The recovery is anchored in our ability to engage the core of who we are in every aspect of our lives.  To embrace our strengths instead of constantly focusing on trying to overcome weaknesses.  Essentially, we must fight the urge to “settle”…to accept what is offered.  Instead, believe in yourself and seek out opportunities to make a difference.

If it were easy, everyone one would do it…

One of the components of the Summit was the opportunity to sit in the Bears locker room with a small group and have about 60 minutes to listen to Lovie Smith and Jerry Angelo discuss the team and their thoughts on leadership.  This was truly the highlight of my day as I am leadership geek and always love to hear what people have to say about their personal thoughts on leading organizations.  These guys did not disappoint but perhaps the most intriguing topic was one that was only discussed for a short time but the most telling aspect of the discussion was the manner in which it was addressed.

Let me set this up by telling you that I am not a huge fan of either the Bears or Coach Smith.  I did not dislike them…just did not have a strong opinion either way.  I can also tell you that changed after I spent some time listening to the leadership of both the organization and the team.  So here is the question that piqued my interest, “Coach Smith, is it difficult to manage a coaching staff where 3 of your coaches are previous head coaches in the NFL?”  To set the stage for this it is important to know the following folks are on the Bears coaching staff:

• Mike Martz
• Rod Marinelli
• Mike Tice

Lovie’s response was fantastic on many levels.  He simply said, “My job as the Bears head coach is to put together the best coaching staff I can that gives us the best chance to win.”  He didn’t belabor the point or pontificate on how he was able to accomplish this.  The focus throughout his responses (this one included) was to talk about the team and staff in context of the goals of their organization.  Regardless of how many times he was asked about “him”, the responses were always about the team and that was impressive.

Based on Coach Smith’s response I have the following questions:

• How many leaders would go out and recruit other strong-willed, experienced folks to be on their team?
• Once you answer that question, then think about the practical application of the action.  So you go out and get these three guys who have been in  your shoes and put them in leadership roles on your team…now what?
• How do you lead leaders?  To be candid, isn’t that the goal of leadership?
• Don’t true leaders want other leaders on their team and not followers?
• I know I am making a semantic argument here but I believe it is critical because if you are leading a team of leaders, would you act differently than if you thought you were leading a team of followers?

Needless to say, I am much more a fan of Coach Smith than I was before I heard him speak.  The more I think about his leadership style & talent given what we know, the more I am impressed.   There is much more to be learned here so feel free to chime in!

I have a mens group (The Selah Fellowship..more on them later) that meets twice a month and we have been talking about “stuff” on an off for about 6 months.  It all started when I read the book, The Power of Less, by Leo Babauta.  Leo also has a great blog I read as well that talks about Zen philosophy and the practical application of those tenets in everyday life.  All the guys in the group are at least 40 and in the phase of our lives when we are beginning to reflect on our stuff.  There were questions like:

• How did we get so much stuff?
• What good is the stuff?
• Why does the stuff always break?
• Why do we have to take care of all the stuff?

I made the statement that, had I the chance to do it all over again, I would strive for less stuff.  The simple reason is that once you have stuff, the stuff owns you.  Not only financially but from a focus standpoint as well.  It becomes what you think about and starts occupying your thoughts in place of the more important things like faith & family (you will notice I did not say “work” but that is another post altogether).  I have a very close friend who is retired and now owns more stuff than he did when he was working.  He said if someone had told him 10 years ago he would have all this stuff after he retired, he would have told them they were crazy.  Just goes to show how stuff sneaks up on you.

That is where focus comes into our conversation.  This is the one thing we can actually control in our lives and the one thing that can determine our level of success and fulfillment (enter your definitions of these words here…do not just adopt someone else’s definition as your own).  This is an ongoing challenge for me and I have openly stated to the group that I believe this to the core of many of our ills.  We allow our focus to be hi-jacked!  CUE TEMPTATION…(see this all neatly fits together?)

We buy in to the dream and begin thinking that STUFF will make us happy.  Imagine that…more money, nicer clothes, prettier spouse (I hope my wife is not reading this and begins to think she can trade up), more impressive title, the list goes on and on.  The reality is none of those things matter and none of them brings fulfillment or any long-term enjoyment.  In fact, all of those things just get in the way of the only thing that will bring joy and fulfillment to your life and that is…

One thing you will find with me is that I am not at all the prescriptive type.  I do not have the answers but do have many, many questions.  I can tell you what follows those three little dots for me but it will definitely not be the same for you.  That said, I would love to hear from you and find out what follows those three little dots in your little piece of the universe.

• Every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it
• For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction

That pretty much sums up our collective challenges as it pertains to attaining goals, resolutions, and making any/all changes in our lives.  What we all have to determine is how to overcome inertia and live with the reactions we experience when we actually try to “change”.

How do you do it?

I joined idegy as President in August of this year and we are now in the midst of 2011 planning.  There was much to do when I came on board and we are still in the process of establishing organizational discipline that will enable us to achieve our goals.  I am constantly amazed when we discuss issues and routinely find the “answer” is not complicated and yet it has never been successfully implemented.  The main reason is that implementation and ongoing management is not “easy”…although it is quite simple. 

In order to achieve your organizational goals you must be:

• clear
• confident
• consistent
• focused
• willing to repeat yourself

I think you would agree that on the surface this do not appear to be complex but really try it sometime and see how far you get.  Take 15 minutes and settle on the 1-2 “things” you and your team need to focus on and imagine consistently pursuing those goals for the next 6 months.  What would those things be?  Would you be able to focus on only those things and reinforce to the team on a daily basis the need to drive activities leading to the achievement of that goal?  Could you cure the organizational ADD that permeates most companies? 

Sometimes I believe we have become so conditioned to be on the lookout for opportunities that it transforms our strategy into one of constant re-evaluation which leads to unfocused activities.  Aristotle was credited with saying, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit.”  That said, answer the following questions:

• What do you and your organization repeatedly do?
• Are you excellent at it?
• Are the things you repeatedly do the things that will lead to attainment of your goals?
• Why or why not?
• Whose job is it to drive excellence?
• Are they doing it?

Simple questions, not so easy answers…

Consider this, “Reality is an intentional, first person experience you construct from the material of intention.”  To loosely paraphrase Descartes, “I am what I pay attention to.”  Sit back and really allow the reality of this statement to wash over you and seep into your deep recesses of your consciousness.  Imagine the weight of this responsibility.  What we focus on creates our experiences…which in turn creates our life.  It seems so simple but something we rarely consider. 

So what does this mean to those in leadership roles?  I think we need to be extremely careful and not adversely impact our teams when it comes what we focus on collectively.  Here are some thoughts:

• Limit “the next big thing” thoughts that can (without meaning to) shift people’s attention from the task at hand.  It is always good to be on the look out for the next big thing but as leaders, that is something we must shoulder and not always involve the team until there is context for the organization.
• Develop 1-3 goals (and requisite measurements) and stick to them.  Allow the team to internalize them and create performance goals that support them so they can see how their activity leads to achievement.
• Allow them to work uninterrupted for more than 60 minutes.  Set weekly meetings (if necessary) and discuss ideas during those times and not intermittently through the week.
• Repeat yourself. This is actually the one quality that all great leaders exhibit.  Once you have created the areas of focus for the team, be relentless in your discussions and always tie everything back to those main points.  Lead by example!
• Be very protective of your focus and do not allow others to drag you down their rabbit holes.  When someone says, “Do you have a minute?”, respond honestly.
• Stop multi-tasking.  There are many studies that indicate multi-tasking reduces both efficiency and effectiveness. 

As with all good things in life, this is simple but not easy.  Just remember that when you choose what you pay attention to, you are choosing your experiences which impacts the quality of your life.  Do not give up that power to choose and allow your life’s experiences to be someone else’s decisions.

I find that I get into the mindset that everything that goes wrong somehow needs to be turned into a life lesson and that is not a good thing.  There are certainly mistakes that need to be evaluated and discussed so that learning can take place but that definitely does not apply to any and all mistakes or issues arise during the course of a day.  Quite frankly I think that my tendency to do this can cause “discussion exhaustion” in those around me.  At first it can be invigorating to have these types of discussions when it is something worthwhile but when every misstep turns into a 30 minute dissertation, then I have gone too far.

Leaders have to think about incremental value in these situations and determine if there is additional and measurable value to be gained from the discussion or if it is “good enough”.  We also must allow people to learn from their own mistakes and not pile on by wanting to talk about it like some type of industrial psychologist.  I am beginning to lean more towards the model of taking action and letting the conversations happen as they may instead of trying to talk about everything before we do it.  I have always been a fan of “acting your way into a new way of thinking” and not vice-versa but need to reinvigorate my efforts towards that end.

Ultimately this is the strategy versus tactics discussions and I am coming down on the side of tactical strategy.  There is only so much talking and thinking that can be done before someone actually has to do something and the leaders main job is to shorten that cycle so more action is taken in towards achieving the goal.  Perhaps the reason there is so much talk is because there has been no clear vision and goal provided to the team that would allow them to focus their actions accordingly?

This is certainly something for me to consider…

With this in mind, I believe that Performance in an organization is the result of People + Processes (the 3 P’s referenced in the title of this post).  I like to keep things as simple as possible and that is a necessity if you desire to run a successful business.  As Einstein noticed, we have a tendency to make things more complicated than they need to be and that is the downfall of many a good business.  While it would be interesting to delve into this issue and try to figure out why we do that, it is not an easy task and therefore we will leave that to the psychiatrists.

If you are any type of leadership and/or managerial role in an organization, there are only 2 levers to pull to change performance and those are focusing on the people and/or processes.  Time spent in any other area is really a waste of time and energy.  If you hire the right people (which is a process) and provide them with clear direction (another process) and outline how the business does and does not work (a whole lot of processes), then you have a chance at attaining your organizational goals.  This does not mean you cannot achieve goals if you do not invest  time in the 2 P’s but it does mean that the success you have will be short-lived and hard to sustain.

The most challenging part is developing the discipline to focus on these things instead of getting caught up in the busy work, fires (large & small), and other low value activities that can usurp your focus during the course of any given day.

Here are some ideas of how to avoid losing focus:

• Set clear goals and expectations
• Schedule time to work on the 2 P’s each day
• Remember that Performance is the result of the other two so do not focus on that (it will come if the others are addressed)
• Make everything you do as simple as possible (Occam’s Razor)
• Have fun doing it

I feel a bit like Lemony Snicket with the past 6 years being a series of unfortunate events but that has all turned around in the past 8 months.  I will be starting a new job on August 2nd with idegy and it is the first time in many years that I “feel” like it is the right place for me at the right time and that is a great feeling.

In the next several weeks I am also going to rebrand my blog and have it redesigned as well.  The idea for new name has been percolating for some time and I am quite excited to unveil it this fall.

Stay tuned as this will be the blog to read if you are searching for the real work of business…the tactical trudging it takes to make stuff happen.  Not the glamorous sexy talk of strategy and big ideas but the blocking and tackling it takes each day to achieve operational virtuosity.

Looking forward to the next phase of the journey and hope you will join me!