From Chaos to Clarity: Mastering the Complex Landscape of Strategy & Management
I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that you aren’t 100% where you want to be in your career. You have probably sat through one too many dead-end meetings, where your leadership team came up with a whole lot of nothing in terms of solutions to your productivity, revenue, or expansion problems. Maybe you have found yourself wondering why this team (that you hand-picked, by the way) is failing to level up given the collective potential they possess. Is it you? Are you failing to develop them properly? Is it your strategy? Does it not provide a clear enough roadmap? Perhaps you are running so fast on the hamster wheel that you don’t have the time or energy to ask yourself these deeper questions. I get it. I’ve been there. I have worked around the clock and lost sleep all in the name of growing my enterprise.
Surviving as an Executive/Entrepreneur is not for the faint of heart. You have a responsibility to lead, to think of the bigger picture, to anticipate the curveballs no one else on your team has thought of, and to evaluate the potential of every step your organization takes in any direction at any given time. Both professionally and personally, being a business leader is hard. You know that. I know that. What you might not know is that there is a better way.
There are ways to 1) minimize the number of curveballs coming at you, and 2) to adequately prepare so that your team is ready to hit them out of the park when they do come.
The five points that follow are legitimate game-changers—only a few of the many I could share. I’m confident I would have grown my company three times as fast had I known these strategies sooner.
1. Channel Your Inner Peter Drucker
Peter Drucker is best known as the founder of modern management, most often attributed to the bold statement that, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” Your internal strategy doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell if your culture is spewing toxic waste. Culture is what is happening when you aren’t looking. Do you know how your people are treating others? Are your customers being well cared for? Are you constantly playing whack–a–mole? You’re exhausted, rung out… but here’s the kicker, you are what you tolerate!
More likely than not, you are focused on the numbers and internal strategy, assuming the rest (people/culture) will fall into place on their own. What you tell people to do and what they actually do need to be aligned; and until they are, your culture will continue to eat your strategy for breakfast. Culture. Is. Everything. Align your culture around strategy and be amazed by what happens.
2. What is working/not working?
How powerful would it be to have a quick “temperature check” on your organization?
In your next leadership team meeting ask 2 simple yet powerful questions:
1. What is working in the organization
2. What is not working in the organization
If your team is healthy, then what comes out of these two questions can be game changers—inspiring the team to discuss further and gain clarity. The point of this exercise is to identify where you have kinks in the chain, in order to then build a solution-focused plan.
The power in this exercise comes from a collaborative, honest discussion. Have fun with it, lean in, and fix the issues—use the resulting insights to make critical decisions and build a better organization.
3. Here Lies [Your Company]
I am now going to ask you to write your company’s obituary. “What the hell are you talking about?” you may be asking. Allow me to explain. I want you to imagine shuttering your organization. It’s dead. No hope of resurrection. If you were to close your doors today and call it quits, what would you say in the obituary? What went wrong? Who came to the funeral? Who didn’t? Why? What were our biggest accomplishments? What lessons did we learn and what kind of legacy did we leave behind?
Spend some time as a team discussing. Listen for patterns around vision, core purpose, and strategy. Then, reverse-engineer the solution. A simple but incredibly impactful exercise.
4. Success is Not an Accident
Soccer legend Pele said, “Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do.” I’ve said it before; you have worked hard to be sitting in that cozy corner office. That wasn’t an accident. It wasn’t luck. It was grit, diligence, and ambition, and it took a whole hell of a lot of courage.
Surround yourself with people who know what it takes to be at the top. Find a guide, a mentor/advisor, a group— somewhere you can relax, lean in, and ask for help. Find your safe place. Being a leader can be lonely and hard. Find a guide, a teammate, that will push you to the next level because they love you and your success is their success.
5. Celebrate!
In my experience, corporations do not take enough opportunities to celebrate their wins. A continual spirit of improvement cannot be maintained if you and your team are unable to acknowledge and show gratitude for all that went (and is going) right. Gratitude is an important aspect of influential leadership. Nobody wants to go to battle for a Debbie Downer who only criticizes and critiques every breath the organization takes. Let your hair down! There is always enough time to honor and encourage a job well done.
Jess Stewart is devoted to sharing what she’s learned. She brings world-class tools and long-term resources to help leadership teams run better businesses and live better lives. She is a respected Strategic Business Guide/Leadership Team Coach and Speaker, offering executive-level leadership development programs, workshops, and online learning opportunities.
Referenced Resources
Lee Yohn, Denise. Write Your Brand’s Obituary, Harvard Business Review. January 28, 2014.