The nexus of purpose and time is progress – the prime directive for every leader. Time is currency, and in the end, it’s the only currency that matters. There’s only so much of it, and it’s unrecoverable. While reacting to your daily barrage of issues, many of them urgent, it’s easy to lose track of how much valuable time is being consumed in reaction mode. And then there are the unexpected distractions, the changing priorities, …
You’ve invested much to create and strengthen your competitive advantage; it’s a combination of your offerings and your culture. Leveraging it to productively drive your growth, in an increasingly dynamic market, compels you to consider how best to invest your precious time and resources going forward. Your customers, your competitors, and you are simultaneously experiencing the same evolving market trends, so what is valued, and what creates value, is changing more rapidly. Staying abreast of …
Before there can be accountability, there must be commitment. Commitment is taking ownership of a challenge, being responsible for resolving it, in alignment with your company’s goals and values. It reflects an obligation, by leader and team, to improve something that makes a difference. And because it requires the assumption of risk, commitment is much more than consensus. Commitment requires that your team grasps why a goal, strategy or action is necessary, and is willing …
The leadership mandate is: The leadership challenge is to develop an operating style that fulfills this mandate while effectively managing persistent, short-term, changing priorities that demand attention. If your team’s time is consumed with resolving urgent issues, then the vital, longer-term improvement work goes undone; you’re always reacting, not leading. Key to sustaining a productive balance between short and long-term priorities is consistently integrating strategy into team discussions. Certainly, there are times when leaders must …
The most productive scenario for effective communication is a one-on-one discussion or small team meeting; it provides the best opportunity to ensure that the message being heard is the same as the message being spoken, making the message actionable. Every other communication method is a compromise, driven by circumstance or preference. According to communication experts, less than 10% of our spoken words are heard and understood; about 40% of message comprehension is due to how …
A new business is laser focused on earning and keeping customers. The promise-makers and promise-keepers in the business are well aligned in their appreciation of customers because survival depends on getting the next order. As the business grows, it seeks to capitalize on what has enabled its success, so procedures are standardized and structure is added to manage those procedures, with the objectives of sustaining efficiency and managing risk. With good intention, lots of internal, …
It can be challenging to find new leaders who can consistently meet performance expectations in our dynamic and increasingly complex work environment. Typical job postings cite requirements and experience levels, but rarely do they describe the behaviors necessary to achieve assigned goals and thrive in your business culture. The most significant performance differentiator is not what leaders do, but rather how they do it – their attitude, and how well aligned it is with your …
Change tends to happen slowly because it impacts three audiences, two of which have the power, inertia, and communications to support or defeat the change initiative. Your ‘advocate’ audience perceives a change initiative as an opportunity to make a difference that also increases their visibility, while helping the company improve its means of creating value. They care about the change, believe that they’ll benefit from it, and so organize to support it. Your ‘resistance’ audience …
Increasingly, leaders are describing their operating environment as dynamic, unpredictable, and complex, reflecting shifting market trends that are concurrently impacting their customers. It’s an environment that challenges their established means of creating value, for customers and themselves. They need to promptly and profitably adapt to these highly dynamic circumstances, but often feel unprepared to do so. And the future promises that this trend will continue to accelerate. The traditional response to helping leaders succeed has …
Leaders don’t improve results all by themselves; the people in the business produce the results, because they want to grow and succeed. Leaders do create the conditions that enable those they lead to fulfill their aspirations, to achieve their Company, and their developmental, goals. One of these conditions is setting expectations. Once their expectations are understood, leaders can cultivate their team’s shared commitment – to one another and to goal achievement. Productive expectations include these …
