All in Leadership
Strategy matters.
A good strategy differentiates your offering. It galvanizes the right resources to their best effect. It positions your organization for success.
A good strategy, though, is just the starting point. Once you’ve mapped out your path, you still need to run it.
And a badly run race will slow you down, allow your competition to gain on you and overtake you, possibly even prevent you from finishing.
This month, I'd like to speak to a few fundamental ideas about how we work and the implications of our behaviors when we work.
In today's episode, I talk about work ethics and this idea of balance. We shouldn't ever apologize for the former, and I argue, if we want to build something great, then we have to accept that a balanced life is not possible (at least in the short term).
The fact is that we’re always in transition.
As much as we want stability, our lives and situations are never stable.
We’re always moving towards something, or away from it. We’re always driving forward or backwards, in one context or another. There is literally nothing (or very little, anyway) that we can take for granted.
It’s a fact that strong financial management is fundamental to sound business management. If your revenues don’t exceed your costs on a consistent basis, you will be out of business soon enough.
There’s simply no arguing with that. You can layer in whatever complexity you like, but that truism still holds (which is why it’s a truism).
This month kicks off 2021 with a few thoughts on mindset - and specifically getting our heads straight as we look forward to our goals and what we want to get done over the next 12 months.
Today's episode closes out the month with a few thoughts on mindset and how we tend to define standards that, frankly, constrain us more than they help us, especially when we're just starting out.
When I started in Management Consulting, everyone wanted to do “Strategy” work. Strategy was sexy. It was glamorous. It was something to brag about. Newly minted Analysts and Associates would jostle for pole position to be part of those teams.
And make no mistake, Strategy work was interesting and fun. But, for the most part, that wasn’t what paid the bills.
I’ve always wanted to have all of the answers. I’ve always wanted to be that guy who knows what’s happening, has a clear and cogent explanation, and can provide my point of view on the spot.
But that can’t always be the case. Nobody can have all the answers - not me, not you. And, really, there’s no issue with that.
Where the issue does arise, though, is when I try and speak with authority when I have none.
Every game has its own rules. They’re there for a reason - so that everyone works to a level playing field. That there’s no unfair advantage. So that there’s no bias in how one team or player is judged relative to another.
Of course, teams push the boundaries. They’ll operate at the margins of the rules where they can, in order to gain some sort of advantage. I get that.
But underlying it all, it’s important for everyone to operate on the basis of fairness and the principle of good faith performance. Surely, we all want that.
Many times, there’s a real value to contrarian thinking.
In investment terms, the best time to buy is when the market is down and everyone is running for the doors. Or, in personnel terms, placing a bet on the young up-and-comer who’s been committed and loyal to the cause, when conventional wisdom says to go out and hire an established name.
But there are times when the contrarian approach doesn’t make sense, and despite our desire to do what we feel is right, we need to accept that we might actually be wrong.
This month kicks off 2021 with a few thoughts on mindset - and specifically getting our heads straight as we look forward to our goals and what we want to get done over the next 12 months.
Today's episode focuses on our belief systems, the boxes we tend to put ourselves in and how an interview with a famous classical musician reminded me of the need to think differently.
This month's podcast closes out the year with my thoughts on the COVID-19 pandemic that's absorbed all of us this year. I'll share my perspectives on how I've assessed this impact and how I interpret its impact going forward.
Today's podcast closes out the year with my thoughts on how 2020 and COVID-19 has forced us to rethink how we need to approach 2021 - specifically in terms of options and agility.
It’s the end of the year and about when we start thinking about 2021 and what our plans are for the New Year.
Some of these ideas that we’re considering are new - new hobbies we want to take on, new skills we’d like to develop, new ventures we’d like to create. The thrill and excitement of doing something we’ve never done before is intoxicating, something to really look forward to.
One of the hardest things to get your head around when you’ve decided to create something new, is that no one has the answer to what you need to do.
How your offering should be designed, what it should do, how it should be priced - all of this is up for debate. There may be comparables out there - models that you can compare to and get ideas from, and they can offer a guide, a few suggestions along the path.
This month's podcast closes out the year with my thoughts on the COVID-19 pandemic that's absorbed all of us this year. I'll share my perspectives on how I've assessed this impact and how I interpret its impact going forward.
Today's podcast take on the idea of Work From Home (WFH) and how it's changed many of our views so significantly this year. That said, I also think the idea that it's here to stay is overrated.
The ability to be present is, it seems to me, a talent. It’s a hard skill to develop and hone.
I don’t know if that’s the case for you, but it’s certainly been the case for me, something I’ve personally struggled with over the years.
Part of this is a tendency to take on multiple priorities. Part of this is a tendency to obsess over a situation or a task, to let it absorb me entirely.
This month's podcast closes out the year with my thoughts on the COVID-19 pandemic that's absorbed all of us this year. I'll share my perspectives on how I've assessed this impact and how I interpret its impact going forward.
Today's podcast discusses how the pandemic has reset the equilibrium of what we thought was our "physical-virtual" balance, for good reason. This is likely to endure well after the pandemic is over.
In my last post, I talked about the Signal-to-Noise ratio and its applicability to our personal and professional lives - how we need to be able to look past the noise that we hear to the core signals, so that we can interpret and react to a situation appropriately.
There’s a related idea that Seth Godin highlighted in one of his recent posts that speaks to the idea of confidence versus volume. And that is, that we sometimes conflate the two - implicitly, when it’s coming from others, or explicitly, when we’re the ones doling it out.
The Signal-to-noise ratio measures the level of a desired signal to the level of background noise. It’s commonly used in science and engineering applications but, of course, it has as much application in our professional and personal worlds, metaphorically speaking anyway.
When someone close to us emotionally recounts a personal situation and demands that we get involved and do something about it - and we do.
This month's podcast closes out the year with my thoughts on the COVID-19 pandemic that's absorbed all of us this year. I'll share my perspectives on how I've assessed this impact and how I interpret its impact going forward.
Today's podcast discusses how we need to adjust our mindset when we think about the idea of progress. It's important to be optimistic, but that also means recognizing that the path forward will have stumbles and setbacks as well.
This month's podcast closes out the year with my thoughts on the COVID-19 pandemic that's absorbed all of us this year. I'll share my perspectives on how I've assessed this impact and how I interpret its impact going forward.
Today's episode ask the inevitable question of what we can compare this situation to. Of course, there's no easy answer, so I suggest the one thing we can do to maintain some sense of control: act.
