discipline’s recommended Weekly Meetings, most of learn much more when we are seated in a circle of peers, studying or attempting to solve a problem versus in a classroom setting. This idea is similar to Napoleon Hill’s Master Mind concept.  Consider joining a group or starting your own. 
4. Mix with the Best – Verne shares marketing guru, Joe Polish’s Genius X, (Joe will be at the San Antonio Fortune Growth Summit in May) a by-application-only network whose participants pay $100,000 to attend three meetings a year. Verne offers, “Why waste money on mediocre groups and conferences when you can invest in one great one that will really help you achieve your goals?” I recommend attending the ScaleUp Summit May 23 - 24, San Antonio for the same reason.
5. Retire the Idea of Retirement – Perhaps you’ve considered this already. If you enjoy what you’re doing, why consider retirement.  Opportunities abound, and as Verne points out, “People over 50 are launching more businesses than their younger peers, and many corporate types are boomeranging out of retirement and back to their former firms to work part-time.”  If you don’t want to continue doing what you’ve been doing, consider what you’d like to do and truly enjoy doing.  I working on writing a book.  Not sure if it will launch a new career or just a hobby.  However, I don’t believe I will ever truly retire.

READ

In Verne Harnish’s weekly newsletter last Tuesday “Zuckerberg/Gates; 12 Must Read Books” he quotes NY Times columnist Tom Friedman, “Your education and major do not matter like it used to. All that matters is that you build the capacity to keep learning and renewing yourself, all the time.”

Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg failed to finish college. Gates read 50 books a year, Zuckerberg 26.

Recently I received an email from a trusted source offering his 5 best books of all time.  He included the following:

1. Napoleon Hill, Think And Grow Rich*
2. Dale Carnegie How to Win Friends and Influence People*
3. The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy.*
4. Speak and Grow Rich: Revised and Updated, Dottie Walters
5. The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs: How to Be Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience, Carmine Gallo

The first three I’ve read.  I was surprised to see Darren Hardy on his list, however having seen and heard Hardy present at one of our Fortune sponsored Growth Summits, and read his book, I understand why he included it on his list.  It’s powerful ideas and principles to follow.

The final two I am unfamiliar with, but immediately added these to my Kindle to discover their treasures.

Two of my favorites, not included on this list are:

• Bringing Out the Best in People, Aubrey Daniels
• The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results, by Gary Keller with Jay Papasan.

I’m a voracious reader, and have always enjoyed learning.  Perhaps it’s why I feel suited to my vocation of coaching. 

If your business is looking to keep ahead of new trends, innovate and you as a leader have a ravenous appetite to improve your leadership skills and business results, contact me at dwick@positioningsystems.com for help implementing these ideas and the Four Decisions to Grow your business.

NEXT BLOG - BOYS IN THE BOAT

Achieving success in business is 1% vision and 99% alignment.  Some business fail to ever achieve the vision.  Most fail because they never reach anywhere close to attaining frontline to leadership alignment.  The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics is the story of the 1936 Washington University Rowing teams’ journey to win the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, Germany.  Getting 9 strong young men to row in harmony is a supreme challenge.  The metaphors to business are striking.  I’ll share this, plus how one of my customers’ leadership teams used Strategic Discipline to harmonize. You’ll see the striking progress they achieved in just 18 months.