Strategic Discipline Blog

Due to changing technology, economic pressures, and evolving demographics, Multipliers’’ Co-Author Greg McKeown sees significant changes ahead for business in their organizational strategy and management of employees.  We outlined some of these in the previous two blogs, manager’s role defined and Change Ahead.

A singular focus [One Thing] can have a profound effect on your business.  In April of last year one of my clients [name withheld to protect business secrets] had Positioning Systems come to his office in California to conduct our Two Day Rockefeller Habits Workshop.  At the time their business was lagging 7% behind the previous year and struggling to get traction.   Among the many ideas and actions that had an immediate impact was to go through the Strength Based Leadership Test and identify where his executive talents were.  At the time the business was struggling to execute in the field and we identified several of the executive that had execution themes, reassigned them to positions were they could have the greatest affect and influence on the business.  We reassigned others based on their top themes and the results were almost immediate and dramatic.  By year end they turned their 7% decline into a 15% gain for the year.

Saturday evening I attended my youngest son Noah’s concerts.  The coordination between orchestra sections and individual students at the sixth, seventh and eighth grade level can be challenging, yet it’s surprising how much harmony a group of 60 or more 12-14 year olds can offer.  This orchestra mixed students from the different high school middle schools in the area.  They only had a couple of practices and yet performed remarkably well.  When it comes together it really is inspiring.

Dan and Chip Heath, the authors of Switch, How to Change When Change is Hard, and Made to Stick recently sent out a newsletter FIVE TIPS FOR (FINALLY) GETTING YOUR NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION RIGHT that suggest ideas gleaned from their research that I’d like to suggest you peruse as you consider making your New Year’s resolutions.

In my monthly newsletter this week, Without A Plan: Expect 40% Less I offered insight into how one of my client’s developed his business.  Through the practice of Strategic Discipline he put himself in position to sell his company at the end of November. 

Last blog Bad Performance is Your Responsibility we discussed how ultimately the results you are getting from your people is your accountability.  The bottom line here is that in order to get the 40% discretionary effort from your people which leads to higher performance you need to identify the behaviors that are producing poor outcomes and arrange consequences that will stop them.  Next identify the behaviors that will produce desirable outcomes and arrange consequences that will positively reinforce them. 

At the Growth Summit are many of our Gazelles clients.  Verne started the program on Tuesday morning sharing a video promo from NBC on a new prime-time series “School Pride.”  It’s extreme make-over for schools.  The show tells inspiring stories of communities coming together with public-minded companies like Logical Choice Technologies and many others to renovate aging and broken public schools. Cameras follow students, teachers, parents and community members as they roll up their sleeves and rebuild their own schools, concluding with the unveiling of a brand-new, completely transformed school.

David Sokol, Warren Buffet’s Mr. Fix it, indicated his team meets to work on a five to ten year plan each year.  Many companies overlook the need to do long term planning, and in fact long term planning can seem passé as technology and the pace of change render forecasting to be so difficult.

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?