Strategic Discipline Blog

In Part 3 of The “M” Game Shannon Susko focuses on Results.

Your team and company only grow as fast as your leaders. The Coach Cascade System takes your leaders and team's behavior to the next level.

Think of the Coach Cascade as the rebar that reinforces the whole house.

The Coach Cascade System's purpose is to grow all leaders into coaches themselves and their teams into high-performing teams connected through the corporate plan.

The Coach Cascade is activated once we’ve “turned on” the other six systems of the house and have them working well. It usually takes two years or longer to get to this point.

The system is essential to allowing leaders to grow into “Level 5 Leaders,” as Jim Collins has coined it, or what Robert Anderson and William Adams call “Integral Leaders” in their book Scaling Leadership.

If You don’t scale your leaders, you risk stalling out your organization.

To grow your company, you as CEO need to grow first, then your leaders and team. You must be humble coaches with a fierce commitment to your purpose and goal.

This is the 10X Secret to compounding your growth.

It’s no coincidence to hear Milo’s Tea CEO Patricia Wallwork offer how her growth paralleled her business's growth. Can YOU make your leaders into coaches?

Patricia Wallwork CEO of Milo’s Tea on Metronomics Coach Cascade

Our company’s growth has paralleled my own, and I attribute much of that to the Metronomics Coach Cascade. You cannot remain in the role of CEO for a company that’s growing this fast without 10Xing yourself. You must be a lifelong learner and be self-aware enough to raise your hand when you need help from a coach or a mentor. I spend a lot of time learning internally and externally from as many channels as I can—from participating in CEO forums to reading books to sitting on boards of other organizations. It’s about being intentional with your time inside and outside of your organization to learn and grow.

I think back six years ago; as the leader of our small business, I was involved in everything. I touched every part of our business. That was my comfort zone—I’m a good executor. And you do that when you’re small. You do what you need to do to keep the doors open.

But you can’t grow a business like that. Eventually, you hit an inflection point. You’ve just spent all these years building your business into what you want it to be. The next step is to give your responsibilities away—pass the football so you can be the inspirational leader for your brand, your associates, and your customers so everyone understands where we’re going, what we need to do, and what matters.

The moment I realized this was the moment I knew we had to get an enterprise operating system throughout our organization. You cannot do all the remarkable things that you need to do without it. Today, as CEO, constantly remodeling the operating system is my most important job. It will never be done.

This has required me to unlock my authenticity to all our associates so they can understand the true me and so that I can be in a position to inspire hundreds of people. As the leader of the company and the foundation of the system, it is critical that I inspire our associates, no matter how many we have. The system requires that I transparently share our stories and associates truly see me as accessible and visible. Different CEOs do this differently. Some have a day a month when anyone can meet with them. Others have a group for lunch. There’s really no right or wrong way. The point is more to be accessible and real—and relentless in being the Chief Reminding Officer. I do this through a weekly video for all our associates as well as posting on social media to connect externally with our fans and customers.

Social media is not a comfort zone for me, but it’s one example of my growth. It’s where I tell stories about our brand, the mistakes I’ve made, and what I’ve learned. I’ve found that’s what resonates with readers most—I can stand up all day and say Milo’s leaders are authentic, hungry, and agile. But those are just words—the story is what people remember, and the growth I’ve experienced through the Coach Cascade has fueled me to tell it for our organization.

To discover more about Metronomics, read The “M” Game, 3HAG WAY, The Metronome Effect, or Metronomics. Or Contact Doug Wick today to learn more about how we can help.

Turn your team into a repeatable coaching and growth organization.

To discover what level your team is functioning at now, take The M Game Growth Check (scoreapp.com).

To create an environment where everyone is inspired to give their best, contact Positioning Systems to schedule a free exploratory meeting.

Growth demands Strategic Discipline.

What fueled my passion as a manager was a deep desire to help others achieve their potential. Adam Grant’s new book Hidden Potential explores this idea with many insights and developments to help you grow your people. Next blog, Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things.

Building an enduring great organization requires disciplined people, disciplined thought, disciplined action, superior results, producing a distinctive impact on the world.

Discipline sustains momentum, over a long period of time, laying the foundations for lasting endurance.

A winning habit starts with 3 Strategic Disciplines: Priority, Metrics, and Meeting Rhythms.   Forecasting, accountability, individual, and team performance improve dramatically.

Meeting Rhythms achieve a disciplined focus on performance metrics to drive growth.

Let Positioning Systems help your business achieve these outcomes on the Four most Important Decisions your business faces:

Positioning Systems helps mid-sized ($5M - $500M+) businesses Scale-UP. We align your business to focus on Your One Thing! Contact dwick@positioningsystems.com to Scale Up your business! Take our Four Decisions Needs Assessment to discover how your business measures against other Scaled Up companies. We’ll contact you.

NEXT BLOG – Hidden Potential – Your Kindergarten Teacher Influenced Your Success?