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Leadership Lessons | What is the Cornerstone of your Strategy?

At this time of year, we all get excited about personal renewal, our plans for the coming year and how we can enhance our personal and professional lives in 2011.

Even though most of us have traveled the road of broken resolutions, hope springs eternal as we prepare to refresh our commitment and recharge our batteries … and make plans to overcome our shortcomings and rise to new levels of success.

There are many fashionable approaches to this process, many of them with valuable insights.

Jonathan Fields chose 10 words to focus his energy. His approach is an expanded derivation from a three-word approach used by Chris Brogan, who, like me, uses his carefully chosen words “the way a lighthouse helps a ship in a storm.”

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Ernest Hemingway used only six words to write what he called his greatest novel … and the more you think on it, the more intriguing it becomes.

It’s one more approach you can use to bring the essence of your 2011 plan into sharp focus.

Although we’re more interested in clarity than mystery in our annual pilgrimage to the altar of realistic expectations, this approach, like those of Jonathan and Chris, also celebrates the power of simplicity.

Find the Cornerstone of your strategy

[pullquote]“You’ve got to think about big things while you’re doing small things, so that all the small things go in the right direction.” – Alvin Toffler[/pullquote]

Maybe you’ve used variations on these K.I.S.S. principles to craft all sorts of goals and objectives … memorialized in lists, notebooks and diagrams.

Yet, when we step back into the maelstrom of real life, distractions intrude, new input floods our inboxes, and without seeing it, we start to slowly drift off course. We madly implement course correction procedures, but instead of returning us to our original direction, they cause us to lurch about, each adjustment resulting in a slightly different course even further from our original objective.

So, how many words does that leave us? (more…)

Vol 72: Seven Swing Thoughts to Overcome Adversity

““Thankfully, perseverance is a good substitute for talent” — Steve Martin

7 Swing Thoughts to Overcome Adversity

The recent 92nd PGA championship ended tragically for Dustin Johnson based on a questionable and controversial call. What virtually every observer, from fans to PGA champions, saw as a sandy area of the rough outside of the ropes was declared by rules officials as a sand trap even though spectators were standing in it. Under the rules of golf, that resulted in a two-stroke penalty because a player can’t ground his club in the sand. It cost him a chance to participate in a three-hole playoff for the trophy in one of golf’s four major championships.

It was heart-breaking to watch and even brought a roar of disapproval from the usually reticent golf crowd. For most casual observers, it’s a distinction without a difference … but in the rules-driven PGA tour, it was a judgment call without heart or soul. Mr. Johnson’s disappointment now competes with Armando Galaragga’s recent loss of a perfect game in baseball.

What do we do when we suffer a major disappointment, e.g., the loss of a major client we served so well or the departure of a valued employee to whom we thought we had extended every opportunity? (more…)

Vol. 69: Blog me a river …and start now!

Blogging is the cornerstone of your Social Media strategy

Online product displays are fine; but how are you really making a connection?

“You can have brilliant ideas, but if you can’t get them across, your ideas won’t get you anywhere.– Lee Iacocca

When I visit the websites of many of my Bay Area clients, I often find broad product offerings and detailed product specifications, accompanied by routine background and contact information … but rarely do I find a blog with which the company communicates with its customers.

Social media has exploded

The world of social media has blown the doors off traditional means of communicating with customers and employees. YouTube is now receiving more than one hour of recorded video for each minute on the clock – with over 2 billion page views – and it just celebrated only its fifth anniversary. In just over six years, Facebook has garnered more than 400 million subscribers and continues to grow.

With powerful social media tools like these, as well as LinkedIn, Twitter, Tumblr, Digg, del.icio.us, Buzz, etc., most middle-market companies are overwhelmed by the choices. But most of them are not moving fast enough because – be dead sure of this – these tools, advancing at an increasingly faster pace every day, are here to stay and flourish. If you’re not part of that conversation, (more…)

Vol. 68: The Keys to an Apology

Integrity, vulnerability and humility: keys to an apology

“Pride is concerned with who is right. Humility is concerned with what is right.” — Ezra Taft Benson

I was ready to return to our series on strategic finance after my last column about the integrity of umpire Jim Joyce and the accountability of BP… until I read a comment in the Washington Post by Jeffrey Pfeffer, a professor of organizational behavior at Stanford University.

Citing Henry Ford’s infamous quote, “Never complain, never explain,” as the preferred way for business leaders to deal with disasters like the Gulf oil spill took me by surprise.

BP is the poster child for a failed apology

In appearing to criticize BP’s CEO Tony Hayward for apologizing for BP’s actions, Mr. Pfeffer extols the value of being on the “winning side,” that people respect strength and diffidence does not convey winning or power. Research in social psychology, he continues, “shows that acting embarrassed or remorseful conveys less power and results in less favorable impressions than acting angry.”

In the context of BP’s PR debacle, those comments seem wildly misplaced. Does Mr. Pfeffer think BP would have won our hearts and minds by taking no responsibility, “never explaining,” and that he should have acted like he was angry that people blamed BP for this unexpected accident? I can’t imagine worse advice than if I recommended that you chase down every meal with a quart of engine oil.

(more…)

Vol. 67: Get it right the first time!

Making one mistake, an umpire shows rare integrity“Ninety-nine percent of all failures come from people who have a habit of making excuses.” –George Washington CarverThis week I chose to digress…