In case anyone has been
living under a rock for the last 20+ years, there is little debate that our
marketplace continues to grow more intense, complex, and uncertain. As senior
executives and the top talent on their teams strive to build sustainable, high growth
businesses, there is the ever-present challenge of leading through uncertainty
in today’s fast-paced marketplace.
I had the privilege
last week of speaking to a group of executives in San Francisco on the topic of
Leading Through Uncertainty. There
was a tremendous amount of interest in the topic by those who attended, and I
wanted to share components of my talk over the next several Weekend Reflections for Leaders.
The first part of
leading through uncertainty is to acknowledge the reality around us. The
likelihood that we will build a business or pursue a career that will be smooth
sailing for 20 or 30 years is pure fantasy. It was probably the dream of
parents and grandparents that a Post WWII economy would enable a long and
enjoyable career with one great company, but this is not the reality that
today’s business leaders face.
The enclosed slide
outlines some of the disruption that has taken place over the last 40+ years.
As a family, we personally experienced this disruption as my grandparents came
to the USA and started a small family grocery store, Esposito & Sons, that
grew well in a post WWII economy. However, with the rise of large, convenient
grocery store chains, we abruptly had to close the doors of the business in
late 1970s and figure out a new way to make a living.
Since that time period,
there has a been a steady stream of disruption upon those once “great”
businesses who were not proactive in addressing emerging marketplace forces and
have become insolvent. Healthcare and education are the last two major segments
that are beyond ripe for massive disruption and with players like Haven
(Amazon-JP Morgan-Berkshire Hathaway’s healthcare venture) and Kahn Academy
(and many others in the education segment). The next five years…not the next
few decades, will witness tremendous strides to make our experience more
efficient. Those efficiencies we experience will be drawn out of the cash flow
of once “great” organizations that were too slow to change.
As senior executives
and the top talent on their teams work hard to drive growth in a challenging
future, it is imperative that they possess the courage to face the reality in
front of them. Facing the truth in an open and honest way will enable talented
teams to begin to build effective plans to deal with the reality and prepare
for a brighter future…and it will not be easy.
What if I were to ask you, “What is the most difficult leadership challenge you are facing today?” What would you
say?
The intent of the next several Weekend Reflections for Leaders
is to share some learnings from my journey of leaving a successful career with
a great multi-national, life science company to learn and grow in the high
growth (and high risk) mid-stage and early-stage life science marketplace. Over
the last decade, I led a few companies to successful exits and also experienced
a few very painful failures.
Here is a summary of the last few weeks of Looking Back:
Part #1: Guiding Principles.
Part #2: Risk Taking and the
Value of Failure:
Part #3: Teamwork:
Part #4: Inspiration:
Part #5: Energy & Focus:
The basic principles of
leadership and empowerment are foundational to building a great business
whether it is a large multi-national company or 2 people sitting around a table
in a local coffee shop with an idea for the next big thing.
From a leadership
perspective, there is a vital need to clearly define the intent of the
business, develop specific objectives to accomplish, assign accountability for
the work, and then consistently overcommunicate the plan. In addition, being
thoughtful to spend the time necessary to define what is the problem in the
market we are trying to solve, clearly describing why there is a great calling
to solve the problem and outlining an agreed upon set of principles about how
we should behave are all essential for large and small businesses alike.
From an empowerment
perspective, the need for leaders of big and small organizations to say, “I
trust you with this project, go for it” is important for not just efficiency,
but for creating an environment where people feel they will be supported, control
their own destiny, and reach their full potential. Many times, management layers
required for approvals, underlying mistrust, large egos, and power struggles can
create an unhealthy environment for people genuinely trying to apply their
talents to accomplish goals for the business.
There are numerous similarities
of effective leadership and empowerment with large and small companies. Below
are just a few:
There are often
dramatic differences in the techniques needed to effectively execute on these methods
to lead and empower teams when looking at large companies compared to small entrepreneurial
ventures.
The first difference is
in the time and manner in which leadership and empowerment can be accurately assessed.
In a small
entrepreneurial endeavor, it is often very quick to assess whether the critical
elements are being achieved. There is the environment of urgency that helps put
the issues on the table quickly as either the business can collapse or a customer
(and you may only have one) will walk away. With small teams it is very clear
to assess who is delivering and who is not.
In large companies, it often
takes a painstaking, time-consuming cultural assessment to try and get at some
of the underlying issues that maybe holding the company back from reaching its
full potential. Many times, there is the admirable effort to define a Mission,
Vision, and Values framework and the communication tools are well thought-out
and put in place. However, the “I’ve seen this before” “Don’t worry it will
blow over with a new management team once we don’t hit our numbers” attitude,
the passive-aggressive hallway meetings after the real meeting, or the internal
politics and power struggles that can derail the most noble of efforts to align
a large company on a purposeful mission and a plan to deliver on it.
The second difference
is in the time, effort, bandwidth, and continual improvement required for
leaders to execute effectively in their roles.
In my own journey in
leading teams in large companies and leading small entrepreneurial efforts, the
task of executing effective leadership and empowerment is much greater in a
large company than a small entrepreneurial effort. The organizational
complexity, competing priorities, cultural norms and practices, etc., make
senior executives in large companies spend a tremendous amount of time
thinking, planning, and implementing effective processes to ensure they are
pulling all the effective levers to lead and empower their teams to deliver.
This time and effort are critical for senior executives in large organizations
to lead effectively, but it also highlights the importance of empowering highly
talented teams to get the work done of running the business and executing on
the plan.
Even though the
principles of leadership and empowerment are similar in large and small
organizations, the challenge to achieve organizational alignment around the critical
aspects of the business are most significant for today’s senior executives and
top talent in large multi-national companies. One way that today’s top leaders
stay ahead in addressing these challenges is to seek out a trusted advisor, often
outside the organization, to reach their full potential.
What if I were to ask you, “What is the most difficult leadership challenge you are facing today?” What would you say?
Here are a few resources to help:
Download FREE resources at www.harvesttimepartners.com
As a reminder, the intent of the next several Weekend Reflections
for Leaders is to share some learnings from my journey of leaving a
successful career with a great multi-national, life science company to learn
and grow in the high growth (and high risk) mid-stage and early-stage life
science marketplace. Over the last decade, I led a few companies to successful
exits and also experienced a few very painful failures.
Here is a summary of the last few weeks of Looking Back:
Part #1: Guiding Principles.
Part #2: Risk Taking and the
Value of Failure:
Part #3: Teamwork:
Part #4: Inspiration:
There is a great amount
of work that needs to be done to remain competitive in the marketplace for both
large and small companies. Another key learning from this leadership journey
from a large, multi-national company to early stage entrepreneurial ventures
has been around Energy and Focus.
What decisions did I make today? What did I accomplish today?
What were the most difficult problems I faced today and how did I solve
them?
What did I get paid to do today?
The answers to those
questions can be a helpful reality check for today’s leaders on how they direct
energy and focus.
The practical reality in
leading a business is that with size comes complexity. In many ways, there is
no avoidance of that reality. However, the amount of internal grind and unproductive,
non-value adding work that goes on in large companies is mind boggling once you
unplug and experience something different.
For many large
companies, the number of routine meetings and the amount of internal process that
could instead be solved with just a few bullet points of action steps and clearly
assigned accountability via a short email or a quick hallway conversation is
what results in a massive energy drain and lack of focus on the important
issues to grow a business.
Large corporations
create a significant amount of checks and balances with layers of leadership oversight.
In heavily regulated industries like healthcare, there are some real risks that
need to managed and key decisions must go through different lenses (commercial,
regulatory, legal, financial, human resources, etc.) to manage very real marketplace
risk. However, the amount of energy that is drained through lack of focus on
the real issues, an inefficient process with no clearly defined guardrails, and
lack of empowered leaders results in highly talented, highly energetic people becoming
frustrated.
For many commercial
teams in large companies, the internal review process for routine events or
projects creates a massive amount of wasted motion and energy depletion of its
most talented teams. The classic example
of slide deck reviews and edits that may cycle up and down the leadership
structure consumes a huge amount of energy and time which can delay projects
and frustrate highly competent teams.
The most striking
difference in an entrepreneurial minded organization is the massive shift in energy
and focus towards solving real customer problems and creating new innovative
products based on those learnings from customers. There is no bandwidth for
internal grind in small companies; Work needs to get done today, customer
issues need to be solved today, and the development of new products needs to be
accelerated to attract new customers and investors.
The internal wasted
motion in many large commercial teams in big companies depletes the energy and appetite
of well-intended, talented teams to innovate and create real opportunities for
the growth of products and solutions.
The cycle of meetings
to meetings without clear action steps, decisions made, and individuals held
accountable to move the project forward can be an all-consuming effort for
large companies. The meeting after the
meeting in the hallway to express issues that should have been voiced in the actual
meeting creates a cultural dynamic that drains energy and creates a lack of
focused effort on getting to the heart of issues quickly and effectively.
Today’s senior
executives and top talent have an amazing amount of energy, insight, and
potential to innovate. The challenge for
leaders in large organizations is how to minimize the energy drain on wasteful
internal grind by establishing clear principles for decision making and risk
taking that enable teams to move quickly with the appropriate guardrails to
focus their energy on supporting customers and driving innovation that sustains
growth.
Enabling individuals
and teams to unleash energy and focus on the important things in running a
business will help even large complex companies continue to thrive and grow.
What if I were to ask you, “What is the most difficult leadership challenge you are facing today?” What would you say?
Here are a few resources to help:
Download FREE resources at www.harvesttimepartners.com
As a reminder, the intent of the next several Weekend Reflections
for Leaders is to share some learnings from my journey of leaving a
successful career with a great multi-national, life science company to learn
and grow in the high growth (and high risk) mid-stage and early-stage life
science marketplace. Over the last decade, I led a few companies to successful
exits and also experienced a few very painful failures.
Here is a brief summary of the last few weeks of Looking Back:
Part #1: Guiding Principles.
For large and small companies, it is critically important that we build a business
based on a set of principles or values to guide individuals and teams in how we
should treat each other, our customers, and fulfill our responsibility to the
marketplace and the communities we impact.
Part #2: Risk Taking and the
Value of Failure: Taking risks and learning from failures are key
attributes of entrepreneurial organizations in the early and mid-stage of
development (“you succeed when you fail”). Most large organizations have become
too protective of the current business to fully embrace taking prudent risks
and the value of trying and failing. However, we learn and grow a tremendous
amount when we take the risk to change. In addition, we learn and grow from the
pain of failure. We do our most
thoughtful and thorough reflections and detailed action plans based on
learnings when we take risks venturing into the unknown and when we fail.
Part #3: Teamwork: There is no “one-man
band” in the world of large corporations or small start-ups. No leader is building a great business on an
island. It is well functioning teams that succeed in the complex world of
business. The formal hierarchy, structure, silo functions, etc. of large
companies often create barriers to effective teamwork. In the world of
entrepreneurship, people leave titles, history, and egos at the door and focus
on the work to get done. A sense of urgency for the task at hand tends to
harness teamwork and remove traditional corporate barriers to effective
teamwork.
Another key learning
from this leadership journey from a large, multi-national company to early
stage entrepreneurial ventures has been the important power of inspiration.
There is nothing more
inspiring than making a human to human connection through solving some
difficult problem.
Entrepreneurs in small
companies have a hands-on, human closeness to their mission, the customer, and
the impact. The result is people are more inspired to give it all to accomplish
the mission and work consistently with the principles that guide the team. There
is no greater feeling of value than sitting directly with a customer and solving
a problem, fixing a mistake, or seeing your product or service “wow” them with
an experience that far exceeds expectations.
Large companies tend to
create distance from the customer through process and bureaucracy whereby employees
become part of the machine’s process and lose the inspiration gained by solving
customer problems. In addition, that distance inhibits great companies from
seeing the next great opportunity to create a product or service that meets the
evolving needs of customers.
Most businesses begin
with seeing a real quantifiable need in the market and building a solution to
meet that need. There is amazing inspiration that can be drawn from creating a
product or service to meet the needs of others.
There is no greater
source of inspiration that sitting face to face with a buyer of the product or
service and having a real human to human connection about solving a problem. This
is what entrepreneurial-minded companies do best and what creates the energy to
work day and night and bet the proverbial “farm” on the chance to build a
business to meet a real need.
Not too long ago, I led
a company in developing blood-based diagnostics to improve the early detection
of cancer. When I would sit face to face with a patient and a clinician with
the results of our test or become part of a very difficult decision for a
patient, it provided the fuel to keep pushing to achieve our mission despite
the enormous difficulties and worries of raising more money to meet payroll,
pay the bills, and fund growth. The problems we were solving became very real
to all of us in the company and feeling those needs directly gave us the
renewable energy source to put everything on the line to solve these direct,
real needs of clinicians, patients, and concerned family members.
In another company that
I had the privilege to lead, when a customer would call with an issue, the
response was not, “Let me check on it with the group and see what I can do.”
The response was, “I can get on an airplane today and be there to work on this
directly, would that work for you?”
At some point in the
life cycle of large corporations, leaders become quite distant from the customer,
the end users of products, and the evolving marketplace. Customer complaints,
voices of concern around new issues facing the marketplace are viewed, not in
word, but in the actions of company leadership as being a “pain in the ass”
that does not fit the well-oiled, six-sigma process of a “lean” organization. This
attitude eventually becomes pervasive and is the beginning of the end of a
great company that has allowed itself to become internally focused and eventually
blind-sided when customers do not return, and the market shifts dramatically.
As Ernest Hemingway
reminded us in his 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises, when a character asked, “How
did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked. “Two ways,” Mike said.
“Gradually and then suddenly.” That timeline can be seen in the
history of many once great companies.
The lack of inspiration
to solve real problems in the marketplace is the beginning of the journey to
destruction for large companies. When protecting and optimizing the current
state of a steady business becomes the priority and it becomes a headache instead
of inspiring to solve customer problems, the company as we know it is done.
When listening and responding to customers gets shoved into the bureaucracy of internal
meetings, extending approvals to time consuming internal assessments by some
“customer experience” committee, etc., it is time for drastic change in
leadership of a once great company. The history books would show that if it has
gone that far, even new leadership will not be able to turn things around.
Ironically, this well-documented
business cycle from inspiration to apathy in large companies is what eventually
creates opportunity for a small start-up to come in and grab the business
opportunity from the once great company that failed to feel inspired by solving
problems in the marketplace.
For today’s senior
executives and top talent, remaining engaged and inspired by solving customer
problems and being entrepreneurial-minded to see new business opportunities are
some helpful deterrents to avoid becoming a once great company that has lost its
way.
What if I were to ask you, “What is the most difficult leadership
challenge you are facing today?”
What would you say?
Here are a few resources to help:
Download FREE resources at www.harvesttimepartners.com
As a reminder, the intent of the next several Weekend Reflections
for Leaders is to share some learnings from my journey of leaving a
successful career with a great multi-national, life science company to learn
and grow in the high growth (and high risk) mid-stage and early-stage life
science marketplace. Over the last decade, I led a few companies to successful
exits and also experienced a few very painful failures.
Here is a brief summary of the last few weeks of Looking Back:
Part #1: Guiding Principles.
For large and small companies, it is critically important that we build a business
based on a set of fundamental principles or values to guide individuals and
teams in how we should treat each other, our customers, and fulfill our
responsibility to the marketplace and the communities we impact.
Part #2: Risk Taking and the
Value of Failure: Taking risks and learning from failures are key
attributes of entrepreneurial organizations in the early and mid-stage of
development. Most large organizations have become too protective of the current
business to fully embrace taking prudent risks and the value of trying and
failing. However, we learn and grow a tremendous amount when we take the risk
to change. In addition, we learn and grow from the pain of failure. We do our most thoughtful and thorough
reflections and detailed action plans based on learnings when we take risks
venturing into the unknown and when we fail.
Another key learning
from this leadership journey from a large, multi-national company to early
stage entrepreneurial ventures has been around the importance of teamwork.
There is no “one-man
band” in the world of large corporations or small start-ups. No leader is building a great business on an
island. It is well functioning teams that succeed in the complex world of
business.
There is obviously a
leader and direction set, but people need to come together to effectively rally
to the cause and get things done. The press may glorify what seems to be the
iconic leader from which all wisdom and action flows, but the reality on the
ground in the conference rooms and hallways of companies big and small, it is
individuals putting the goals of the team ahead of any personal agenda.
There is a stark
contrast around teamwork in a startup compared to a large corporation.
Large companies are
supported with formal hierarchy, titles, functional control of certain
initiatives and matrix management guidelines that tend to slow down project
development and execution. Long-standing traditional work flows can create turf
wars and political minefields that can have a detrimental impact of effective
teamwork.
In the world of
entrepreneurship, people leave titles, history, and egos at the door and focus
on the work to get done. A sense of urgency for the task at hand tends to
harness teamwork and remove traditional corporate barriers to effective
teamwork.
As a quick side note,
when I went through US Army Ranger School, the initial requirements are that
everyone strip the rank off their uniforms. Everyone is a Ranger in
training. It did not matter if you were
a Corporal or a Captain in your prior life, when you walked under the sign at
Ranger School that said, “Not for the Weak or Fainthearted,” you were all equal
with a common direction to accomplish any mission as team. Yes, there was a
rotation of leaders on each mission, but the intent was to work together as a
team with no history, no baggage, no titles, and just get the mission
accomplished.
Today’s start up world
operates in a similar fashion as was taught to me at the US Army’s premier
leadership training program, Ranger School:
Define a clear mission, build an operating plan/work plan, determine key
decisions/key milestones that need to be made up front, and then get the work
done.
When leaders model
teamwork, communicate teamwork, measure & reward teamwork, it can get
better in large corporations. However, the practical reality of titles, career
management/self-preservation, and internal politics/traditions, can create
significant barriers to teamwork that need to be addressed with intention and
continual reinforcement to make steady improvements in large companies.
For today’s senior
executives and top talent, modeling the behavior that the most effective
pathway to mission accomplishment is paved with teamwork, not lone-rangers, big
egos and power struggles, is critical to building a long-term healthy business.
Teamwork is a fundamental principle that is needed to succeed.
What if I were to ask you, “What is the most difficult leadership challenge you are facing today?” What would you say?
Here are a few resources to help:
Download FREE resources at www.harvesttimepartners.com
As a reminder from last week’s update, the intent of the next several Weekend
Reflections for Leaders is to share some learnings from my journey of
leaving a successful career with a great multi-national, life science company
to learn and grow in the high growth (and high risk) mid-stage and early-stage
life science marketplace. Over the last decade, I led a few companies to
successful exits and also experienced a few very painful failures.
On part #1 of Looking Back, we emphasized the importance of building a
business based on a set of fundamental principles or values to guide
individuals and teams in how we should treat each other, our customers, and
fulfill our responsibility to the marketplace and the communities we impact.
For today’s senior executives and top talent, leading by example and strictly
adhering to specific guiding principles is critical to building a long-term
healthy business whether it has 100,000 employees around the world or starts in
a garage with 3 people and some folding chairs.
The second key learning in this journey has been around the importance
of risk taking and failure in building a successful business and career. We
learn and grow a tremendous amount when we take the risk to change. In
addition, we learn and grow from the pain of failure. We do our most thoughtful and thorough
reflections and detailed action plans based on learnings when we take risks
venturing into the unknown and when we fail.
Large companies tend to have a strong resistance to risk taking and to embracing
failure.
On a macro perspective, there is an insurmountable force to safeguard
the current business and activity with a life-saving grip (or death-like grip
depending on your perspective) to keep doing what we have been doing in the
hopes we can continue to grow without encountering major change.
On a micro perspective at the individual level, leaders recognize that
taking a risk and the thought of failure is not worth crushing a career and the
“play the game, play it safe” mindset helps everyone sleep well for another performance
period.
The unwillingness for large companies to find ways to take risks and
embrace failure is a major reason for the consistent headlines that list the once
great companies that have now become insolvent.
From the world of entrepreneurs and venture capital investment, the
view is fundamentally different. A
critical component of success is when you take risks and often fail. The
learnings gained are applied quickly and effectively to achieve the next level
of growth. The teams dust themselves off, do an autopsy without blame, and climb
back into the ring.
Providing there is not some major principle violation like lying,
cheating, stealing, or complete incompetence, the entrepreneurial mindset is to
quickly learn and grow from risks taken and failures endured to move the
business forward.
For today’s senior executives and top talent, getting comfortable with
risk taking and embracing failure are critical to building a long-term healthy
business. Competition and threats to the business emerge from previously
unimaginable places and maintaining the status quo has been proven to be a
strategic choice that will eventually bring about the demise of a once great
company.
What if I were to ask you, “What is the most difficult leadership challenge you are facing today?” What would you say?
Here are a few resources to help:
Download FREE resources at www.harvesttimepartners.com
Almost 10 years ago, I left a successful career with a great
multi-national, life science company to learn and grow in the high growth (and
high risk) mid-stage and early-stage life science marketplace. Over the decade,
I led a few companies to successful exits and also experienced a few very painful
failures.
Looking back, there are a few clear learnings on this journey from
leaving a great, multi-national company and moving into the more
entrepreneurial side of life sciences. Even though my view of business has been
from the lens of healthcare, the relevance of these lessons in leadership cross
markets and industries.
The intent of the next several Weekend Reflections for Leaders is
to share the major learnings from this journey.
The first of these learnings is the importance of building a business
based on a set of fundamental principles or values to guide individuals and
teams in how we should treat each other, our customers, and fulfill our
responsibility to the marketplace and the communities we impact. Clearly
defining the importance of principles like respect, trustworthiness, teamwork, innovation,
quality, support, and kindness form not only the foundation, but create the
guardrails to build a business that can effectively handle the inevitable
cycles of tremendous success and painful failure without destroying itself from
within.
These principles or values, along with clear defining examples that are
reinforced by team members and measured routinely, begin to build a culture
that is healthy and sustainable for the long term.
Large companies spend a considerable amount of time and resources on
outlining and reinforcing a set of values to guide the company. These values
are often one of the most appealing aspects of building a career with a great
multi-national company. There are certainly examples of when large companies
have lost their way and “company values” just became a wall chart, but for the
most part, the most admired, long lasting companies form a set of values that becomes
the hallmark of their history.
The clarity and purity of financial metrics that drive an exit
valuation (i.e. life-changing payday) in the world of venture capital and private
equity run businesses can often challenge the importance of a broader set of
principles to guide the business for the long term. When a life-changing
financial outcome for individuals in a high growth, early stage company is
close at hand, the principles meant to build the business for the long term can
sometimes come off the rails.
For today’s senior executives and top talent, leading by example and strictly
adhering to specific guiding principles is critical to building a long-term
healthy business whether it has 100,000 employees around the world or starts in
a garage with 3 people and some folding chairs.
Working with a set of universal, self-evident principles to guide
behavior is essential.
What if I were to ask you, “What is the most difficult leadership
challenge you are facing today?”
What would you say? Here are a
few resources to help:
Download FREE resources at www.harvesttimepartners.com
When today’s business headlines highlight the “titans” of business over
time, they tend to focus on the individual’s specific creative brilliance, boldness
(or brashness), strategic insight on the future, etc. In addition, most biographies of these
business leaders have the same consistent theme on these seemingly needed behaviors.
For today’s senior executives and top talent that are in execution mode
leading business units and teams in the trenches today, there are a whole
different set of behaviors that typically provide the content written on
performance reviews and mentioned during everyday face to face interactions. These behaviors are the essential skills that
are needed to build a healthy culture and sustain top performance over the long
haul.
As organizations build a bench of talent to contribute to the business
over time and senior executives look to strengthen their own teams, here are a
few of those essential behaviors that are highlighted most often:
No need to claim all the credit. Effective executives and top talent don’t
need to ensure their impact on the genesis of an idea or the execution of a
task is highlighted for everyone to recognize.
They are very comfortable with, and frankly would prefer, that others
gain some recognition for the work as they know their contributions ultimately
are about supporting the team to achieve its objectives and it is not all about
them.
Accept and physically feel the
responsibility of a disappointing outcome. Whether it is a poor customer experience, quarterly revenue that is
below performance, or a special project that did not meet its deliverables,
effective executives and top talent accept responsibility for a disappointment
and feel it physically in their stomachs, joints and heads. They know it is a
team effort, but in times of disappointment, they take responsibility more than
others. The pain they feel is not in a psychologically unhealthy way, but it is
in the practical reality that the weight of responsibility is heavy and felt
when an outcome is disappointing.
The value of interdependence vs the lone
wolf. Although the
headlines of the business section are full of stories of how great individuals
are to a business, effective executives and top talent see the greater value in
teams that are interdependent on each other to leverage diverse strengths as
oppose to the one person that has the skills to champion the cause.
Interdependence driven through diverse teams is a hallmark of healthy company
cultures.
As we look to build and sustain a healthy culture along with top
business performance, the business news headlines can be deceiving. It is
important for leaders to recognize the underlying essential behaviors that
deliver over the long haul.
What if I were to ask
you, “What is the most difficult leadership challenge you are facing today?”
What would you say? Here are a few
resources to help:
Download FREE resources at www.harvesttimepartners.com
Bringing new people onto a leadership team is never easy. We could all probably share a few stories about decisions we made to fill key leadership positions that did not turn out well.
Poor decisions on filling critical leadership positions have enormous costs that go well beyond the financial statements.
Whether it is bringing in leaders from the outside or finding strong internal talent to move into a needed leadership position, the challenge is the same. Identifying the needed skills and experience is the easy part. The most difficult challenge is getting to the heart of a candidate to see if they will be an asset or a liability on the culture that is needed for the team to reach its full potential.
Many organizations and leaders spend a great deal of time and money on the well-studied executive psychology assessments, the expert questions to dive deep into experiences, and ensuring the guard rails are in place so questions don’t get too close to certain areas of life. These steps, although helpful, leave many gaps in assessing the heart of an individual to ensure a strong fit to the culture.
As we look to build and sustain a healthy, highly effective business, here are two areas that successful executives assess deeply to get to the heart of a leader before extending an offer to join the team:
(1) Problem Solving: What have been the most difficult problems you faced? How did you solve them?
We need leaders who focus on solving problems, not creating them or hiding from them. An orientation towards solutions is needed to grow customers, retain employees, and deliver financial results.
This question helps to get to the truth about personal ownership and accountability to find a needed solution as opposed to riding the wave of the team. People who take ownership of problems and the accountability to ensure they get solved can speak clearly about these experiences as they usually are memorable.
(2) Dealing with Failure: What have been some failures in your life? How did you handle them and what did you learn from them?
This question helps to understand integrity, responsibility, and risk taking. Individuals who are striving to reach their full potential have all fallen short at certain times.
We need leaders who are self-aware to recognize when and where they fell short, take accountability for failure (don’t play the blame game), share learnings and have the resilience to keep moving forward.
Many times, these two questions enable candidates to share more than their business experience and give insight into their humanity, which is an important component to building a healthy team as we learn to appreciate and care for each other as human beings as opposed to just cogs in the machine to drive growth and profitability.
These two questions are used by effective executives in identifying talent to fill leadership roles and as routine questions during one on one meetings with top talent throughout the organization. These two questions help effective executives get to the heart of leaders on their team and provides another vantage point to assess the health of the culture they are creating.
What if I were to ask you, “What is the most difficult leadership challenge you are facing today?” What would you say? Here are a few resources to help:
Download the FREE resources at www.harvesttimepartners.com
Contact me. Email: david@harvesttimepartners.com (M) 269-370-9275 David Esposito
There is truth in the old adage, “the fortune is in the follow-up.”
It does not matter whether we are talking about closing a sale, delivering on a product launch, building a strong team, or strengthening an important relationship, it is in the follow-up where we find the fortune.
We have probably all had the experience of a rush of motivation and positive energy after a great initial encounter:
• A great first meeting with a potential new client
• A motivating speech at some business gathering
• A great “day one” launch for an important product
The reality is that many times when the initial motivation fades, instead of reaping a fortune in the follow-up, we weaken our influence as a leader due to lack of follow-up. If we all do an honest self-assessment across important events in our professional journey, I am sure we can find a few teachable moments where we failed to build a fortune due to lack of follow-up.
As we look to build and sustain a healthy, highly effective business, executive leaders and top talent need to maintain the discipline of ensuring effective follow-up. Leaders need to consistently reinforce execution of “next steps” after a great initial event to support the long-term health of the company.
Here are just a few thoughts to encourage executive leaders and top talent to build a fortune in the follow-up:
Accept the reality that having a meaningful impact on any endeavor is contained in the follow-up, not in the start.
Consistently set the example in the small, routine next steps that occur with everyday one on one interactions with team members. The daily discipline to demonstrate a respect for following up on small things will set the appropriate expectation for the really big events.
Any follow-up is better than no follow-up. Taking smaller steps at a slower pace will still produce a meaningful impact and set a solid example.
Unfortunately, despite our best efforts and intentions, we will all still have a few experiences in the future where we will miss out on a fortune due to lack of follow-up. We should not be dismayed. We should be quick to acknowledge the shortfall directly with those we impacted and just keep climbing back into the ring to try again.
Given the reality of #4 above, when those we lead once in a while fail to follow-up, we should clearly acknowledge it, but also demonstrate some understanding. We would appreciate the same treatment when we inevitably fall short sometime down the road. No one is perfect, but we should not let failing to follow-up become an acceptable habit.
Maintaining the discipline to simply make timely progress on follow-up items is one of the frequently over looked characteristics of effective executive leaders and top talent.
What if I were to ask you, “What is the most difficult leadership challenge you are facing today?” What would you say? Here are a few resources to help:
Download FREE resources at www.harvesttimepartners.com
Contact me. Email: david@harvesttimepartners.com (M) 269-370-9275 David Esposito