Higher Bars
‘Tis the season: strategic planning, goal setting, business planning season. The time when we stare in the rear view mirror and review the road already traveled this year. We examine the wake, scan the data, assess our “success”. What was accomplished? How well did we execute? What did we learn?
It has been a challenging business year to say the least. Some industries like the building materials industry suffered double digit percentage loss in sales and profits this year. Across the country, formerly large profitable builders are holding mass auctions of inventory at significant discounts. On the other hand, industries focused on sustainability and high tech products and services have broken sales and profit records. Regardless of where your business falls on the continuum, now is the time to look through the front windshield and determine the path ahead. Consider the simple way Susan Scott frames the view: Where are we going? Why are we going there? Who is going with us? How are we going to get there?
2008. What is it going to be?
Sun Tzu reminds us in his book, The Art of War, to build our unique strength and “seize favorable positions beforehand.” After review of 2007, what is your unique strength? How can you lead with that unique strength to fortify a favorable position for growth in 2008? You know that without a unique strength you are at risk to be in a vulnerable position. So what is it? How can you say it through your actions?
Risk. How much risk will you include in your plans for the future? How bold will you be? How much “business as usual” can you tolerate? In his thought-provoking book, The Strategy Paradox, Michael E. Raynor says: “Extreme positions in strategic space create the highest levels of profitability but also create the highest levels of strategic risk and hence failure. That is the strategy paradox. The trade-off between risk and return appears inescapable, and most firms deal with that trade-off by accepting lower returns for a better chance of survival.” Survive or thrive. Survive or thrive. Such is the torture of our daily lives as business leaders…as human beings.
2008. What is it going to be?
How are you uniquely prepared for the year ahead? How high will you set the bar for yourself? Your team? Your business? Consider this from Roger Von Oech: “…what we think about ourselves has a way of becoming true. If you think you are creative, you’ll put yourself in situations where you can use your creativity, try new approaches, take risks, and come up with new ideas. If you don’t think of yourself as creative, you’ll be too afraid of your own ideas to give them a chance to work. Remember: as you think, so you are.”
2008. What is it going to be? Be bold. Share what you are thinking.
What are you standing in?
Several months ago, I was visiting a colleague at her office when the news surfaced that a mutual acquaintance of ours was struggling. The business she was leading closed its doors. It was done and so was she. I was a bit shocked by this news and my colleague looked me right in the eye and assured me
It ran its course
As an entrepreneur facing the daily fears and joys of growing a new business, these words hit me hard and deep. These were heart-piercing words…cold, grave stone words that gave me chills.
Leaders are bombarded by demands and overwhelming requests for their time, resources, brain and heart. Ask any leader a few questions about life or work and you will find them mentioning “balance.” Leaders make choices between work and family, work and health, work and everything else. We are struggling to keep up. We are overspent as a functioning human being and therefore something has to give, something must suffer. Former Labor Secretary, Robert Reich, in his new book Supercapitalism blames globalization for the over taxing of leaders. Warning of the blinding obvious: No sign of globalization coming to a screeching halt is on the horizon. A recent feature article in Fortune magazine tells the bittersweet story of CEO Dominic Orr whose workaholic ways nearly ruined his life. A match lit for all similar stories could illuminate a major U.S. city. The truth is we have a zillion things pulling on us. So…what do you commit to? What do you stand for? Where is your word certain? How does your word show through your actions? Take time to think here.
Where do you stand? As for me, I am a guts-out, beyond-what-is-possible person. When I take a vow, a stand, I am fueled by conscience, discipline, heart. There is no doubt about my intention. I am not deterred by obstacles, nay-sayers, or disappointments. I don’t quit. For decades the words of Theodore Roosevelt have shadowed me: “It is not the critic that counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of good deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.” Make no mistake. I am in the arena.
Are you?
What do you stand for? Being a CEO? Being a great dad? Being a world class operations leader? Being the best partner you can be? How do you stand in this place? What, if anything, could make you quit?
These words:
It ran its course
are indelibly etched on my soul. I am forever changed. Regardless, my stand is my word. I vowed. I am committed.
LOML, may you find your way.
