Grolistic Archives

Improving Leadership ROI

Bob Schultek
Author of
The Gauntlet

Leaders are hired to be influencers and change agents who will improve performance. Their success hinges on motivating people to follow their lead, collaborating with them, rather than directing them, to change what is necessary to achieve their shared goals. Because leaders are expected to drive change, and not just adapt to it, mastering leadership is increasingly about the continuous process of learning how to inspire and engage with their teams to produce productive change. Building on their natural talents, strengths and experience, leaders are compelled to expand knowledge and skills; knowledge comes from study and skills come from practice. Without practice, leaders cannot hone their new learnings and skills to inspire others in the pursuit of essential changes. Leaders can ensure the ROI and long-lasting effectiveness of their development in these two ways:

Using disciplined reflection. There is an important connection between reflection and action. Disciplined reflection involves leaders carving out quiet time following a learning experience to ask themselves: What did I learn, and how can I practice it today? Effective development exercises include reflection and discussion time, prompting learners to share their reactions about the exercise with other attending leaders. Participants are encouraged to engage in a structured dialogue and propose ideas on how to apply what’s been learned […]

By Bob Schultek|November 19th, 2019|Grolistic, Growth & Leadership Insights|0 Comments

Prevailing in the Customer-Driven Market

Bob Schultek
Author of
The Gauntlet

Today’s market is more customer-driven than ever before. Everyone and everything is connected, everywhere and all the time.

Companies with ready access to formidable technology or “big data” believe that this gives them an advantage, but in reality, high connectivity makes this access available to many. Technical advantage is not long sustainable, and the bulk of generated data is often produced by looking inward at the business, i.e. product margins, run rates, etc., rather than by looking outward at customer or market trends.

Your business lives on the street, with your customers. It always has, from its beginning, when getting that first order was essential. In this dynamic market, your customers’ needs are continuously evolving, never quite reaching a steady state. What they value changes more frequently.

Those who are winning today anticipate disruption and drive productive change rather than relentlessly adapting to it. Their leaders encourage their personnel to discover what customers value and empower them to challenge what is possible. They cultivate internal entrepreneurship, commitment and shared ownership, encouraging individuals to collaborate in small, agile and cross-functional teams to improve and innovate.

They stoke this sense of ownership by transparently sharing information with these teams that links their contributions with the resulting […]

By Bob Schultek|November 13th, 2019|Grolistic, Growth & Leadership Insights|0 Comments

3 Ways to Launch Productive Change

Bob Schultek
Author of
The Gauntlet

In today’s increasingly flat, networked and collaborative organizations, leaders seeking to drive productive change actively engage with their teams to make something better that improves performance, strengthens competitive advantage and creates strategic value.

Most teams want to do meaningful work, to make a difference beyond their functional responsibilities; but they need their leaders to provide direction and grounds to act on this aspiration. Their leaders perceive change initiatives as opportunities to produce positive outcomes while enabling them to practice and refine their relational, communicative, interpretive, and affective skills. So all involved share the ownership for a change initiative, and the benefits produced when its promise is fulfilled.

The most effective way to begin building ownership for a change is for the leader and team to collaborate on identifying the right first project. Here are three ways forward:

Conduct an operations assessment. The leader facilitates a discussion about which department processes are working well in producing quantifiable benefits for the organization, and which require improvement. Processes targeted for an upgrade are then prioritized by (1) estimating quantifiable benefits expected from a process improvement (moving faster, increasing adaptability, reducing waste), (2) projecting when those benefits might be realized, and (3) identifying likely obstacles to be overcome. The rankings from this exercise then guide the selection of which initiative will be launched. Review a […]

By Bob Schultek|November 5th, 2019|Grolistic, Growth & Leadership Insights|0 Comments

Considering Problems and Opportunities

Bob Schultek
Author of
The Gauntlet

There are always problems – a parade of challenges that command your attention. Systems are down, people or organizations are working against you, or there’s a compelling difficulty without a resolution.

There are always opportunities – innovative ideas or new relationships waiting to be embraced. These are chances to create value, to share or give, to move faster or make something better.

And there are always limits – limited time, energy, money and other resources.

Where do you focus the majority of your limited resources? Your answer shapes your attitude, your actions and your future.

As a leader, deliberating about problems too heavily can weigh you down, turn your focus inward, and inhibit your ability to act on opportunities. The problem with problems is that they consume resources that would be better directed towards opportunities that could create value for your customers and your business.

There are managers in your operation whose primary function is to resolve problems. It’s your principal responsibility to focus on opportunities that could contribute to your future success. If you don’t invest your valuable time and energy to do this, who will?

Focusing on your opportunities doesn’t mean the problems don’t exist; it simply means that investing more of your limited resources on opportunities is far more likely to produce something that matters, something that creates […]

By Bob Schultek|October 30th, 2019|Grolistic, Growth & Leadership Insights|0 Comments

Winning at Strategy

Bob Schultek
Author of
The Gauntlet

Strategy execution is essential, but only possible when the strategy is realistic. And once you invest in execution, it’s difficult to turn away when it becomes clear that the strategy is not working.

To avoid wasted time and energy, consider Roger Martin’s (HBR) approach to strategy development. Rather than focusing too heavily on SWOT or other analyses, or on broad, future-based projections, or direction changes, Roger suggests that answering the following five connected questions, which flow logically from the first to the last, offers an effective means to win at strategy development:

What are your broad aspirations for your organization and the specific goals against which you can measure progress? Across the potential markets available to you, where will you choose to invest and not invest? In your targeted market(s), how will you choose to win against the competitors there? What capabilities/resources are necessary to build and sustain your winning value proposition? What management systems must function to cultivate and maintain these key capabilities?

The answers to these five questions must be consistent with one another and actually reinforce one another. For example, a strategy that relies on superior distribution cannot be successfully executed without a related plan to build the capabilities and management system to sustain it.

To create the connectivity between your answers to these questions, Roger recommends an iterative process – think a bit about Aspirations […]

By Bob Schultek|October 24th, 2019|Grolistic, Growth & Leadership Insights|0 Comments

Was Your Message Received?

Bob Schultek
Author of
The Gauntlet

Communication succeeds when the message is received.

Communication experts counsel that less than 10% of the words you speak are heard and acknowledged. How your message is communicated accounts for about 40% of a successful message receipt, with the remaining 50% related to what your audience observes while you’re delivering your message.

Successful communications connect with the audience in 4 ways:

What people see (visual connection): All communication creates an impression of the communicator that either strengthens or weakens the message. For a connection to be received openly, causing a positive dialogue to begin, be aware of how you look to others – dress and act appropriately for the audience, the situation and the message. What people understand (intellectual connection): A productive intellectual connection requires that your knowledge of a subject be credible and that it reflects your conviction. Sharing a personal experience often opens people’s hearts and minds. What people feel (emotional connection): People feel your attitude, positive or negative, when you’re communicating. While you speak, they observe your energy, intensity and sincerity. This either attracts or alienates them, impacting your connection attempt. Your attitude always overpowers your words. What people hear (verbal connection): Everything you do with your voice while communicating affects your potential to connect. Your […]

By Bob Schultek|October 16th, 2019|Grolistic, Growth & Leadership Insights|0 Comments

3 Qualities of a High Performance Culture

Bob Schultek
Author of
The Gauntlet

“Culture can account for up to half of the difference in operating profit between two organizations in the same business.” (Heskett @ Harvard) Consider these 3 qualities of a high performance culture:

Across the organization, there is a shared ownership for customer success and business progress. People understand how they create value by making a difference for customers, for each other and for the Company. The purpose and profit motives for the business are aligned. Cross-functional collaboration and initiative are encouraged in the relentless, strategic pursuit of innovation and improvement that is necessary to preserve current customers, develop new relationships, and sustain the enterprise. Leaders inspire their people to invest discretionary effort in making things better, enthusiastically providing opportunities for them to act. Leadership appreciates that the Company’s people are its most sustainable competitive advantage and invests accordingly in their development. There is transparency and a structure for leaders to engage with personnel, exchange ideas and collect feedback. It is understood that each employee’s ability to master their responsibilities and do meaningful work is strengthened through mindful, one-on-one dialogue with their manager about goal achievement, consistency of expected behaviors and career development.

How closely does your business resemble this model?

How might you strengthen your organization’s culture?

By Bob Schultek|October 9th, 2019|Grolistic, Growth & Leadership Insights|0 Comments

Conflict and Commitment

Bob Schultek
Author of
The Gauntlet

There can be no team commitment without a dialogue that captures every team member’s opinion. And without commitment, there can be no shared ownership of a decision, and no shared accountability.

As a leader, you may believe that you already know the best way forward. You may be reluctant to open a discussion which could generate information that is inconsistent with your preconceived conclusions. You might even feel that your ideas are threatened by such a dialogue.

But the best decisions emerge by first acknowledging that what you don’t know is far greater than what you do. So, your objective for opening a team conversation about a pending decision is not to convince the others that you are right, but to discover what more should be known before the decision is made. Could vital information be missed by not hearing all perspectives?

Providing an opportunity for emotions to be vented and conflicting opinions to be shared enables the exploration of multiple perspectives, which is how we learn. Reaching commitment requires that you be as eager to listen to other ideas as you are to promote your own. Seek to gain as great an understanding as possible about competing ideas. Encourage […]

By Bob Schultek|October 2nd, 2019|Grolistic, Growth & Leadership Insights|0 Comments

The Hard Part

Bob Schultek
Author of
The Gauntlet

When I was a CEO, one of the lessons I learned over and over again, was that our business lived on the street, with the customers…not in our facilities.

While our Operations personnel made essential contributions to the success of the business, delivering on promises made by our marketing, sales and customer service folks, they operated primarily with established expectations and known variables around product, process, and due dates. They challenged the status quo to make us better, improving quality, efficiency and profitability; they generated data to accelerate decision-making, and ensured that we got paid. The business could not have succeeded without their commitment, initiative and consistently fine work.

But despite reliably meeting the multitude of challenges confronting them, their efforts were not the hard part of growing the business.

The hard part was, and continues to be, earning a customer’s attention and trust. It’s discovering what a customer values and why, and then appreciating that this insight evolves with time to meet their customers’ changing needs. It’s about recognizing our responsibility to earn their trust every day.

The hard part is navigating unclear expectations, unknown variables and rapidly changing circumstances to promptly propose viable solutions for the customer, and then helping them choose […]

By Bob Schultek|September 25th, 2019|Grolistic, Grolistic, Growth & Leadership Insights|0 Comments

3 Ways to Nurture Innovation

Bob Schultek
Author of
The Gauntlet

Businesses seek to create value by moving faster, being more agile, and unleashing innovation. An innovative culture challenges people to take risks, promotes curiosity and learning, and encourages independent thinking that cultivates engagement, enthusiasm and meaningfulness. All of which strengthens your competitive advantage. Here are 3 ways to nurture an innovative culture:

Consistently communicate that innovation is essential for the success and sustainability of your business. Your personnel must understand that it is not optional. Promote collaboration with customers to develop novel concepts which meet their needs while enabling them to achieve an aspiration. Provide time and space to brainstorm during weekly meetings or independently with associates. Establish guidelines for ideas or suggestions to ensure that those submitted cite quantifiable benefits like revenue generation, quality or productivity improvements, or cost/time savings. Launch a cross-functional team to evaluate and prioritize proposed ideas and suggestions using these guidelines. Allow sufficient time for innovative ideas to develop. Encourage champions, recognizing and rewarding those whose innovations are validated, and the managers who excel at motivating their teams to improve and innovate. Drive fear of failure from your workplace. Leaders who react negatively to a new idea or a failed attempt, create a fear of failure that constrains innovation. […]

By Bob Schultek|September 18th, 2019|Grolistic, Growth & Leadership Insights|0 Comments