- Excerpt from The Wisdom of the Flying Pig -
“No more pigs! You can’t top pigs with pigs.”- Walt Disney
Perhaps you’re one of the many people reading this book who have enjoyed success. I’m guessing this success emanated, in large part, from hard work and perseverance. And you’re to be congratulated.
But to some extent, your success proves only that you can solve problems that no longer exist. The game is always changing. Customers in every category expect more today than they did yesterday. Way more in most cases. And your competitors are willing to give it to them.
Great leaders live with the undeniable truth that the most important thing in business is quite simply the next sale. Here’s another truth: The likelihood of making the next sale increases exponentially when you offer the customer something new and different.
Walt Disney didn’t want to make a sequel to the wildly successful Three Little Pigs. Ultimately, he gave in to the pressure from his associates to make another Pigs movie. It wasn’t new. It wasn’t different. It bombed.
“You never change anything by fighting it. You change things by making them obsolete through superior technology.” - R. Buckminster Fuller
At one point in her career, my wife sold typesetting. Very successfully. But, Apple more or less destroyed the typesetting industry with the introduction of the Mac. A simple, startlingly inexpensive desktop computer made the old typesetting process obsolete.
The drive to new and different is powerful. And inexorable. And profitable. Think about the industries that for the most part didn’t exist a mere thirty years ago: mutual funds, overnight package delivery, big-box discount retailing, home video, coffee bars, cell phones.
Leaders are tempted to ask, “What’s next?” But the better question is “Will it really matter?” And the best question is: “Will it change the game?”
Walt Disney, R. Buckminster Fuller, Apple
- New InSight: Lessons from Leaders Episode -
Lori Mallory, CEO of Kansas City Internal Medicine, discusses the value of continuing education.
Watch part three of Lori's interview.
Lori also mentions the book Defining Moments. Find out more about the book here
One of the requirements of leaders is that they must be believeable. For over 20 years, James Kouzes and Barry Posner have been asking people what they expect from their leaders. In their remarkable book, The Leadeship Challenge, they say this:
"In almost every survey, honesty has been selected more often than any other leadership characteristic; overall it emerges as the single most important ingredient in the leader-constituent relationship."
Of course, honesty requires that you tell the truth. But it goes much deeper. You must always do what you say you will do. Your actions must be absolutely consistent with your words. If you don't walk the talk, you can't be believed.
But as important as it is, honesty isn't enough. For people to willingly enroll in the quest, they must also have an abiding faith in the leader's competence. They must know the leader can get things done. They must know the leader will confront reality and address problems rationally. And they must know the leader has the ability to focus the right people and the right resources on the right issues. Then, and only then, will they believe.
More posts on:
The Leadership Challenge,
James Kouzes,
Barry Posner,
Honesty
I read Chris Anderson's The Long Tail over the weekend. Actually, I was going to pass on this book, but Guy Kawasaki wrote a post here, that changed my mind. The book is well written and makes an interesting point, but it fell far short of living up to its subtitle: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More.
I was going to write a post about all this, but a post on 800-CEO-READ directed me to a post called, The Wrong Tail which said it better than I would have. In all the hype about The Long Tail, The Wrong Tail is well worth reading.
More posts on:
The Long Tail,
Chris Anderson,
Guy Kawasaki
- Excerpt from The Wisdom of the Flying Pig -
Great managers provide the information and resources to do the job right.
After reviewing extensive research from the Saratoga Institute, Leigh Branham determined that people leave their employers because the employer is not meeting one or more basic human needs. In his book The 7 Hidden Reasons Employees Leave, Branham identifies these four needs: the need for trust, the need to have hope, the need to feel a sense of worth, and the need to feel competent.
When employees don’t have the information and resources to do the job right, their sense of competence is compromised, they become discouraged, and ultimately they’re more likely to leave. Having the right tools—that is, the information and resources to do the job right, is fundamental to a sense of competence, which is, in turn, fundamental to retention and productivity.
As we’ve said, managers don’t get paid for what they do; they get paid for what their people do. So, as a manager, it’s up to you to find out what your people need and get it for them.
Did you ask any good questions today?
Isidor Issac Rabi came to America as an Austrian immigrant. From the public schools on New York’s Lower East Side, he became one of America’s most outstanding physicists, winning the Nobel Prize in 1944. When asked of his influences, Rabi often mentioned his mother, who each day asked him, “Did you ask any good questions today?”
What’s true for a Nobel Laureate is also true for managers. Questions are important. If you pose questions like the following to your staff, you might be amazed at what happens.
- What tools or materials would give you the ability to do your job better?
- What obstacles are you encountering?
- What information would help you do your job better?
- How can I support your efforts?
Leigh Branham, Isidor Issac Rabi
- New InSight: Lessons from Leaders Episode -
Lori Mallory, CEO of Kansas City Internal Medicine, talks about how important it is to master the recipe of communication and make sure your employees can as well.
Watch part two of Lori's interview.
The June issue of Harvard Business Review has a fascinating interview with Jeffrey Immelt, Chairman and CEO of General Electric. For at least a couple of decades, GE has been ground zero for management innovation and bottom-line discipline. From what I can tell, that tradition will continue for some time to come. The entire interview is well worth reading, but here are the high points for me:
"We have to change the company - to become more innovation driven- in order to deal with this new environment."
In the past GE has been a company obsessed with productivity - and it has served them very well, indeed. And while Mr. Immelt says productivity is still very important, he says, "We have to change the company." If that's true for a business as successful as General Electric, it's probably true for a lot of us.
"The first thing I ask ... is how we stack up against our competitors from a product standpoint, given the customer's wants and needs."
This man runs a $150 Billion company, and the first thing he asks is essentially, "do we have the best product?" First things first - the product that best serves the customer has a tremendous advantage. If it's true for GE, it's probably true for a lot of us.
"If we can create a sales and marketing function that's as good as finance at GE, I'll change this company."
This one really blew me away. I'll admit, I sometimes a little in awe of GE and Mr. Immelt and Jack Welch before him. And somehow, I just assumed that every function at GE was as rigorous as their audit function. But from what I can tell from Mr. Immelt's comments, that's not true. It seems that even a company this big and this effective might have some blind spots. And if it's true for GE, it's probably true for a lot of us.
There might be some complacency lurking in halls of GE, but it's damn sure not in the Chairman's wing of the building.
More posts on:
General Electric,
Jeffrey Immelt
- Excerpt from The Wisdom of the Flying Pig -
“The essence of economic activity is the commitment of present resources to future expectations, and that means uncertainty and risk.”- Peter F. Drucker
Because their central challenge is to rally the collective passion of the enterprise toward a better future, leaders live their lives in the vortex of change. Innovation is the tool leaders use to exploit and profit from change. As Drucker says, “Innovation . . . is the act that endows resources with a new capacity to create wealth.”
Innovation and leadership are intimately connected. Both are oriented toward the future, and both require the willingness to act in uncertainty. Innovation and leadership are both driven by what is possible, not by what is probable.
The best leaders have an exquisite sensitivity to change, an ability to imagine how that change might create value in the future, and a willingness to move forward in the midst of doubt and uncertainty.
“To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old questions from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance.”- Albert Einstein
Every productive enterprise begins with an idea. If that idea is genuinely new, you can’t test it—you have to try it. Market research simply cannot tell you whether or not you’ve invented the new New Thing.
If you doubt this, please learn from the past:
- A number of successful companies turned down patents on the Xerox machine because market research showed nobody would buy one.
- Most executives at Sony (except President Akio Morita) thought the Walkman was a bad idea.
- At one point Howard Schultz left Starbucks because the original owners weren’t interested in Schultz’s concept of serving espresso in a café setting. That was about 10,000 Starbucks stores ago.
Charles Kettering, one of America’s great inventors, once said, “The opportunities of man are limited only by his imagination. But so few have imagination that there are ten thousand fiddlers for one composer.” Leaders must be composers.
Peter Drucker, Innovation, Invention
- New InSight: Lessons from Leaders Episode -
Lori Mallory, CEO of Kansas City Internal Medicine, talks about leading by example to build a culture of goodwill amongst your employers, employees and your customers.
Watch part one of Lori's interview.
- Excerpt from The Wisdom of the Flying Pig -
The number one reason people don’t do what you want them to do? They don’t know what you want them to do!
You might not believe this, but there are a bunch of people stumbling around out there who don’t have a clue what’s expected of them—50 percent of all people if you pay attention to the research. Some of these people report to you—and as frustrating as you might find this, they simply don’t know precisely what you want them to do.
Communicating explicit expectations may well be the most difficult aspect of a manager’s job. But it is absolutely essential to creating a high performance workplace. At the very least, the expectations you communicate to your direct reports must include quantity, quality, and time frame.
I suggest you find a quiet room and start making a list of what you expect from each of your direct reports. A specific list. You might be surprised how difficult this is. Then meet with each of your people individually. Ask them what they think you expect of them. Ask them what specific results—including quantity, quality, and time frame—they think they’re responsible for. It will make you want to scream.
But it’s worth it.
"People can’t do anything well unless they can define it in a way that they and others can understand.” - Philip Crosby
It often seems that when people describe someone as a “good communicator,” what they’re really saying is that the person is a “good speaker.” Certainly communicating can, and often does, involve speaking. But I’ve always thought of communication as something far more profound and productive than simply flapping my lips. I think of communication as the creation of mutual understanding.
The first key activity of great managers is to communicate explicit expectations. To me that means great managers must create a mutual understanding of what’s to be accomplished. Without such an understanding it is unlikely that employee efforts, however intense, will lead to optimal business results.
Communication, Expectations
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