High Performance Leadership

Part of the appeal of video games is the ability to reset. All (or much) is forgiven, the table is cleared, and you're free to begin again. Fun. Forgiving. Fabulous. My favorite keyboard shortcut is control+alt+delete (or in my ever Apple world, Control Z. Make a mistake? Reset! Real life is sometimes not as forgiving. There is no real reset -- only change. High performance leaders embrace change to make it positive change. What was, is gone because you can't get it back. Reset? Change! -- doug smith  

Change agents don't always play by the rules. Expecting them to is the act of a fool. -- doug smith

  Are you bumping up against tradition? As leaders we are often breaking barriers. We're constantly knocking down walls. Sometimes, we're stepping on toes. We change things because that's what leaders do but it does matter how we change. Are we graceful, or clumsy? Are we considerate, or brutal? Are we deliberate, or chaotic? Change is necessary because it's where growth happens. Doing that change we can forget about or even demolish tradition. "If it mattered we'd keep it," right? It matters. How we handle tradition tells our team how we will eventually handle each and every one of them. What has been placed there before us has been trusted to us. We can improve it, always. Must we ever destroy it? Seldom. As I write this, I can practically hear my friend and fraternity brother David Spiegel singing "Tradition!" from "Fiddler On The Roof." It has honor. It has value. It has multiple meanings. Ignore tradition and you'll lose stabil...

Are you keeping up with change? I find myself sobbing just a little every time my mobile phone wants to install an update. How do I know it'll be better? Can't I just wait a little while? What if I like things the way that they are? High performance leaders are in the business of change. We rock the boat for a living. As Tom Peters once said "if it ain't broke, break it." That quote is more than twenty years old and we've been rocking the boat constantly since then. What about the people who fall off of the boat? What about the details that are tried and true and tradition? Is there a place for tradition in today's rapidly changing world? Yes, there is. Tradition is more than the way things used-to-be. Tradition is more than old habits. Tradition is a topic worthy of a book, but for now here are a few things tradition means. Tradition is honoring the past and the people who built that past. That past got us to here, so they must have done someth...

Who likes change? At one time or another (and probably MOST of the time) we resist change. It's causing us to do something differently and that is an effort we probably did not ask for. If it's not your idea, change is an aggravation. I don't like it when my phone decides to upgrade. Every single new release for the past two years has been worse, not better than the previous one. And yet, I have no control over it other than to switch to another phone that will likely offer the same aggravation. My current choice is to get over it and move on. If I control something, I make the changes that I want (most of the time.) New car? That's up to me. New coffee cup? Ditto. New client? That's in an area of influence, but not control. That's why the flow chart I've created. Do you control it? Then do that. Can you influence the change? Then get busy and build more influence. If you cannot control OR influence a change you still have two choice. You can...

Do you ever get impatient with small improvements and crave one big leap to the next level? Big changes are great. Geometric revolutions out-excite evolutions every time. But they're not the only way to grow. In fact, it's the small, incremental improvements that prepare us for the big leaps. It's the small changes that facilitate the greater gains. Incremental improvement is just as hard as geometric improvement -- and just as necessary. -- doug smith

When was the last time your team changed? If you answered "today" or "about a minute ago" you are thinking the way that I'm thinking: your team is constantly changing. Every time you add someone to your team, it changes. Every time you say goodbye to someone from your team, it changes. Your team changes when you change a process, when you change a procedure, when you change a rule, when you change the schedule...on and on your team is a relentless mixture of change. The good news is that team leaders can influence that change. You have the opportunity to change in ways that makes your team better, faster, smarter. Your change is open to better change. Changing one person on a team could change the whole team. High performance leaders build constantly, change intentionally, grow patiently. They change on purpose, and so does their team. -- doug smith

When you are solving a problem, do you consider the impact your solution will have on other people? I've seen leaders who impose solutions on their teams that make the job worse, not better. While some degree of resistance to any solution is natural, your problem has a much better chance of staying solved if the solution you pick is supported by your team. Does your solution make the job easier? Does your solution make your customers happier? Is your solution elegant and simple and yet robust enough to solve the problem? The purpose of problem solving is to make life better for you AND for others. Do the whole job. -- doug smith

High performance leaders are constantly leading new projects, asking people to change and MAKE changes. These are seldom easy tasks. Getting people to change requires their support. If you've ever been in charge of a project, you know that all too well. People resist. People dig in. People ignore your pleads to please pull in the opposite direction. That's because a new direction is hard. It's fraught with unseen obstacles and traps. It's unfamiliar. Change stinks. But change is necessary and it is fundamentally what high performance leaders do: drive change. Where do you start? Start with agreement. Get people to agree on as many things as you can leading to whatever change is necessary. Get them to agree to listen. Get them agree to talk. Get them to agree to the need and POSSIBILITY of change. Agreeing to possibilities smoothes the way, AND -- agreements lead to better possibilities. High performance don't have to come up with all the best ideas, they s...

How do you like change? Are you on-board every change that comes down the pike? Do you accept every new idea? Neither do your constituents. Neither does your team. Resistance isn't always right. But, it isn't always wrong, either. Someone who tells you their objections is doing you a favor: now you know. Now you can do something about it. Change the "thing" or change the way you deliver the "thing"...or dig deeper to figure out what's behind the resistance. Even the most brilliant projects need acceptance to succeed. Work on that while you work on your brilliant goal. -- Doug Smith

What is the typical reaction to courage? Often, people respond to true courage with resistance. They push back. They run away. They refuse to change. That should not surprise us. We should expect it. I've worked on projects where the biggest part of the goal achievement involved working through the resistance. People didn't want to change software. People didn't want to print less. People didn't want to move from Chicago to Trevose, PA. But in each case the change was inevitable, and embracing that change was necessary. For those of us driving those projects, we had to maintain our courage and conviction even when people were unhappy and rebellious. Courage is more often resisted than appreciated. You won't always get an award. In fact, you will seldom get an award for your courage. But, your courage is still required. Of course it's not easy. It wouldn't take courage if it was. How courageous are you prepared to be to achieve your goals? -- Do...