"I am building a cathedral"

For the past ten years a copy of The Daily Drucker has always been on my desk.   This book has a business pearl of wisdom for every day of the year so I try and get to it every day.  I also dip into it when I need some inspiration focusing on or articulating a thought around business and leadership.   It rarely disappoints.

My partner and I are constantly looking for stories to help CEOs and their leadership team frame their approach to developing the organization's leadership capabilities.  These people often struggle to see the strategic benefits of enabling all levels of their organization's leadership.  So these stories need to help them get beyond the "lack of budget", or "lack of time", or "lack of desire to develop leaders just so they can be poached", or "lack of being unable to see the ROI" default arguments.

This morning I was reading The Daily Drucker for the 29th of September.  It is an old story about the three stonecutters.  When asked what they were doing the first one said "I am making a living".  The second one said "I am becoming the best stonecutter in the country".  And the third one said "I am building a cathedral."

Investing in enabling the leaders in your organization who are 'building a cathedral' is essential.  Because, if you don't, you will be left with a culture that is based upon a lack of engagement and a myopic focus.  This sort of culture burns the two most important commodities of any enterprise: time and money.
 
So this Daily Drucker raises two questions.  Do you know which people in your organization are helping you build your cathedral?  And, perhaps most importantly, are you enabling them as cathedral builders?

nmja

Clarity of Purpose (Pt 2): objective statement

Writing an objective statement, no matter the scale or context, is not easy because once it is written and promulgated it sets in motion a series of decisions, some irreversible, that will begin to use up two of your most valuable commodities; time and money.

In a previous blog we talked about Commander's Intent.  It is from the Commander's Intent that we make sure that our objective is strategically aligned and also understand what resources we can expect/need in support of the task.

It has been our experience that the best way to approach writing clear, concise and strategic objective statements is to think of it as a sentence: "I am going to do X in order to achieve Y." The key part of the sentence is the link in order to as this is vital to ensuring that you can connect your actions (X) with the Commander's Intent (Y).

Years ago when I was on exercise as a young infantry officer I was told by my commander to 'deny the enemy the bridge'.  So off I went and did an analysis of the task and wrote my objective statement as 'secure the bridge'.  I then decided that the best way to secure the bridge was to blow it up.

Task completed I head back to report to my commander.  The conversation went something like this:

Him (looking somewhat surprised): "What are you doing here so soon.  I thought I told you to take care of the bridge?"

Me (looking pretty pleased with myself): "I have denied the enemy the bridge. Nothing will cross it" 

Him (beginning to look a little worried): "What do you mean nothing will cross it?"

Me (now beginning to feel worried): Well, I did my analysis and decided that the best way to achieve my objective was to blow it up."

Him (now looking very worried): "You blew it up! I didn't want you to blow it up; I just wanted you to secure it."

Me: (nasty feeling in pit of stomach sensing where this was about to go): "Your orders to me were to deny the bridge, and blowing it up does that".

Him (alarm written all over his face):  "But how are our tanks going to cross in the morning?"

My task, and approach to it, would have been very different if a) I had been given context for the task (Commander's Intent) and b) my objective statement had been written within that context (i.e. "secure the bridge (X) in order to allow the tanks to cross in the morning (Y)."

Since that day I have used this objective statement construct with everything from getting clarity from a CEO around a strategic business issue to working with smaller teams on a very tactical task.  If your objective statement does not ladder up then there is a good chance you are not aligned with the bigger picture.

Leadership; lead and/or follow but always leading

Every year I lead a volunteer team that acts as mission control at a competition for the Olympic sport of equestrian three-day eventing (think of triathlon with three different disciplines (dressage, cross county and show jumping) over three days).  The cross country phase, as the name implies, involves the horse/rider combination traveling at a speed of about 500 meters per minute and jumping over obstacles such as (large) fallen trees.  When accidents happen, and they do, the injuries can be significant and require fast, immediate and coordinated response from over 100 volunteers.

These volunteers are a mixed bag: young and old, horsey or not horsey, groupies or just friends of the organization, and, in life, some are leaders and some are followers.  All of them share one thing in common, and that is the desire to to willingly place themselves in a situation well outside their normal frame of reference of authority and decision-making - where their immediate actions can have long-term implications from a horse or rider injury perspective.

My job, sitting in tent listening to/directing on five different radio channels, is to give these volunteers the confidence in the system and belief in themselves to make the right decision when something dramatic, potentially life threatening, happens in the middle of the woods.

So why do these people willing place their trust in the leadership that is effectively a random voice on the end of the radio?  I think it is four things:

• They are empowered (I have made it clear that I will support their decision without question as they are the ones on the ground dealing with the facts)
• They know that they are not alone (I have taken the time to ensure that they have been given a broad understanding of the entire safety plan (commander's intent if you like))
• They are made to feel valuable (recognized, often in small ways (by the riders, on the PA, in the programme, beer and pizza at the end of day, by the international officials, etc.), for their contribution)
• The know that if they need assets their request will be met with response that has a sense of control, urgency and decisiveness (when I do have to deploy doctors, vets and heavy equipment everyone knows what they have to do and how they going to do it)

Not rocket science I suppose.  But good leaders must know when to lead and when to support.  To do neither, or over do just one, means that your people will neither have the confidence to step up when you need them nor the belief that you will support their actions when they do.

Leadership: surviving the Death Zone

It is climbing season in the Himalayas and already we have seen tragedy and triumph -  most of it taking place in the Death Zone.

On Everest the Death Zone is the zone above 8,000 meters where there is not enough oxygen to sustain life (an extended stay in the zone without supplementary oxygen will result in deterioration of bodily functions, loss of consciousness and, ultimately, death).  

What has this got to do with business leadership?  We use the expression Death Zone in the context of business leadership to describe the transition that managers must make when they are promoted into a leadership position.

Giving new leaders the intellectual and emotional tools, and coaching to survive this transition is an investment that has high ROI for both your people and your business.

Unfortunately it is more common than not, especially in marketing and advertising firms, to promote a 'craft' expert (manager) into a leadership role without giving them what they need to thrive as a leader.  When you promote someone it is essential that, right from the start, you give them the fundamental tools of leadership.  By this we mean the intellectual framework on how to direct a team, the practical framework to understand and manage a task, and the emotional framework to direct and nurture the talent and, ultimately, the coaching to sustain them through this transition from manager to leader. 

All to often we see people with great potential fail to transition the Death Zone and default back to their comfort zone of managing.  This inevitably means one, or all, of three things: 1) they end up suppressing the talent they are there to lead because they do their job (craft) for them; 2) the task is inefficiently executed (i.e. costly to the firm) due to poor decision-making burning hours and time (the two vital commodities in any firm); and 3) the team becomes dysfunctional due to a lack of clarity of purpose and roles and responsibilities.  Or, worse still, you will see an individual's passion and talent crushed due to the negative experience.

On Everest once you are in the Death Zone every decision you make, no matter how simple, has the potential to change your life forever.  To successfully transition the Death Zone requires skill, motivation, bravery, teamwork, leadership and personal drive in just the right mix. 

For those of us in business with the responsibility for selecting and nurturing leaders there are valuable lessons for us above 8,000 meters.

Clarity of purpose (Pt 1): Commander's Intent

Understanding the 'Commander's Intent' basically means that all activities (whether they be marketing, operational, manufacturing, advertising, etc,) are done within the context of a broader objective.  If your objective is not inextricably linked to supporting the achievement of an uber objective then there is a good chance you have not understood your task.  This will mean that those executing (using your objective as their 'commander's intent) are being set up to fail.

"Make it so." Stardate 2012

These three words truly define the difference between a manager and a leader.  With them Captain Picard (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZxHAZChcYU) confirms the task, empowers the team and demonstrates his confidence in the individual talent that makes up the crew.