Read more about the article Accountability | Powerful After Action Reviews

Accountability | Powerful After Action Reviews

Man with sack over his headMany years ago when we lived in the Midwest, we became very good friends with a young couple down the street.

He was a fellow fraternity brother, from another college, but I remember him as a very capable physician with a unique ability to describe complex medical subjects in layman’s language.

After Action Reviews are for Learning NOT Blame

One day, he asked me if I’d like to go to work with him on Saturday. He’d show me around, we’d have lunch, hang out. He couldn’t leave for lunch, but he would bring along some homemade sandwiches, bologna with lots of ketchup, he said, and I could sit in his pathology lab as he performed an autopsy … and while he was cutting and sawing, we would enjoy our lunch together.

It was when he started laughing that I realized why my vision of an overloaded bologna sandwich, dripping with ketchup alongside an autopsy table, was kicking up a firestorm in my gut. I think that’s how many business executives view an After Action Review (AAR) — a gruesome business designed to relive the pain of failed projects.  (more…)

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Read more about the article Vol. 56: The Power of Personal Accountability

Vol. 56: The Power of Personal Accountability

sword1The Power of One concept is not new — it’s the bedrock of everything from motivational speeches to Army One.

There’s an entire industry devoted to the power we have over our destiny.

In the context of Building a Business, we can view the Power of One as a series of concentric circles that ripple outward from the center … from where we stand as business leaders.

[pullquote]“God grant me the courage to change the things I can, the serenity to accept the things I can’t and the wisdom to know the difference.” – Reinhold Nieburh[/pullquote]

With a stagnant economy that has brought many businesses to their knees, we’ve been inundated with economic data, shards of doubt and glimmers of hope. While we can’t ignore these external forces, we can’t allow them to deter our commitment to reclaiming control of our agenda.

As a result, there’s no better topic with which to start than personal accountability, the singular touchstone of professional success over which we have the greatest control. (more…)

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Read more about the article Not important? Probably not!

Not important? Probably not!

gtd-bookHow about that for a double negative … meaning that “Not Not Important” is actually “pretty damn important”. Some of you took English, right?

What do I mean? Many of the followers of Sword Tips know that I’m a big fan of GTD, the “Getting Things Done” framework promoted by David Allen. He wrote recently in Wired magazine about one phenomenon that comes up all the time in my work with CEOs. If like most of us you’re always struggling with priorities, you need to read this. If you’ve got some ideas that have worked for you, share them.

By any other name, it’s the “it’s just not a priority” syndrome! God knows we’ve all got too much to do, and most of us have probably tried the 1-2-3 system of prioritization at one time … soon realizing that everything was becoming a “1” because it wouldn’t get attention any other way … and then we realized we made everything a “1” … and then we realized we ended up right back where we started.

There is no avoiding the pain that arrives like a SCUD when something that needs to get done doesn’t get any attention (more…)

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Read more about the article There’s a lot of power in a blank sheet of paper

There’s a lot of power in a blank sheet of paper

Brain Most of the time when we sit down to work, even in our favorite chair, we have a stack of papers or files, maybe a list of some kind, and proceed to “work” as we’ve always defined it … plow through the stack and “get ‘er done”.

But if you try it with a blank sheet of paper, as I did again this morning, and just sit back and noodle on the issues that are clogging your brain waves and keeping you up at night. … with no preconceived notions about them because your paper is blank so far … you’ll be amazed at how your mind starts to do it’s favorite thing … add some intellectual firepower to solving problems.

Give your brain some space to work

Our brain is not really that good at filing, sorting, recording and remembering what we need at the precise moment we need it. (more…)

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No substitute for Leadership Team

conference-table

I mentioned here before about the regular Sunday NY Times feature called the Corner Office, which summarizes conversations with various CEO’s about leadership, lessons learned, interviewing techniques, etc.

Here are 4 key lessons.

Build your Leadership Team

Sunday’s column interviewed Lawrence Kellner, CEO of Continental Airlines, who reaffirmed several points emphasized on this blog.

First, it IS critical that you have the right people on the bus and in the right seats. Leaders are dependent upon many others to fulfill their responsibilities, so if you haven’t focused on strengthening your leadership team to the maximum extent possible, you’re simply extending your INability to get things done.

Regular, Unbiased Feedback

Kellner also emphasizes how critical it is to provide regular, unbiased feedback to your people all along the way. (more…)

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