Strategic Discipline Blog

How are you feeling about your business today?  We invest a great deal of time and energy on the Strategic Disciplines of meeting rhythms, metrics, priorities, and work process flow charts.  These are all objective elements to running a successful business.  There is another perhaps more subtle yet just as critical aspect to running a successful business and that is the subjective - the raw emotions that it takes to provide the energy that drives your business.

Setting objectives and priorities is over stated focus of any new year.  Most of all of us do it personally and even more businesses certainly demand it.  Strategic Discipline extends to recognizing the need for balance in the priorities and metrics you establish.  You can place so much emphasis on attaining a priority or metric you may lose sight of the affect this effort puts on other aspects of your business.  Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.  In our Rockefeller Habits Workshops we tell the story of Delta Airlines emphasis to have their flights arrive on time.  They reached their objective, however the affect of their efforts turned a positive into a negative when customers complained that their bags weren’t arriving on time. 

It’s half-time in a girl’s freshman basketball game.  The score 31-9.  My officiating partner and I discuss how difficult our job can become in a lopsided game.  We need to keep our heads in the game despite the score.  The team that’s leading is the first to score in the second half.  They score again, and again, still again.  By the time the third quarter is over they are the only team that’s scored and it’s now 48-9. 

Your business relies on new customers for growth.  It's experiencing an increasing number of no shows for new customer appointments.  You’ve tried a number of changes, and techniques to get your new patients to honor the first visit they’ve scheduled however nothing seems to be working.  The loss of 1 or more appointments per day is a major reduction in efficiency for you and your staff to say nothing of the revenue loss.

Do your meetings lack conflict?  If so, isn’t that good?

On a scale of 0 to 10 with ten being extremely lucky, how lucky are you?

A group of 12 young men, high school age have just completed a strenuous basketball practice.  The coach has asked them to join him in his class room to discuss the upcoming season.  He’s a new coach this year, although he has many years of experience.  He asks the team what place they expect to finish in the conference noting that this is a team sport and it’s important the team has a goal to shoot for.  He asks everyone to write down their expected finish, and then collects the results.  The votes are counted.  Ten voted for first place, 2 for second.  

What place do you think the team finished?

If you said second you’re right.  The account is from my senior season of high school basketball.  What does that tell you about the importance of having the right people on the bus?  Our team had steadily improved the previous two seasons.  When I was a sophomore the varsity basketball team hadn’t won in 36 games.  Our team largely composed of sophomores won two games that season and finished 2 – 17.  The next season we improved to 12-7.  We were a confident team going into our senior year.  As a junior I recall playing in the final game of the regular season against a team who was battling us for 3^rd place in our conference. In addition to this battle, I was in a close contest with one of their players for the scoring title in the conference.  I recall two of our players telling me before that game not to worry, they would make sure this player didn’t score so not only would we win the game they’d make sure I’d win the conference scoring title.  That’s the kind of players you want on your team, people willing to sacrifice for the good of others and the team. 

It is a recurring theme I almost wrote about yesterday.  Today several speakers addressed it again - the importance of discipline and the value of strategic thinking and preparation over strategic planning.  David Sokol, Warren Buffet’s Mr. Fix it and the man consistently mentioned as Buffet’s eventual replacement, Chip Heath [Switch] iz Wiseman [Multipliers], and Verne Harnish all delivered insightful messages today.  I’ll offer more from each in my blogs ahead. 

Who helps our children to make good choices?  Every one of us is touched by a story of a young person who’s been involved with a tragedy caused by texting or using a phone while driving, alcohol abuse, teen pregnancy, or drug dependency.  Young people, especially middle school and high school students, are impacted by so much in the world today that the impression we as parents or adults can make on them is more limited than ever.  How do we reach these young minds about the importance of making good decisions in their lives?