Leading Through Uncertainty (Part I – Reality Check) – Weekend Reflections for Leaders: March 30, 2019

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? 

Here are a few resources to HELP YOU:

  1. Download FREE resources at www.harvesttimepartners.com
  2. Contact me. Email: david@harvesttimepartners.com (M) 269-370-9275
  3. Check out my book, Looking Back-What I Learned When I Left a Great Company, for helpful insights on leadership, building a great business, and winning the war on top talent.

David Esposito

Leadership & Empowerment – Looking Back (Part #6) – Weekend Reflections for Leaders: November 10, 2018

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:

  1. Download FREE resources at www.harvesttimepartners.com
  2. Contact me. Email: david@harvesttimepartners.com (M) 269-370-9275

David Esposito

Female manager stands addressing team at board meeting

Energy & Focus – Looking Back (Part #5) – Weekend Reflections for Leaders: November 3, 2018

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:

  1. Download FREE resources at www.harvesttimepartners.com
  2. Contact me. Email: david@harvesttimepartners.com (M) 269-370-9275

David Esposito

Business Partnership concept. business man shaking hands during a meeting in the office, success, dealing, greeting.

Looking Back (Part #4) – Weekend Reflections for Leaders: October 27, 2018

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:

  1. Download FREE resources at www.harvesttimepartners.com
  2. Contact me. Email: david@harvesttimepartners.com (M) 269-370-9275

David Esposito

Businesswoman and dollar sign balancing on seesaw over pie chart

Looking Back (Part #3) – Weekend Reflections for Leaders: October 20, 2018

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:

  1. Download FREE resources at www.harvesttimepartners.com
  2. Contact me. Email: david@harvesttimepartners.com (M) 269-370-9275

David Esposito

Overhead image of an eight-oar rowing crew.See all my rowing images:

Looking Back (Part #2) – Weekend Reflections for Leaders: October 13, 2018

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:

  1. Download FREE resources at www.harvesttimepartners.com
  2. Contact me. Email: david@harvesttimepartners.com (M) 269-370-9275

David Esposito

Scared woman at home looking through the shutters

Looking Back (Part #1) – Weekend Reflections for Leaders: October 6, 2018

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:

  1. Download FREE resources at www.harvesttimepartners.com
  2. Contact me. Email: david@harvesttimepartners.com (M) 269-370-9275

David Esposito

Missing from the Front Page – Weekend Reflections for Leaders: September 29, 2018

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:

  1. Download FREE resources at www.harvesttimepartners.com
  2. Contact me. Email: david@harvesttimepartners.com (M) 269-370-9275

David Esposito

cloudy blue sky

Getting to the Heart – Weekend Reflections for Leaders: September 22, 2018

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:

  1. Download the FREE resources at www.harvesttimepartners.com
  2. Contact me. Email: david@harvesttimepartners.com (M) 269-370-9275
    David Esposito

The Fortune – Weekend Reflections for Leaders: September 15, 2018

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:

  1. Accept the reality that having a meaningful impact on any endeavor is contained in the follow-up, not in the start.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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:

  1. Download FREE resources at www.harvesttimepartners.com
  2. Contact me. Email: david@harvesttimepartners.com (M) 269-370-9275
    David Esposito