6 Ways to Lead Today.

We have entered an age of De-bossification

There is a rise in the need for leaders, guides, coaches, mentors, role-models, creators, and builders who manage through a zone of influence.

Less of a clamoring for bosses, managers, monitors, evaluators, and paper pushers who manage through a zone of control.

Every one can be a leader whether we manage people or not.

Six ways to lead today:

1. Be Distinctive

Companies, brands, and individuals which succeed are ones that differentiate themselves.

Stand for something.

Have a distinct point of view.

Provide a different perspective.

Craft a culture and a way of working.

Build a network and teams of diverse and the different and let them be them and free to speak out if you want to have a truly different product or service or grow your own skills.

2. Be realistic but also a source of enlightenment and inspiration.

All businesses can be tough.

A leader must face and accept reality.

But also enlighten and inspire.

It is very easy to get down and be negative given all the challenges that come with great velocity every day having to deal with persnickety customers, technology shifts and aggressive competitors.

We can all be caught in a frenzy of urgency, twisting, and twitching with cyclonic vigor in attending to the matters at hand.

But never forget that people are looking to leaders to show the way forward.

Try to end every meeting and interaction with a sense of clarity (what to do next), belief ( the team believes in the cause and themselves) and energy ( they leave motivated and filled with gusto to tackle the challenges and opportunities)

3. Look over the horizon for what is next.

Be besotted with what lies ahead.

Tomorrow is where we and our companies will spend the rest of our lives and we need to look over the horizon.

Whenever we are surprised as leaders or companies it’s because somebody made tomorrow tangible today first while we were solving yesterday’s problems.

4. Renew. Refresh. Re-invent.

In a complicated world filled with hurly burly speed and messy things called people things often go wrong.

Snafus of communication and differences in expectations, incentives or approaches will lead to wires crossed and hurt feelings that can sever ties and relationships.

We sometimes need to renew and restore and repair relationships even if it means eating humble pie sometimes when we do not have to or want to.

We constantly change as people, and we need to see each other from time to time with new eyes.Do not put people in a box and think you have them figured out. They change.

5. Combine roots and wings.

Peoples past beats like a second heart within them just like the roots and history of brand and companies have twisted them into their current shapes.

Every successful individual, brand, and company is fed by their roots, but they aspire to change, grow, and adapt and fly with wings.

Wings without roots often get blown away.

Roots without wings wither and die.

Fusing roots and wings is the way.

6. Protect, guide and build people.

In the end as leaders our first and foremost job is to protect and guide and help grow and transform people since we scale through our people. Companies do not grow or transform, people do.

The most talented will sometimes lose their way or come to a fork in the road and begin to question themselves, where they are and where they are going.

By protecting, guiding and building not only would we do the right thing, but it is this behavior that will attract and retain talent for the long run.

What is strategy?

Strategy is Future Competitive Advantage.

What will the future look like? What will people need and expect? How will demographics, technology and other global shifts create new competitors or recharge current competitors and how will categories blur, blend and maybe even disappear?

Amidst these new expectations and changing competitive dynamics what advantage will your company offer? A differentiated or better product? A competitive moat of network effects, scale or some other dynamic? A better experience? Speed and value?

While Strategy firms can be amazingly helpful in guiding companies through these questions, most leaders already have a gut instinct on what needs to be done. The deep dive documents, the chanting strategists and the long march of meetings are to bring others along and to provide an intellectual and analytical framework for a decision that clearly had to be made.

If you work for a firm and you have an idea of where the future is going and how changing people’s expectations and emerging technology are going to create challenges or opportunities, you should go to your management and share your thinking.

All you need to talk about is future competitive advantage.

Why strategies often fail in implementation.

Companies often allocate large swaths of senior management time and budgets for outside specialists to help them sculpt and then move the strategy forward.

A cavalcade of consultants convey and communicate with countless charts and creative conjuring to the C-Suite.

A flurry of futurists frame, focus, and filter the way forward with the finesse of fortune tellers.

Masters of the Universe market M&A moves that might make multiples move upwards and mean many more millions in market-cap.

PR professionals produce and promote points of view that provoke the press to perceive with pristine perspectives.

These efforts when successful result in the first three key steps to strategy implementation

1) A simple and differentiated strategic blueprint.

2) An M&A plan to acquire skills, markets and technology.

3) A re-organization since the future does not fit in the containers of the past.

These are essential ingredients to a recipe of change and growth none of these will work without helping grow and change the people in the organization.

Because while firms are a collection of ideas, technologies, patents, brands, ecosystems and people, it is people who are the key since they create the ideas, technologies, patents, brands and eco-systems!

Michael Tyson said, “Everyone has a plan till they get punched in the face”.

Boards and leadership of firms come quickly to the realization that everything is easy until people get in the way.

Telling people that change is good, threatening them with job loss if they do not change or creating communication materials and slogans to goad them into a cult like devotion to the new dear leader or the way forward rarely works in the short run and will likely fail after the threat of flagellation fades.

Because if there is nothing in it for them, people will out-wit, out-wait, out-pretend, and out-maneuver “management”. Until then they will fill the time genuflecting and bowing and going through the monitored motions of attending the right meetings, muttering the motivational mantras and stating the slogans required.

The keys to implementing strategy.

If a strategy is to be leveraged in ways that transform an organization, it is key to remember that the only true transformation happens is when the mindsets, skillsets and behaviors of the people working for the firm transform.

If you want your organization or team to grow and change you will need to ask your team to initiate a) a three-question exercise while leadership b) delivers three clear answers to employees.

The Three Question Exercise every team should consider doing so they can both understand, get aligned with and contribute to strategy.

1) How do we expect peoples as well as our customers/consumers/members needs and expectations to change in the future?

2) What are our key strengths and weaknesses in meeting and aligning with these shifts?

3) I3) If we had no constraints except that we had to ensure that what we did was legal, that it was technologically possible and financially broke even in 3 years or less what products and services would we design? Alternatively if we gamed ourselves as a new entrant in attack mode how would we take market share away from ourselves on a particular product or customer segment?

This exercise makes people look up from their day to day and understand risks and opportunities and helps them realize the need for doing things differently. As importantly it gets them to contribute and activate the strategy in their areas of competence and expertise. It also allows leaders to go into attack mode versus thinking only defensively.

The Three Clear Answers management needs to deliver to company staff in order for them to align with and implement the strategy:

1) Why are the recommended changes good for their personal career growth?

2) What are the monetary or other incentives to change?

3) When and where will training be provided to help them learn the new skills needed?

Change does not happen because of M&A, press releases, re-organizations or a new leader, all of which undoubtedly play a role.

An organization changes and grows when the people in the organization change and grow.

Images created using Mid-Journey

Chances. Changes. Choices.

In many ways a life or a career is the aggregation and summation of choices made, chances given and taken, and changes navigated.

Chances.

Chance drives much of life, beginning at birth.

Who we are born to, and the country we are born in, drives so many of the contours of our life and what we can become.

Being born to loving parents who are financially secure in a developed or rapidly developing country is a stroke of great luck which we often do not appreciate since the opportunities are greater and obstacles far fewer than someone born to struggling parents in an impoverished or war-torn nation.

Chances then adorn all of life in the chance meeting, the people who take chances on us and the chances given.

But as importantly the chances taken whether it be moving to a new place, betting on a new job, and taking risks.

And if we are fortunate life also is about chances we give.

The helping hand, the forgiveness provided, the small investment, the life changing advice and the risky hire.

Changes.

Change is life.

Everything changes and nothing stays the same.

Economies bloom and burst. New leaders come and go. Health fluctuates. Relationships thrive and wither. Technology enables and disrupts. Great misfortune and loss are interwoven with unexpected windfalls and victories.

Navigating change is often both facing its reality and learning that how we adapt and respond to change and changing times determines its impact on our lives and the future more than the change itself.

In Hamlet, Shakespeare wrote, “there is nothing good or bad but thinking makes is so”

Choices.

“The difficulty in life is the choice” George Moore.

The choices we make are often determined by chance and change but unlike chance and change tend to be more under our control.

Because chance and change constantly offer us the option or sometime force us to make choices.

And choosing is not easy particularly since the future is unknowable and only as time unfurls will it be clear which choice among many was the ideal.

While every choice impacts us the three biggest choices tend to be a) what we do for a living, b) who we decide to spend our lives with and c) where we decide to live.

Career. Home. Partner.

These are not necessarily one-time choices which since we can change careers, where we live and who are partners are, but these seem to be the most important ones and its probably the ones we should spend the most times mulling.

And we humans even if we make the right choices we wonder if we did.

The job not taken, the person not pursued, the place not moved to. We often think life might have been even better if we had made other choices often forgetting it might have been much worse.

A good exercise in self-reflection is to think about the biggest changes, chances and choices we have had to deal with or had to make and what we have learned from those.

Since as long as we live, we will have to deal with chances, changes and choices.

Exit.

Exits are as important as entrances.

We are told first impressions are important.

They are, but so are are endings.

Here is a perspective on three types of exits. 

Exiting Careers. Exit Economics. Exiting Existence.

1. Exiting Careers.

“Every career has a midnight hour. The smart people exit at five to twelve” Sanjay Khosla ( Executive Coach and Advisor. Former President of Kraft Developing Markets.)

Elegant exits particularly at senior levels are unfortunately too rare, leaving both the Individual and the Company diminished.

The individual loses since a career transition not handled well can stain a reputation and leave a residue of ill will towards an institution where many years of one’s life has been dedicated.

The company loses because instead of having advocates among an influential diaspora of senior talent one may end up with hecklers and detractors. Also, senior colleagues and direct reports of the departed employee can feel less loyal to the company.

It behooves both the individual and the firm to anticipate, plan and manage for the midnight hour whenever possible.

Done correctly it can provide significant advantages to both sides. The company can often retain access to the wisdom and knowledge and good will of the departing employee and the individual benefits from a positive departure, continued access to their friends and network and often Career 2.0 opportunities and support.

Every company should develop a plan to ensure that Exits are done right particularly given both aging demographics and the increasing flexibility that companies need to to connect and leverage a diaspora of talent without carrying heavy fixed costs.

2. Exit Economics.

Every year you should call your cable company and telecommunications provider and ask if they can give you a better deal. You do not need to threaten to leave but just ask politely. Chances are you will get a combination of higher speeds, removal of data caps, free channels, upgraded modems and cable boxes and other goodies usually at the same or lower cost.

You rarely have to use the three magic phrases:

a) “Considering cutting the cord”

b) “Read about a T-Mobile offer…”

c) “Why am I paying so much to rent this old equipment?”

Then call your financial institutions and you will enjoy eradication of some fees, lower rates of interest, higher multiples on loyalty rewards and other garnishments.

And for anybody you do business with if you need to find yourself not needing to find the right support or service person (automated and hidden contact numbers anyone?) just press the option that says you want to exit. And presto you have a Manager on the line!

Why do so many companies that wax poetic about customer lifetime value and the importance of retention rarely reach out to reward their most loyal customers?

Why do so many service businesses not surprise and reward their best clients with ideas, insights and imagination every six months but only do this when clients threaten an exit or in attracting new clients?

As more and more companies are trying to move from a transaction to membership model focusing on recurring revenue it will grow more important to focus on the happy bird in the hand than the one in the bush or the one wishing to fly away.

We should take a little time off from cross-selling, up-selling and treating each customer as a cow whose udder we squeeze to maximize a bottom line while whispering rote love and loyalty messages into their ears.

How about feeding them some hay instead once in a while?

Every six months (in some cases more often and in some cases less often but at least once a year) surprise your best customers with gifts, offers, insights and rewards without them asking.

This is the economics that prevent their exit rather than spending millions getting them to change their minds once they have determined to exit!

3. Exiting Existence.

Franz Kafka wrote “The meaning of life is that it stops”

And most of us can calculate the robust and healthy days left if we are lucky by subtracting our age from 80 (around which much begins to go wrong physically and sometimes also one may see a diminishment in mental faculties leading to a much more constrained life) and multiplying it by 365 days.

If you are 60 you have less than 7500 days. If you are 40 you have 15,000 days.

So, when someone asks you to do things without some form of fair compensation (it does not have to be money but could be learning, experience or the joy of helping) or does not respect your time, do remember you are the one paying for their dis-respect and their cheap valuation of your life!

Once you incorporate the reality of your and everybody else’s finiteness into your thinking, you are much less likely to take crap from those who dole it out and much more likely to appreciate those who are kind and respectful.

And notice the wonder of everyday life around you.

As the Philosophers and Songwriters remind us:

It is essential to know what is important before it is too late.

The Garden Inside.

Art by Uta Barth

The World Is Too Much With Us.

The opening lines of “The World is Too Much With Us” by William Wordsworth:

The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—

Little we see in Nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

Today we are buffeted by a tsunami of external drama which keeps us unmoored.

This in addition to an algorithmically optimized drip drip drug flow of attention hungry engagement orifices seek to bend us to look here, look there, feel this and feel that.

The outside world is often too much with us.

But it is in internal changes where the meaning lies.

Looking is not the same as seeing.

A few years ago an exhibit at The Modern Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago featured the work of a Los Angles artist named Uta Barth.

Ms Barth leverages photography in a novel way to get you to both see what you may not have seen but as importantly to make you forget what you are looking at but be aware of the resultant feeling.

Her work which can be simple as conveying the feeling of light on a curtain or a shadow on a kitchen wall is inspired by a line from Robert Irwin which goes…“Seeing is forgetting the name of the thing one sees”.

We often look but do we see?

The Garden Inside

Have always enjoyed parks and gardens and am lucky to live by the lakefront in Chicago which is adorned with parks. These are great spaces to reflect, refresh and repair, particularly in these drama filled times.

One of the parks in Chicago—Lurie Garden in Millenium Park— has been designed by Pier Oudolf who is considered among the greatest Landscape Designers in the World (he also landscape designed the High Line in New York). His books are filled with breathtaking foliage that integrate and blend into nature likes works of art.

But there is one garden that may stand above them all

In the Charlevoix region of Quebec there lies a private garden which covers more than 20 acres and is called Les Quatre Vents ( The Four Winds). It is considered amongst the finest private gardens in the world ( it is opened a few times a year to the public).

The garden was created by one person, Francis Cabot, as his life work that blends creativity and passion and it is simply the most breathtaking places one can imagine.

Francis Cabot believed that Gardens are like art and have the power to change you. And unlike other art, which may affect you differently over time, because you have changed over time, a garden is itself always changing. Francis designed his Garden to lift the soul of people who walked through it.

He wanted you to come out different after the experience.

Cabot has sculpted, designed and tended a variety of different types of structures and styles —a total of 24 different experiences—including a Japanese garden, a French Pigeonnier – pigeonnier is French for both pigeon coop and pigeonhole – and integrated water ways and a variety of bridges all using natural materials from place of origin. The Japanese tea house was built by Japanese artists using wood from Japan that was aged for years.

Here is a peek at Les Quatre Vents…

There is an amazing book called “The Greater Perfection” filled with pictures and Francis Cabot explaining his life’s work, which I would recommend to everyone if it were affordable and easily available.

Doctors would prescribe it would for the soul.

However, there is a wonderful movie on Francis Cabot called “The Gardener” which is available for free on Amazon if you are a prime member. Take a look at this two minute trailer and it alone should lift you and calm you down.

One prescription for the pressures and challenges we face is to take a walk in a garden.

Regardless, it is key to remind ourselves of Francis Cabot’s belief that every individual is creative and we have a garden within ourselves that we need to tend to so that we can bloom…