You’ll rarely encounter the words leadership and surrender used together in complementary fashion. Society has labeled surrender as a sign of leadership weakness, when in fact, it can be among the greatest of leadership strengths. Let me be clear, I’m not encouraging giving in or giving up – I am suggesting you learn the ever so subtle art of letting go. A leader simply operates at their best when they understand their ability to influence is much more fruitful than their ability to control. Here’s the thing – the purpose of leadership is not to shine the spotlight on yourself, but to unlock the potential of others so they can in turn shine the spotlight on countless more. Control is about power – not leadership. Surrender allows a leader to get out of their own way and focus on adding value to those whom they serve.

If you’re still not convinced the art of leadership is learning the focus point should be on surrender not control, consider this: control restricts potential, limits initiative, and inhibits talent. Surrender fosters collaboration, encourages innovation and enables possibility. Controlling leaders create bottlenecks rather than increase throughput. They signal a lack of trust and confidence an often come across as insensitive if not arrogant. When you experience weak teams, micro-management, frequent turf wars, high stress, operational strain, and a culture of fear, you are experiencing what control has to offer – not very attractive is it?

Surrender allows the savvy leader to serve where control demands the ego-centric leader be served. Surrender allows leadership to scale and a culture of leadership to be established. Surrender prefers loose collaborative networks over rigid hierarchical structures allowing information to be more readily shared and distributed. Leaders who understand surrender think community, ecosystem, and culture – not org chart. Surrender is what not only allows the dots to be connected, but it’s what allows to dots to be multiplied. Controlling leaders operate in a world of addition and subtraction, while the calculus of a leader who understands surrender is built on exponential multiplication.

I have found those who embrace control are simply attempting to consolidate power, while those who practice surrender are facilitating the distribution of authority. When what you seek is to build into others more than glorifying self you have developed a level of leadership maturity that values surrender over control. Surrender is the mindset which creates the desire for leaders to give credit rather than take it, to prefer hearing over being heard, to dialogue instead of monologue, to have an open mind over a closed mind, to value unlearning as much as learning. Control messages selfishness, while surrender conveys selflessness – which is more important to you?

Keep this in mind – we all surrender, and not all surrender is honorable. Some surrender to their ego, to the wrong priorities, or to other distractive habits. Others surrender to the positive realization they are not the center of the universe – they surrender to something beyond themselves in order to accomplish more for others. Bottom line – what you do or don’t surrender to will define you. Assuming you surrender to the right things, surrender is not a sign of leadership weakness, but is perhaps the ultimate sign of leadership confidence. I’ll leave you with this quote from William Booth: “The greatness of a mans power is the measure of his surrender.”

Thoughts?

Have you ever noticed how the best leaders also tend to be the most curious leaders? Great leaders simply aren’t satisfied with what they know. They possess an insatiable curiosity for discovery and learning – they are in constant pursuit of what they don’t know, and what lies ahead. Real leaders are not nearly as concerned with attainment (stasis) as they are with betterment (change). Since the dawn of time the world has been shaped by leaders who understand that curiosity is the gateway to the future. So my question is this – How curious are you?

Among many other things, curiosity helps frame vision, advances learning, fuels passion, and drives innovation. Curiosity often inspires the courage to discuss the undiscussable, challenge current thinking, deviate from behaviors accepted as normal, and to do what others previously thought impossible. The best leaders understand that usual and customary are not necessarily synonymous with healthy and thriving. The real key to curiosity begins with an open mind – a recognition that those who think differently aren’t inferior, nor are they a threat. An open mind is a sign of confidence which allows leaders to recognize diversity of opinion leads to better thinking and better outcomes.

Here’s where I’m going to throw you a curve ball – while great leaders tend to spend most of their time being externally focused, I want you to turn your curiosity inward and become introspective for a few moments. It was Socrates who said: “The unexamined life is not worth living.” When was the last time you did some serious self-examination on how your curiosity, or the lack thereof, is impacting your ability to function as a leader? Be curious enough to answer the following four questions about yourself:

1. Are you making a difference? Why should anyone be led by you? Great leaders answer this question with their actions on a daily basis. If you’re not making a difference, you’re not leading. If your actions are not directly contributing to the betterment of those you lead, then you need to become curious about how to make some very real and meaningful changes.
2. Are you growing? If you’re not growing as a person and as a leader, then it’s very likely those under your charge are following your lead. I’ve often said it’s impossible for a leader who is not growing to lead a growing organization. Nobody is too busy to learn. In fact, you don’t have the time not to learn. Leaders who don’t value learning will quickly be replaced by those who do.
3. Is your curiosity starting conversations, or your lack thereof shutting them down? If your ego is messaging you have all the answers, and that your way is the only way, then why would anyone ever be inspired to pursue change and innovation? A leader who doesn’t encourage others to challenge their thinking isn’t a leader – they’re a dictator. Dictators suppress individual thought and new ideas, while leaders encourage it at all costs.
4. Is your curiosity attracting talent, or your lack thereof chasing it away? A leader’s ability to seek out and embrace new ideas will serve as a magnet for attracting the best talent. The best talent desires to be a part of a culture that encourages contribution rather than stifling it. If you’re the leader who looks around the organization and asks “why can’t we attract better talent?” it’s because you value a compliant workforce more than a talented workforce. Real leaders don’t care who is right, they care about what is right – never forget this.

Bottom line – don’t settle for what is, use your curiosity to think what if? and seek out what can be. Thoughts? I’m curious…

All leaders measure things – the question is are they measuring the right things, for the right reasons, and at the right times? Complicating matters further is the reality that each industry, sector, vertical, and micro-vertical all have unique business drivers. Moreover, depending on how a business is positioned, where it is in its maturation lifecycle, or what its current financial condition looks like, will dictate which factors may be most important to measure. Here’s the thing – metrics are at best useless, and quite possibly harmful, if the wrong things are being measured. In today’s post I will attempt to provide some general guidelines that will be useful to any business attempting to create and analyze a valid set of success metrics.

While there are virtually endless amounts of financial and non-financial metrics that can be assessed, I believe that most measurements can be broken down into the following 5 categories:

1. Static Historical Measurements;
2. Quantitative Return Measurements;
3. Qualitative Return Measurements;
4. Quantitative Performance Measurements, and;
5. Qualitative Performance Measurements.

It has been my experience that most businesses at least attempt to measure items 1 and 4, but often times fail to measure the other 3 categories, which also happen to be the most meaningful measurements. The best managed companies measure all 5 categories (as well as various subsets) with their focus being on items 3 and 5.

Let’s begin by stating what should be the obvious – all businesses need to monitor the basic static financial measurements of revenue, expenses, break-even, earnings and cash flow. While analyzing these drivers will give you some basic operating information, they are also somewhat myopic. The reason I say this is while historical analysis is important, it is taking the next step of using these historical measurements as baselines to calculate forward looking return drivers that will help you fine tune your business. While the following overview is not by any means exhaustive, it provides a great jumping-off point to fuel productive thought and conversation.

Quantitative Return Drivers:
Metrics such as Return on Assets (ROA), Return on Equity (ROE), Return on Investment (ROI), Return on Cash (cash-on-cash), and Return on Human Capital (ROHC) will give you more useful information than the static calculations mentioned above. The great thing about return analysis is that each area can be broken down into several more refined qualitative return calculations.

Qualitative Return Drivers:
A great example of qualitative return analysis would be contribution margin (CM), which is a qualitative measure of individual performance on profit. Another example would be Return on Innovation which would be the qualitative measure of the impact on new initiatives (see “Measuring Innovation“). These types of qualitative return drivers allow you to make forward looking investment decisions that can have immediate impact to the business.

Quantitative Performance Drivers:
Measurements in this category would be items like revenue hurdles, billable time, utilization, production hurdles and service levels. These are the metrics of how an organization performs against its benchmarks.

Qualitative Performance Drivers:
Measurements in this category are where an organization truly becomes productive with analytics. These sets of metrics focus on the measurements surrounding things that develop talent, create engagement, build teams, manage the customer experience, improve customer satisfaction and increase brand equity. Getting to the qualitative level of performance measurement is difficult in that it is often necessary to overcome a set of traditional leadership behaviors and beliefs.

Ask yourself this question…do you measure the metrics that are critically important, or just the ones that are obvious and easy to measure? If company leadership can make the attitudinal adjustments necessary to create accountability and focus on qualitative performance metrics, they will find it’s these measurements that help to catalyze growth, enable execution and create dynamic organizations.

Thoughts? I’d also be interested in hearing from you with regard to any measurements/metrics which have been particularly beneficial to you.

Those of you who frequent this blog know that I’m not a huge fan of either/or propositions. In most, if not all cases, decisions that are made on this basis simply constitute a lack of depth and understanding. This particularly holds true as it applies to the topic of  innovation methodology. Most innovators view innovation from one of two perspectives: those who believe disruptive innovation is superior to incremental innovation, and those who take the opposite side of the argument.  In today’s post I’ll share innovations best kept secret - a different argument altogether.

I want to begin by making the argument for incremental innovation.  It is faster, easier and cheaper to refine something than it is to create it. Let’s face it, not all oceans are blue. Even if you find a blue ocean to sail in, there is a lack of certainty as to whether you’ll navigate it successfully, and even if you do, as to how long you’ll remain the only ship in the ocean. I think most rational people have concluded it is much more profitable to disintermediate a market than it is to build one from scratch.

The main reason attempts at disruptive innovation fail more often, and don’t happen with more frequency and velocity is that human nature is to make things harder than needed by looking in the wrong places for disruptive opportunities. The real trick, the secret sauce if you will, is to focus on incremental innovation that becomes disruptive. Don’t think incremental vs. disruptive – think incremental and disruptive. This is the option that allows innovators to have their cake and eat it too. This is what levels the field by bringing disruptive opportunities in reach of companies that don’t have the time or resources to create new markets.

Let me be as clear as I can - disruptive innovation isn’t limited to a sole focus on creation of something new. Disruption can occur by disintermediating, refining, re-engineering or optimizing a product/service, role/function/practice, category, market, sector, or industry. The most successful companies combine disruptive thinking with incremental approaches in order to manage risk, gain time to market advantages, add value to core initiatives, and to leverage built-in efficiencies and economies of scale.

The problem with most incremental approaches to innovation is that companies don’t think big enough. Most incremental approaches more closely resemble process engineering/automation efforts with a focus on cost reduction through gaining efficiency, not on revenue creation by causing disruption. Removing self-imposed restrictions on thinking will result in opening up more opportunities to innovate around.

The good news is this: there’s an easy fix to this antiquated way of thinking which is currently crippling the innovation efforts of many companies, and it’s found by adhering to the following 6 step process:

1. Define: The first thing that needs to happen is to define what constitutes disruption. Set a standard and then stick to it. I’m not suggesting that any initiative not meeting the definition by halted, but I am suggesting that you don’t fool yourself and label something as disruptive when it is clearly not.
2. Identify: Now that you’ve defined what types of projects you’re looking for, aggressively begin pursuing projects that meet the standards.
3. Assess: Once a potential project has been identified, put it under intense scrutiny and understand what you’re dealing with before you pull the trigger. Based upon the standards that were set in the definition phase create a scoring/ranking system based on key metrics and prioritize initiatives accordingly.
4. Plan: Be strategic. Great outcomes rarely occur when initiatives are under-resourced and/or poorly led. Deploy your best resources against your greatest opportunities. Make sure you set projects up for success rather than failure.
5. Implement: Get tactical. The best strategies will end-up facing certain failure unless planning transitions into practice. Without prudent, decisive, consistent and productive forward progress, plans aren’t worth the paper they’re written on. Planning without implementation is an exercise in frivolity.
6. Monitor: Everything in business, including the best laid plans, are subject to changes in circumstances and market conditions. Put simply, static plans are bad plans. Make sure that all efforts are measured against milestones, benchmarks, deadlines, budgets, etc. If the plan needs to be nuanced in order to achieve success, then have the flexibility engineered into your plan to allow for such changes.

As always, I welcome your thoughts and opinions in the comments section below…

To restructure or not to restructure? That is the question many a business is forced to ask at some point during their life cycle. The mere discussion of corporate reengineering can cause fear, anxiety, and in some cases even panic. This is so much the case that some CEOs will avoid restructuring initiatives at all costs. There are even some business theorists that warn against undertaking complex restructurings because of the great risks involved. My question is this; since when have fear and avoidance become prerequisites for success as a CEO? Give me real leaders who possess courage, vision, and a bias toward action, and spare me the timidity of mediocre managers posing as leaders. In today’s post I’ll examine the benefits of, and the need for corporate reengineering…

In an earlier post entitled Leadership Is About Breaking Things, I stressed the need to shatter anything that embraces the status quo. Anybody could be a CEO if business were a static proposition. If change and innovation weren’t key contributors to sustainable success, and the enterprise could just run on auto-pilot, you could replace the CEO with a General Manager. The fact is business is not a static endeavor. Quite to the contrary; there are few things that require as much fluidity as effectively growing revenue, increasing profit and driving brand equity. In fact, I would go so far as to say that CEOs who are not consistently reengineering elements of their business fall into one of the following two camps; 1) They have a perfect business, or; 2) They are an ineffective CEO.

What do great CEOs do when the business model, the strategic plan, and the revenue hurdles don’t seem to be in alignment? They make changes. They don’t sit idly by and watch the business lose market share, suffer margin erosion, see their competitive value propositions vaporize, or watch their brand go into decline. Great CEOs are willing to make the tough decisions…that’s what they’re paid for. Facing reality, and being able to make what are often times very painful organizational/structural decisions are the hallmarks of great CEOs. With less than 60 days before we enter 2012, I want you to do a gut-check: who and what are not going to be part of your business next year? And who and what need to be added to your business next year?

In an attempt to avoid confusion as to what I’m speaking about, I put together the following definition of corporate reengineering: “Corporate Reengineering is leadership recognizing, taking ownership over, and acting to correct strategic or tactical business flaws, and/or to realign elements of the enterprise with current or anticipated changes in market conditions consistent with the corporate vision.” This isn’t rocket science, rather it’s just plain-old, good leadership. It is actually the fiduciary obligation of a CEO to make the needed changes to protect shareholder value.

So why is it that so many CEOs shirk their responsibility, stick their heads in the sand, and avoid making necessary changes? It is my experience they either lack the personal skill sets, or haven’t built the right executive team to lead change, they just don’t recognize the need for change, or they just don’t care. The good news is there is a cure for all four of the preceding problems: Items one through three can be solved with an emphasis on leadership development and talent management, and item four can be solved by holding the board of directors accountable for CEO performance and firing an apathetic CEO. Following are six representative tips that will help you recognize the need for a reengineering initiative:

1. Unusual declines in revenue, margin, market-share, customer loyalty, or brand equity.
2. Even if the above areas are not yet in decline, but you are witnessing unusually slow growth or zero growth you still have a problem.
3. The inability to recruit or retain tier-one talent.
4. Current or anticipated changes in market conditions that will adversely impact your business model.
5. Obsolescence of intellectual property, products, services, solutions, or competitive value propositions.
6. Perhaps the greatest reason to reengineer is to exploit an opportunity. Windows of great opportunity are not static, and won’t stay open in perpetuity. If you’re not organized properly to exploit the right opportunity it will pass you by.

The bottom line is this…Bleeding is not a healthy thing. Whether you’re experiencing a slow bleed or you’re hemorrhaging, both instances can be fatal without treatment. If your company is in products, services, or businesses that you wouldn’t enter into if you weren’t in that particular arena today – GET OUT! Stop the bleeding, and reinvest your financial and non-financial resources into more profitable endeavors. I don’t believe corporate reengineering to be evil, but even if it is, it is a necessary evil…Thoughts?

When it comes to leadership, I can share the issues of creating and delivering on expectations are no small matter. In fact, understanding how to come out on the right-side of the expectation curve can often be the difference between being viewed as an average leader and one held in high regard. Let me make this as simple as I can; managing expectations is gamesmanship – aligning them is leadership. Moving the goal posts by arbitrarily raising and lowering expectations creates confusion, and is often an intellectually dishonest exercise. Aligning expectations doesn’t need to be difficult – set them, align them, stick to them, and execute on them.

Conflicts, disagreements, disputes, and litigation are often born out of expectation gaps. The thing leaders need to keep in mind is expectations cut both ways. Keeping what you perceive as being your end of the bargain is only half of the equation, as what you think only matters if it’s in alignment with the understanding of the other party. We have all found ourselves in the unenviable position of assigning work product only to end-up with the deliverable falling far short of expectations, while having the producer of said work product thinking they exceeded all expectations. I’ve often said, those leaders who fail to clearly communicate their expectations have no right to them.

Nothing engenders confidence and creates a trust bond like delivering on promises made, and likewise, few things erode confidence and credibility like commitments not kept. Leaders who deliver on promises quickly rise to the top, and those that fail to develop this skill won’t survive long.  The best leaders make a practice of saying what they mean, meaning what they say, and doing what they say they’ll do.

The science of aligning expectations is about systematically connecting what is said with what is done. The art of aligning expectations is about closing, or better yet, eliminating the expectation gap. Blend the art and science together and you have the framework for what is becoming the differentiating factor in performance based decisioning. Several years ago I created the Venn diagram depicted below to explain the confluence of factors that need to occur in order to close the expectation gap:

Expectations exist throughout the entire value chain, with every stakeholder needing and deserving to have their expectations understood and met (hopefully exceeded). Whether it is addressing customer expectations, shareholder or analyst expectations, or the inverse situation of employees having to deal with the expectations of executives, it is the ability to excel at decisioning based upon setting, aligning and executing expectations that creates high performance organizations.

Promises made and consistently kept based upon solid reasoning and underlying business logic, will help to create a solid brand attracting loyal customers and talented employees. The following three practices will help create an organization that delivers on its commitments:

1. Collaborate early and often: Decisioning in a vacuum, or without all the facts, will place you in a deficit from the beginning. It is at best extremely difficult to align expectations and deliver on commitments made if you don’t have clear visibility as to what is wanted or needed. Before making promises or commitments collaborate with all concerned parties to ensure that expectations are understood.
2. Resist making verbal commitments: Most misunderstandings occur as a result of improper interpretation of oral communications. Most broken commitments result from impulsive verbal promises made before all the details were sorted out. Once you have gained clarity as to the perceived need to be fulfilled, place your understanding of the deliverables in writing by outlining key business points and circulate the document for review and comments. Where possible resist formalizing agreements, proposals, or other commitments until you have alignment on key expectations and deliverables.
3. Treat promises like projects: Build a culture that breaks down all commitments into deliverables, benchmarks and deadlines. Allocate resources, budget and staff while delivering the commitment within a framework of measured accountability. Treating all commitments and promises as formal projects will help manage performance risk and will also create continuity of process and delivery.

Performance focused decisioning based upon principles of expectation alignment will lead to a certainty of execution that should translate into one of your company’s greatest competitive advantages. Top CEOs recognize that they can promise and deliver, under-promise and over-deliver, or even over-promise and deliver…they just don’t dare over-promise and under-deliver. Thoughts?

Order isn’t all it’s cracked-up to be. In fact, I’d go so far as to say routine is the great enemy of leaders. Conformity to the norm does little more than pour the foundation of obsolescence by creating an environment that shuns change rather than embraces it. Disruption is never found by maintaining the status quo, but it’s most commonly revealed in the chaos that occurs by shattering the status quo. Smart leaders don’t think “best” practices – they focus their attention on discovering “next” practices. The simple fact of the matter is too many leaders are concerned with fixing things, when what they should be doing is breaking things.

The principles outlined in the opening paragraph apply to every facet of business, but nowhere do they create more impact than when applied to leadership itself. You see, leadership development and succession are only positive practices if they’re applied to those worthy of the investment. Do you ever wonder how businesses can fall from the pinnacle of success to the depths of stagnation in only a few short years? One of the main contributors to corporate stagnation and decline is keeping the wrong leaders in place for the wrong reasons. My premise is a simple one – because the marketplace is ever changing, corporate leadership must adapt and change with the times in order to survive. Leaders who are not growing simply don’t have the capability to lead a growing organization.

The point I ask you to ponder is this: Leadership teams often espouse the need for change and innovation, but rarely apply this thinking to themselves – why? Ego, pride, arrogance, fear, or just being out of touch with reality can cause major blind spots. Leadership is not a right of entitlement, but rather a privilege that must be earned. Leaders who view themselves as a protected class are leaders not living-up to their obligations and responsibilities. Leadership teams on autopilot, while they may be adept at maintaining course, will rarely soar to new heights. If you take one thing away from today’s message it should be this: the most costly legacy system a company can maintain is poor leadership.

A lack of fluidity, development or contextual savvy can cripple even category dominant brands. Case in point – I recall reading an interview with Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of GE in which he touted the fact that his top 175 executives have been with the company an average of 21 years. While Mr. Immelt may actually believe this is a good thing, I would submit it is far from a foregone conclusion. Creating a fraternity does not constitute great leadership. It is simply not possible that all 175 of these executives have been the best people for their respective positions for the last two decades. A cursory examination of GE’s stock performance over the last decade would tend to support my logic.

Need to reinvigorate a stale enterprise? Try changing the corporate landscape by shifting existing roles and responsibilities, or by bringing in fresh talent from the outside. If you want to drive innovation, lead change, and create growth, stir the pot – go break something. It has been my consistent experience that when longevity of leadership is brandished as a badge of honor, it is usually just the opposite. The length of someone’s tenure is not nearly as important as whether they are the best person for the job. Smart companies realize that if someone is performing below expectations, they need to be coached to productivity or replaced – there is no third option if a healthy organization matters to you.

Static organizations tend to embrace comfort zones, and are often built upon the “DITWLY” (Did It That Way Last Year) principle. This attitude precludes the advancement of change initiatives and cripples innovation. Albert Einstein said it best when he noted “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result each time.” Be the leader who is never satisfied with what is – be the leader who is focused on what if? Savvy leaders understand “fixing” something creates a false sense of completion, whereas “breaking” something creates a vision for a new beginning.

I’m asking you to consider breaking the existing leadership paradigms within your organization. Find a few sacred cows and lead them to slaughter. Examine what you measure and why you measure it. Look at how decisions are made and who is allowed to make them. Inject youth where none presently exists. Replace the office squatters (those who have mentally quit, but failed to physically leave). Don’t reward static thinking, encourage dissenting opinion and diversity of thought. Go break something.

The bottom line is this…Great leaders constantly challenge the present in order to find the path to the future. They challenge themselves, and they encourage others to challenge them as well. Leadership isn’t about being right, it’s about achieving the right outcome. Don’t agonize over this, and don’t ask permission; go break something. Meritocracy or Mediocrity – the choice is yours…

Thoughts?

I had a long conversation yesterday with a friend discussing creativity, ideas, innovation, branding and the like. As a result of our conversation, I decided to dust-off an old post, give it a few updates, and pass along my thoughts, which can be best summarized as “Ideas Don’t Equal Innovation.“ It is my hope to help dispel the myth that ideas are inherently good things. Let me state right from the outset that I place little value on ideas. Not only do raw ideas have little intrinsic value, but they are often very costly. While I stipulate to the fact that ideas can sometimes lead to great things, I also submit that it is more frequently the case that ideas lead to disappointment, and even outright disaster. Those of you familiar with my work are probably wondering if it is really me authoring this text…if you’re baffled at how a champion of innovation can simultaneously be an idea-basher, I urge you to read on, and I promise the congruity will become apparent.

I want to start by actually defining what an idea is, and is not. Ideas do not constitute a philosophy, principle, or strategy. An idea is not synonymous with a competitive advantage, an idea is not necessarily a sign of creativity, an idea does not constitute innovation, and as much as some people wish it was so, an idea is certainly not a business. To the chagrin of many reading this post, ideas in and of themselves are nothing more than unrefined, random thoughts. Ideas on their own accord are really quite useless. The truth can often times be harsh and difficult to hear, but it is nonetheless the truth.

Ideas are a dime a dozen…take a moment and reflect on all the ideas you’ve spawned over the years, or the many ideas that have been birthed by your friends, family, and professional associates and you’ll quickly see that most of them never got lift-off. The problem is that most ideas never get implemented, and moreover even the best ideas when improperly implemented can cause great harm. You see, while creativity is a clearly a valuable asset, unbridled creativity where random, disparate ideas abound outside of a sound decisioning and execution framework will create distraction and chaos much more often than they will lead to innovation. The difference between an idea and innovation is execution – don’t be the “idea” person, be the innovator.

In fact, it is most often the organizations that demonstrate a “heard mentality” when rushing to adopt the latest ideas that are the farthest thing away from being innovative. The net result of being a late stage trend follower is that you will likely experience little more than yet another in a long line of great adventures that ended in frustration due to the time wasted and the investment squandered.  The reality is that many businesses are quick to recognize great ideas, but they often have no plan for how to successfully integrate them into their business model.

My advice to you is not to let your business get caught up in embracing random ideas – at least not without some initial analysis being conducted to determine the likelihood of success. Failed initiatives are costly at several levels. Aside from being costly, a flawed execution can cast doubt on management credibility, have a negative impact on morale, taint the brand, adversely affect external relationships, and cause a variety of other problems for your business.

Every sound business initiative begins with a solid strategic plan. However while most anyone can cobble together a high level strategic plan, very few can author a strategy that can be successfully implemented. In order for your enterprise to turn an idea into a monetizing and/or value creating event you should develop a strategic plan that attempts to measure the idea against the following 15 elements:

1. Framework: The idea should be generated within a solid framework for decisioning. It should be developed as a solution to a problem or to exploit an opportunity. The idea should be in alignment with the overall vision and mission of the enterprise.

2. Advantage: If the idea doesn’t provide a unique competitive advantage it should at least bring you closer to an even playing field. That said, the best initiatives don’t level the field, they tilt the field in your favor.

3. Alignment: Any new idea should preferably add value to existing initiatives, and if not, it should show a significant enough return on investment to justify the dilutive effect of not keeping the main thing the main thing.

4. Assess: Put the idea through a risk/reward and cost/benefit analysis.

5. Simple: Whether the new idea is intended for your organization, vendors, suppliers, partners or customers it must easy to use. Usability drives adoptability, and therefore it pays to keep things simple.

6. Validate: Just because an idea sounds good doesn’t mean it is, and just because you can doesn’t mean you should. You should endeavor to validate proof of concept based upon detailed, credible research.

7. Contingency: Nothing is without risk, and when you think something is without risk, that is when you’re most likely to end-up in trouble. All initiatives surrounding new ideas should include detailed risk management provisions.

8. Realistic: Adopting a new idea should be based upon solid business logic that drives corresponding financial engineering and modeling.  New projects alway take longer and cost more than originally planned.  Be careful of high level, pie-in-the-sky projections.

9. Accountability: Any new ideas should contain accountability provisions. Every task should be assigned and managed according to a plan, and all of this should occur in the light of day.

10. Measurable: Any new ideas being adopted must lead to measurable objectives. Deliverables, benchmarks, deadlines, and success metrics must be incorporated into the plan.

11. Timing: It must be detailed and deliverable on a schedule. The initiative should have a beginning, middle and end.

12. Integrated: Ideas need to be incorporated into strategic initiatives and not constitute disparate systems. They should be incorporated into integrated solutions that eliminate redundancies, and build in tactical leverage points.

13. Evolving: Ideas should contain a road-map for versioning and evolution that is in alignment with other strategic initiatives and the overall corporate mission. No road map signals an incomplete idea and will also likely equal quick obsolescence.

14. Actionable: A successful idea cannot remain in a strategic planning state. It must be actionable through tactical implementation.

15. Champion: Senior leadership must champion any new idea being adopted. If someone at the C-suite level is against the new idea, it will likely die on the cutting-room floor.

The bottom line is that new ideas are beautiful things when they become solutions or lead to opportunities. Properly implemented, capitalizing on process driven creativity can keep business from stagnating and cause growth and evolution. Just follow the 15 rules above and avoid being the misguided change agent for solely for the sake of change. Thoughts?

At one time or another all great leaders experience something that is so big, so impactful, that it literally changes the landscape. It’s what I call a “Game Changer.” A game changer is that ah-ha moment that creates an extreme, disruptive advantage or improvement. What’s interesting is that the best leaders proactively focus on looking for game changers. Sure, great leaders never lose sight of their core business, they pay attention to managing risk, etc., but they expend far more energy intentionally searching for opportunity, but not just any opportunity – a game changer. In the text that follows I’ll not only provide you with a blue print for finding game changers, but I’ll also ask you to share your experiences and insights as well. I hope this post is a game changer for you…

As most of you know, I spent last week at the World Business Forum in New York. I listened to esteemed business school professors, two Nobel laureates, bestselling authors, and some of the world’s most successful CEOs. These were all people who have personally experienced game changers, and some have experienced them many times over.

While there were clearly a few moments last week that I found instructionally valuable in terms of creating a game changer (Nando Parrado), there weren’t nearly enough of them. There was far too much rehashing of old ideas spun as new. A game changer doesn’t maintain the status quo, it shatters it. It was this taste of disappointment that led me to share my personal process for finding and implementing game changers – I call it SMARTS(C) (Simple-Meaningful-Actionable-Relational-Transformational-Scalable).

Simple – While not all game changers are simple, the best ones usually are.  In most cases simple can be translated as realistic, cost effective, quick to adopt, and fast to implement. Don’t get entangled in complexities, get heavily invested in simplicity. 

Meaningful – It must add significant value to your core business, and if it doesn’t add to the core business it better add even more value. Here’s the thing…most leaders get sucked down into the weeds and they spend too much of their valuable time majoring in the minors. If it’s not really meaningful, it’s not a game changer so why do it? Focus on value creation.

Actionable – It’s not a game changer if whatever “it” is never gets off the drawing board. If you cannot turn an idea into innovation, if you can’t put thought into practice, it’s not a game changer. By definition game changers happen, they exist, they have life. They don’t lurk in the shadow-lands of the ethereal and esoteric, they become reality.   

Relational –  I have found that game changers enhance, extend, and leverage existing relationships as well as serve to create new ones. When you get down to brass tacks, all business boils down to people (employees, customers, partners, investors, vendors, etc.), and people mean relationships. Real game changers understand the power of people and relationships, and they embody this in both their construction and implementation. If you forget the people, you cannot have a game changer.  

Transformational – I have yet to see a static game changer. By definition, a game changer causes change. If nothing changes, if nothing is created, if nothing is improved, if nothing is transformed, then you don’t have a game changer. A lesson that I learned long ago is that you simply cannot experience sustainable improvement without transformation.

Scalable – if it’s not scalable it’s not a game changer. An idea that offers no hope of a future will more often than not turn into a nightmare rather than fulfill a dream.  True game changers are built with velocity and sustainability in mind. The best thing about real games changers is that they build upon themselves to catalyze other accretive opportunities.

So there you have it, now that I’ve shared my thoughts on creating game changers, my SMARTS if you will, it’s your turn to share. Share an ah-ha moment, an experience, a process, but share…This post can be a game changer to many people if those who read it are willing to share their collective wisdom. Go…

First the bad news: If you’re not willing to embrace change you’re not ready to lead. Put simply, leadership is not a static endeavor. In fact, leadership demands fluidity, which requires the willingness to recognize the need for change, and finally the ability to lead change. Now the good news: As much as some people want to create complexity around the topic of leading change for personal gain, the reality is that creating, managing and leading change is really quite simple.  To prove my point, I’ll not only explain the entire change life-cycle in three short paragraphs, but I’ll do it in simple terms that anyone can understand. As a bonus I’ll also give you 10 items to assess in evaluating whether the change you’re considering is value added, or just change for the sake of change…

An Overview on the Importance of Change:
While there is little debate that the successful implementation of change can create an extreme competitive advantage, it is not well understood that the lack of doing so can send a company (or an individual’s career) into a death spiral. Companies that seek out and embrace change are healthy, growing, and dynamic organizations, while companies that fear change are stagnant entities on their way to a slow and painful death.

Agility, innovation, disruption, fluidity, decisiveness, commitment, and above all else a bias toward action will lead to the creation of change. It is the implementation of change which results in evolving, growing and thriving companies. Much has been written about the importance of change, but there is very little information in circulation about how to actually create it.

While most executives and entrepreneurs have come to accept the concept of change management as a legitimate business practice, and change leadership as a legitimate executive priority in theory, I have found very few organizations that have effectively integrated change as a core discipline and focus area in reality.  As promised, and without further ado, the change life-cycle in three easy steps:

1. Identifying the Need for Change: The need for change exists in every organization. Other than irrational change solely for the sake of change, every corporation must change to survive. If your entity doesn’t innovate and change in accordance with market driven needs and demands it will fail…it’s just that simple. The most complex area surrounding change is focusing your efforts in the right areas, for the right reasons, and at the right times. The ambiguity and risk can be taken out of the change agenda by simply focusing on three areas: 1) your current customers…what needs to change to better serve your customers? 2) potential customers…what needs to change to profitably create new customers? and; 3) your talent and resources…what changes need to occur to better leverage existing talent and resources?

2. Leading Change: You cannot effectively lead change without understanding the landscape of change. There are four typical responses to change: The Victim…those that view change as a personal attack on their persona, their role, their job, or their area of responsibility. They view everything at an atomic level based upon how they perceive change will directly and indirectly impact them. The Neutral Bystander…This group is neither for nor against change. They will not directly or vocally oppose change, nor will they proactively get behind change. The Neutral Bystander will just go with the flow not wanting to make any waves, and thus hoping to perpetually fly under the radar. The Critic…The Critic opposes any and all change. Keep in mind that not all critics are overt in their resistance. Many critics remain in stealth mode trying to derail change behind the scenes by using their influence on others. Whether overt or covert, you must identify critics of change early in the process if you hope to succeed. The Advocate…The Advocate not only embraces change, they will evangelize the change initiative. Like The Critics, it is important to identify The Advocates early in the process to not only build the power base for change, but to give momentum and enthusiasm to the change initiative. Once you’ve identified these change constituencies you must involve all of them, message properly to each of them, and don’t let up. With the proper messaging and involvement even adversaries can be converted into allies.

3. Managing Change: Managing change requires that key players have control over 4 critical elements: 1) Vision Alignment…those that understand and agree with your vision must be leveraged in the change process. Those that disagree must be converted or have their influence neutralized; 2) Responsibility…your change agents must have a sufficient level of responsibility to achieve the necessary results; 3) Accountability…your change agents must be accountable for reaching their objectives, and; 4) Authority…if the first three items are in place, yet your change agents have not been given the needed authority to get the job done the first three items won’t mean much…you must set your change agents up for success and not failure by giving them the proper tools, talent, resources, responsibility and authority necessary for finishing the race.

There you have it; the 3 pillars of change in three short paragraphs. Now that you understand change, here’s are the 10 points that need validating prior to launching a change initiative:

1. Alignment and Buy-in: The change being considered should be in alignment with the overall values, vision and mission of the enterprise. Senior leadership must champion any new initiative. If someone at the C-suite level is against the new initiative it will likely die a slow and painful death.
2. Advantage:  If the initiative doesn’t provide a unique competitive advantage it should at least bring you closer to an even playing field.
3. Value Add: Any new project should preferably add value to existing initiatives, and if not, it should show a significant enough return on investment to justify the dilutive effect of not keeping the main thing the main thing.
4. Due Diligence: Just because an idea sounds good doesn’t mean it is. You should endeavor to validate proof of concept based upon detailed, credible research. Do your homework – put the change initiative through a rigorous set of risk/reward and cost/benefit analyses. Forget this step and you won’t be able to find a rock big enough to hide under.
5. Ease of Use:  Whether the new initiative is intended for your organization, vendors, suppliers, partners or customers it must be simple and easy. Usability drives adoptability, and therefore it pays to keep things simple. Don’t make the mistake of confusing complexity with sophistication.
6. Identify the Risks: Nothing is without risk, and when you think something is without risk that is when you’re most likely to end-up in trouble. All initiatives should include detailed risk management provisions that contain sound contingency and exit planning.
7. Measurement: Any change initiative should be based upon solid business logic that drives corresponding financial engineering and modeling. Be careful of high level, pie-in-the-sky projections. The change being adopted must be measurable. Deliverables, benchmarks, deadlines, and success metrics must be incorporated into the plan.
8. The Project: Many companies treat change as some ethereal form of management hocus pocus that will occur by osmosis. A change initiative must be treated as a project. It must be detailed and deliverable on a schedule. The initiative should have a beginning, middle and end.
9. Accountability: Any new initiative should contain accountability provisions. Every task should be assigned and managed according to a plan and in the light of day.
10. Actionable: A successful initiative cannot remain in a strategic planning state. It must be actionable through focused tactical implementation. If the change initiative being contemplated is good enough to get through the other 9 steps, then it’s good enough to execute.

Has this been useful? Have I left anything out, or got anything wrong? Sound-off in the comments below…