A good plan can be a wonderful thing. A story well told with a call to action. Lots of charts showing results, and diagrams showing how they’ll be achieved. Enough details to ensure integrity. Clear objectives. Is it enough? A team’s plan is like a menu for a meal. The…
75. Do you use Suggestion Boxes?
I hate suggestion boxes. Not just the old school physical ones. They don’t work, and they actually do a lot of damage. They’re meant to encourage ideas by enabling ideas to be collected, maybe anonymously. In practice they end in frustration & enforce hierarchy, actually killing ideas. In most organizations…
74. Is your mind closed?
There’s a fine line between success and failure. Usually a series of small mistakes. If success comes from many small improvements, so too failure comes from many small mistakes. Reverse Kaizen is a thing… We all make mistakes. So preventing mistakes isn’t the answer to preventing a larger failure. Avoiding…
73. Do you go with the Flow?
You can’t change everything. Nor would you wish to. Vision and objectives are critical to success but not every objective needs to be about change. The things that are already built are important too. The foundations we stand on. The water we swim in. Not just in a static sense,…
72. Do you promote incompetence?
There’s a paradox in open democracies. They can seem shambolic or even weak when they exercise their greatest strength. That strength is accountability and consequences for poor behavior or performance. Autocracies can seem stable and strong simply because their leaders aren’t held to account. For behavior or performance. A key…
71. Do you read Leadership Books?
The best leadership books aren’t about leaders. Especially if they’re about the author. “What I did to be successful or rich” will likely feed their ego but not you. It’s not that there’s nothing to learn from Richard Branson or Bill Gates or Elon Musk. It’s just that the chances…
70. Are you a Remote Leader?
You’ve started a new job in a new organization. You can’t go to your workplace. Every interaction with your peers and your leaders is online. What are you missing? You are a sales representative who’s job is to convince customers to buy your company’s products. You can’t visit them face…
69. Are you lost?
As a teenager I did a lot of hiking. I learnt a rule that I thought might save my life. The rule was: if you’re lost in the wilderness, head downhill. The idea was that eventually you’ll find a watercourse which will cross a road or lead to where people…
68. Are you an Operator or a Strategist?
I once worked with a cleaner who helped his factory achieve great success. He used a pattern of cleaning across a factory that targeted the critical hygiene areas and times of day when they were accessible. The factory shined thanks to him. Visitors remarked on it and Quality was helped…
67. Why do we fail?
Why is it hard to pick winners from losers in a job interview? Why do some plausible and seemingly capable leaders fail catastrophically? There’s a surprisingly fine line between failure and success and it’s hard to see. Especially if you only look quickly. Bad behaviors are easy to see at…