The post To Restructure or Not to Restructure? Why Bold Leadership Requires Decisive Action appeared first on N2Growth.
]]>Every business faces a pivotal moment when confronting the question: Should we restructure? The mere mention of corporate reengineering often triggers fear, anxiety, and even panic. This fear is so pervasive that some CEOs avoid restructuring initiatives at all costs. There are business theorists who caution against complex reorganizations due to the inherent risks. But since when did fear and avoidance become hallmarks of a successful CEO? Real leaders demonstrate courage, vision, and a bias for action. In today’s article, we explore the benefits and necessity of corporate reengineering.
In a previous post, Leadership Is About Breaking Things, I emphasized the need to relentlessly challenge the status quo. Running a business isn’t a static endeavor; it requires constant adaptation and innovation. If change and innovation weren’t essential for sustainable success, a company could be managed on autopilot by a general manager. But the reality is that few things demand as much fluidity as growing revenue, increasing profits, and building brand equity.
When a business model, strategic plan, and revenue goals misalign, what do exceptional CEOs do? They act. They don’t sit idly by while the business loses market share, margins erode, or brand value declines. Great CEOs are decisive; they make the tough decisions they are paid to make. Confronting reality and making often painful structural changes are the hallmarks of effective leadership.
As the year draws to a close, ask yourself: Who and what won’t be part of your business next year? And who and what needs to be added to drive future success?
To clarify, here is a working definition: “Corporate Reengineering is when leadership identifies, takes ownership of, and acts to correct strategic or tactical flaws or realigns elements of the enterprise to adapt to current or anticipated market changes consistent with the corporate vision.”
This isn’t complex; it’s just sound leadership. In fact, it’s a CEO’s fiduciary duty to make necessary changes to protect and enhance shareholder value.
Why do many CEOs avoid making necessary changes? Often, it comes down to a lack of skills, an inadequate executive team, a failure to recognize the need for change, or sheer indifference. Fortunately, each of these problems has a solution: leadership development and talent management can address the first three issues while holding the board accountable can remedy the fourth by replacing an apathetic CEO.
Bleeding—whether slow or rapid—can be fatal for a business if left untreated. If your company is involved in products, services, or markets you wouldn’t choose today, it’s time to exit. Stop the losses and reinvest resources into more profitable areas. Corporate reengineering is not an evil; it is a necessary strategic move for business survival and growth.
What are your thoughts? Are you prepared to make the tough calls and lead your business to a stronger future?
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]]>The post Executive Level Hires appeared first on N2Growth.
]]>We’ve all experienced the let down associated with someone who slipped through the cracks of the interview process and turned out to be everything except what they represented themselves to be. The reality is that most candidates interviewing for executive-level positions will have strong resumes and will handle themselves well in predictable interviewing situations. This is why it is essential to put potential C-level hires through a much more demanding interview process than management and staff level hires.
Candidates that can pass the rigor of non-traditional interviews with flying colors are likely to become valuable members of your executive team that will thrive on the demands of real-world business challenges. Lastly, remember to hire slow and fire fast…This is even more important with executive-level hires.
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]]>The post Memorial Day Should Make Us All Better Leaders appeared first on N2Growth.
]]>While this weekend simply signifies a long-awaited prelude to summer for some, it is much more than that for others. As a veteran and lifelong student of leadership, I have always found Memorial Day weekend to be one of the most meaningful and significant of all holidays. In the text below I’ll share why I believe all business executives can learn valuable leadership lessons from those in uniform.
Memorial Day not only provides a great opportunity for introspective reflection, but the stories of what constitutes great leadership surrounding this holiday are frankly too numerous to count. The more I reflect on the courage and heroism of our military and those on the front lines helping defeat this virus (past and present), the more I realize the same characteristics present in the heart of a warrior are nothing short of a blueprint for success with respect to the leadership traits that should also be present in our business leaders.
There is nothing more special than someone who gives of themselves for others, and nowhere is this more evident than with those who serve in the military. There is also a no better example of leadership than what you witness taking place as a matter of routine on medical and military installations in areas of operation around the globe. Of course, there are notable exceptions, but they, in fact, do remain the exception and not the rule.
While it is clearly not necessary for an executive to have this experience to be an effective leader, I would submit that today’s business leaders would do well to possess the characteristics of a warrior in their pursuit to become better leaders and to build better organizations. Commitment, passion, attention to detail, discipline, service above self, honor, integrity, perseverance, compassion, the ability to both lead and follow, to execute with precision, and the ability to adapt, improvise, and overcome are representative traits possessed by successful military leaders. From personal experience, I can absolutely guarantee you that these same traits will serve you well as a business leader.
The characteristics mentioned above will allow you to inspire and lead with a focus and commitment not present in the DNA of those leaders who don’t possess a warrior’s heart. It is the ability to stay mentally focused on achieving the mission at hand, regardless of circumstances, that will help you take your organization to that next level.
While the following may not be politically correct, I believe it nonetheless represents the truth – it also takes guts to be a leader. Our military represents our nation’s best – they are motivated, committed, passionate, honorable individuals with a clear sense of duty, and who hold in high regard the principle of service above self.
Let’s face it, it takes a unique individual to knowingly and willingly walk toward a life-threatening situation placing his/her life at risk in order that other lives may be saved. Our military and medical staff embody the character, sense of duty, commitment, and the values our nation was built upon. How many of you would choose to make an uncompromising stand on your principles and values if you knew the outcome would result in certain death?
Examine the most successful business leaders and you’ll find they possess this same zeal – they don’t see their leadership role as just a job, but rather, they view it as a passion; a calling if you will. Moreover, it is those leaders who receive the negative press, those leaders who just can’t seem to get the job done who universally seem to be void in some or all of the aforementioned traits.
There are many so-called management gurus in today’s politically correct world who would take great exception to what I’m putting forth in this piece. They would tell you that the classic strong leadership traits that define our nation’s best military leaders are outdated and they don’t display a proper amount of empathy and compassion. They could not be more wrong – strength and compassion are not mutually exclusive terms.
The strongest leaders are in fact the most compassionate leaders. Examine any great leader and their troops sleep before they do, eat before they do, and they are cared for before they are. A leader’s greatest responsibility is not for his/her own glory, but it is for the well being of those whose care has been entrusted to them. While not all great business leaders have served, those of you who have worked to develop the leadership traits mentioned above understand the advantages you derive from having a resilient leadership state of mind.
I strongly recommend to all business leaders they learn to develop a command presence and lead from a committed and passionate position of strength through service. For those of you who don’t know, the word “passion” comes from a Latin root, which means quite literally to suffer. If you’re passionate about something it means you care so much that it hurts – it means you’re willing to suffer greatly to advance your cause.
Refusing to surrender, having the ability to make the tough decision, the needed sacrifice, and the focus to place fiduciary obligations above your self-interest will allow your company to continue taking ground and will keep the competitive advantage on the side of your enterprise. Remember that the world does not revolve around you, but rather what you can do for others through the privileges afforded to you by nature of your role as a leader.
Please leave a comment below and thank someone for their service or their support of those who have served.
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]]>The post CEO Marketing Priorities appeared first on N2Growth.
]]>CEOs who have a focused, crisp, creative, and clear message, and who understand how to best communicate that message, will navigate the pandemic better than their less-skilled peers.
As always, we welcome your thoughts. Stay safe out there.
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]]>It is an astute person who studies history and applies the lessons learned to their present-day life as a method for preventing the completely avoidable mistakes that plague many. I hope that these brief examinations into the lives of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln will help you become a better and more effective leader.
If I were to take a casual poll asking readers to name our two greatest Presidents it would not shock me at all if Washington and Lincoln would show very well among their peers. However, what I find so interesting in comparing and contrasting these two great men is that while they were both men of staunch character, willing to do the right thing regardless of opposition or public opinion, they were also men who rose to their place in history by taking very different paths.
Washington was seemingly blessed with success at every turn, while Lincoln failed much more often than he succeeded during his lifetime. Even during Washington’s early years where he was often considered to be brash and impetuous, he was nonetheless considered a bright light and incredibly successful for his age. He was always seeking out positions of leadership and responsibility and was rarely met with any setbacks to speak of. By contrast, for the majority of Lincoln’s life, he was largely regarded as a person of little consequence if he was regarded at all. While he sought positions of leadership and responsibility, he was met with continuous challenges and defeats. Interestingly enough, many of Lincoln’s perceived successes ended in failure.
Simply put, Abraham Lincoln is one of the most inspirational case studies in examining the leadership traits of persistence, commitment, determination, passion, conviction, and overcoming failure. There is perhaps no greater lesson the world can offer in overcoming failures and understanding the value of persistence than what can be learned from looking at the life of Abraham Lincoln. Born into poverty, Mr. Lincoln was faced with defeat throughout most of his life. He twice failed in business, lost eight different elections and suffered a nervous breakdown.
It was, in fact, Abraham Lincoln who later said: “My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.” Lincoln was obviously someone who was more focused on pursuing his goals than being guided by a fear of public opinion or of failure. Thomas Edison failed more than 1000 times before he successfully invented the light bulb and he was later quoted as saying: “Many of life’s failures are men who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”
The bottom line is that great leaders are not easily deterred. While most professionals don’t naturally associate the words “success” and “failure” as having anything to do with one another, under the right circumstances failure is absolutely the best experiential learning tool available. In fact, I would go so far as to say failure is an essential element of becoming successful. You can easily validate this premise by placing any individual under the scrutiny of the following litmus test…if you show me a professional who has never experienced failure I’ll say that person is likely an underachiever who either hasn’t tried hard enough or is very new to the world of business. Great leaders don’t fear failure, rather they fear the loss of what could have been achieved had they not had the courage to press on.
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]]>First, a bit of history…in the minds of many, President’s Day is the holiday in which we celebrate all men who have held the office of the President of the United States. However, it was originally established in remembrance of George Washington’s birthday, and according to the Office of Personnel Management, the holiday is still officially referred to as Washington’s Birthday. It wasn’t until 1865, one year after Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, that Lincoln’s Birthday was first officially celebrated. As it turns out, celebrating two Presidential birthdays in one month (Lincoln’s on the 12th and Washington’s on the 22nd) was just too much for lawmakers to endure. So in 1968 legislation was enacted to celebrate President’s Day on the third Monday in February to both simplify the calendar and create a consistent 3 day weekend for federal workers. Anyway, enough of the history and on to the leadership lesson…
Born in Westmoreland County, Va., on Feb. 22, 1732, George Washington was a surveyor by trade, joined the Virginia militia just prior to the French and Indian War, served as a delegate to the First and Second Continental Congress, was commander in chief of the Continental Army during the American Revolution, and was the first President of the United States (1789-97). His rise to success was nothing short of meteoric, rising to the rank of Lt. Colonel by the age of 22, and his transformation from an arrogant and often brash young man to a polished and savvy leader was also quite remarkable.
Even though Washington was both personally and professionally polished becoming well known for his economic, military, business, and social success, it was his character that he was most admired for. The arrogance of his youth had been transformed into true and unwavering confidence in his own judgment, underpinned with an implacable foundation of principled moral conviction. George Washington was a man of integrity beyond reproach which made him a man worthy of respect and a force to be reckoned with. It is important to realize that he did not just espouse a vision, but that he was willing to put his life at risk to defend his vision and live his life with the singular pursuit of seeing his vision become a reality.
Washington’s life gives testimony to the fact that great leaders can accomplish great things. It is important to remember that Washington was not merely a man among midgets who garnered his success because of the ineptness of his contemporaries, rather he was someone who rose to the top of a peer group comprised of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, and John Hancock among others.
The lessons here are simple…be a person of action, stay passionately convicted to your vision, make sure that your motivations and decisions are based upon a deeply rooted sense of character and integrity in both your personal and professional conduct, and be willing to take great risks in order to ensure that your vision becomes a reality. While this brief post cannot even come close to doing justice to the incredible life of George Washington, and the leadership qualities he possessed, I do hope it provides some inspiration and some guidance as you move foreword on your own leadership journey.
Tomorrow we’ll take a brief look at the life of Abraham Lincoln in the conclusion of this two-part series…
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]]>The post Leadership Means Facing Challenges Head-on appeared first on N2Growth.
]]>Regardless of where you are in your life and your career, I can promise you one thing; you will consistently be faced with challenges and obstacles along the way. In today’s post, I will take a brief look at the beliefs that cause some to succeed where others fail.
Life isn’t easy, it’s not fair, and it’s certain to challenge even the best of leaders. You will face physical, mental, financial, relational, and resource challenges among others. Instead of beating yourself up or giving in, it is critical you develop the ability to learn from setbacks. In a nutshell, dealing with barriers, obstacles, and setbacks requires both attitude and aptitude. So, do you have the skills and perspective to thrive under pressure and to succeed, or will you implode when faced with a challenge?
Sir Edmund Hillary was unsuccessful on three different occasions in his attempt to climb Mt. Everest before his successful summit in 1953. People who lauded the praises of Sir Edmund’s ascent said, “You’ve conquered the mountain,” and Sir Hillary said, “No, I’ve conquered myself.” The bitter experiences of the three failed attempts did not hold back Hillary from a fourth one. With a focused vision, clarity of purpose, a passionate outlook, and a great team, he pursued his goal and achieved it.
Anyone who has ever launched a new initiative understands the inevitability of running into numerous barriers over the life-cycle of any project. The difference between those who succeed, and those who fail, is their perspective on how to deal with the barriers they encounter along the way. People often stumble over even the smallest of obstacles, while all too easily considering these routine speed-bumps as rational excuses for their failures.
Setbacks and difficulties are an inevitable part of life. While they will often challenge your skills and temperament, it is those who are willing to spend the time assessing the obstacles as they arise, and who refuse to submit to their various trials who will succeed. The ability to blow through barriers must become a passion if you want to achieve sustainable success in the business world.
I could certainly paint a more complex picture of what it takes to overcome challenges by citing esoteric theories, but the truth of the matter is the only thing required to get beyond barriers is to stop complaining about the challenges and obstacles and spend your time-solving problems & creating outcome-based solutions. If my objective is to get to the other side of the wall, I don’t really care if I go over the wall, under the wall, around the wall, or through the wall… I just care I get to the other side. While I might spend a bit of time evaluating the most efficient strategy for getting to the other side of said wall, it will ultimately be my focus on the tactical execution of conquering the challenge that will determine my success. A bias toward action is always a better path than falling prey to analysis paralysis.
You can deal with difficulties properly and leverage your experience (or better yet the experience of others) to enhance your confidence, or you can deal with them incorrectly and let them seriously damage your confidence, performance, and ultimately your reputation.
Just as a diamond cannot be polished without friction, neither can you fully develop your skills without them being tested by adversity. Use obstacles and failures as an opportunity to polish your skills. I think Winston Churchill said it best when he noted, “The pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; the optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”
Thoughts?
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]]>The post The Engagement Secret of Great Leaders appeared first on N2Growth.
]]>If you’ve ever been captivated by a skilled orator whose articulation and eloquence have influenced your thinking, you understand the power of the art of the story. I refer to this as an art form because it simply is just that.
Before the existence of the written word, learning largely took place by passing down stories through the generations. The passing of history has diluted many things, but not the value of the story. Today’s technology-driven world has only made it easier to amplify a story – the potential for a story to “go viral” has never been greater. Here’s the thing – you’ll never know how good your story is if you choose not to share it. Storytelling is the hook that drives engagement, evokes the passion, and provides the energy that fuels innovation. Storytelling is an attraction magnet – it’s one thing you definitely want to add to your leadership toolkit.
While an authentic story is much like DNA in that no two stories are exactly the same, it takes more than being unique to be memorable. Stories are the instruments that tug at your emotions, speak to your logic, support your beliefs, and reinforce your positions. Great stories challenge, engage, inform, persuade, entertain, mobilize, convict, and inspire. Smart leaders understand stories that highlight learning opportunities and create memorable experiences. Are you consciously and consistently using the story to be a more effective leader? Perhaps more importantly, are you scaling storytelling by teaching others how to use stories to their advantage? I’m reminded of a Navy recruiting video which posed the question; If someone wrote a story about your life, would anybody read it? This is a powerful question for any of us to ponder, but especially leaders.
There is no denying everybody loves a good story, and there are numerous reasons why. Think about the novels you’ve read, movies you’ve watched, speeches you’ve listened to, ads that have hooked your interest, or virtually any other message delivered by any other medium, and it’s the story that will either seal the deal or leaves you feeling cheated. The best part about learning to be a great storyteller is it will afford you the best shot at becoming a story maker. When reflecting on the greatest leaders of our time you’ll quickly see it’s their ability to not just tell the story, but their ability to create engagement, inspiration, and influence through their storytelling which sets them apart from the masses.
As a leader, it’s your ability to tell a compelling story that sets the tone from the top. The story is the fabric upon which culture is built. It helps you to successfully establish rapport, evangelize a vision, champion a brand, align expectations, build teams, attract talent, assuage concerns, relieve tension, and resolve conflict. A leader’s story needs to engender trust while implanting your brand promise in the minds of your various constituencies in a manner that is memorable, authentic, relevant, and actionable. It’s the leader’s story that allows them to share the color of their experience and the context behind their thinking.
Stories are also quite revealing. Carefully listening to a leader’s story will reveal their character or lack thereof. Disingenuous leaders misuse storytelling in an attempt to shield, buffer, distract, lull, or misdirect. They use stories to prop-up their ego, drive their agenda, and take aim on their adversaries. The storyline propagated by those playing at leadership is all about them. Their stories are laced with “I” and “my” and their primary focus is to shine the spotlight on themselves.
By contrast, the authentic and appropriate use of the story has an outward focus and is laced with “we” and “our” as the main points of emphasis. Great leaders understand a story is most powerful when it offers hope and encouragement; when it’s inspired with unification and collaboration it has a humanizing effect. Smart leaders understand storytelling is a highly effective method of creating engagement, opening or extending dialog, and finding common ground. Perhaps the most valuable use of the story is to shine the light on others. Leaders who use the power of story to publicly recognize the contributions of others are simply more successful than those who don’t.
So my question is this; why not incorporate storytelling into your leadership repertoire? While leadership is a complex subject to be sure, it all begins with the story – tell it well and succeed; tell it poorly and fail. This is a simple, yet powerful message I encourage you to take to heart.
Nobody will tell your story if you don’t first tell it yourself.
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]]>The post Help – It’s Not a Dirty Word! appeared first on N2Growth.
]]>Think about it…do you make it easy for others to want to help you, or is your demeanor such that most people won’t lift a finger to assist you in a time of need? How many times during the course of your career have you witnessed executives and entrepreneurs who desperately need help, but either don’t recognize it or worse yet, make it virtually impossible for someone to help them? In today’s post, I’ll address the importance of positioning yourself to be helped…
If your pride, ego, arrogance, ignorance, the way you were raised or any other excuse (yes I did say excuse) keeps you from asking for help, it is precisely those traits that will keep you from maximizing your potential. I hate to break it to you, but you don’t know everything or everybody, so why even bother pretending that you couldn’t use a bit of help? No single person can or should go it alone in today’s business world. The more partners, sympathizers, champions, allies, supporters, enablers, influencers, advisors, mentors, friends, and family you have helped you succeed, the faster you will achieve your goals.
Without question, the most successful business people on the planet are those that have learned to blow through self-imposed barriers to openly harness the power of broader spheres of influence.
I don’t know about you, but I am so tired of all the “self-made man” propaganda floating around business circles. I sincerely believe there is no such thing as a “self-made man”. While I take complete responsibility for all my failures and shortcomings, I take very little credit for my own success. Virtually all of the good things that have happened to me over the years have been the result of the collaborative efforts of many. I don’t see asking for help as a sign of weakness, rather I see it as a very smart thing to do, and I, therefore, tend to seek out help wherever I can find it.
I have long made it a practice to encourage others to help me succeed. My personal and professional network is far more important to my success than my individual competencies. My clients hire me not solely on the basis of what I can personally do for them in a vacuum, but rather what the collective influence of my network and resources can accomplish for them when I operate outside of my own personal bubble.
If you take anything away from today’s post let it be the following two statements:
If you desire to enlist others in your success the following 5 items are the basic prerequisites for getting others to help you:
In the final analysis, it’s really all a matter of perspective…you can either view yourself as part of a hierarchical world sitting at the top of the org chart puffing your chest and propping-up your ego, or you can view yourself as the hub at the center of a large and diverse network. The latter is both more profitable and enjoyable than the former. You can either choose to build your personal brand and your success at the expense of others or by helping others.
As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts about the importance of asking for help no matter what your title is or where you sit on the org chart…
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]]>If you want to become a better leader, I suggest you become comfortable with a leadership practice very few are… it’s called surrender. Surrendering control as a leader is NOT for the faint of heart.
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 about surrender and not control, consider the following definitions:
Controlling leaders create bottlenecks rather than increase throughput. They signal a lack of trust and confidence and 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 that 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?
Surrender – when not to…
Keep this in mind – we all surrender, but 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 man’s power is the measure of his surrender.”
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