The Leadership Pipeline Challenge

As we grow older and mature, there are many things that we outgrow. It is usually better to deliberately let go things that no longer work that to have to be forced out of the kitchen. Making a conscious decision to change, grow and improve is better than changing when the house is burning. 

In the leadership growth pipeline we move from managing self, to managing others. From there we move on to managing managers, then perhaps managing a function. For the competent, we then move to managing a business and then finally managing an enterprise. In each of these leadership passages there are things that we have to outgrow as we move higher. In particular it is important that we consider skills, time use, priorities and the ability to deal with increasing complexity. 

Skills

It is not enough to know. It is more important to be able to apply ourselves well. Skills grow as we execute and deliver results not just excuses. It is important to keep challenging our competence levels. Remaining at one skill level spells professional death. Keep growing and developing, daily and in every way. When your skills grow, you are ability to apply yourself a lot more efficiently and increasingly deliver better results. 

Time

Time is the most valuable resource and the raw material for all success. How we apply our time determines the level of success that we will enjoy. Learning how to use time to our best advantage should be every leader and manager’s obsession. Time well used creates miracles. Time abused results in eternal regrets. The worst thing one could ever say is, “If only...”

Priorities

Things that matter most must never be at the mercy of things that matter least. Priorities are not just the things that we do but the things we do first. Most failures could always be traced to misplaced priorities. A useful and easy-guide to clarifying your priorities is to always have one or at most two big questions that consume you. Once you are focused on a meaningful goal, prioritization become a lot simpler and easier. 

Complexity

The world as you already know is complex. Most things simply cannot fit into a human brain. Most things do not have simple solutions. As one rises higher in leadership, there is an increasing need to deal with increasing complexity, to think through issues and make some tough decisions with impartial information. This goes with the territory of leadership. 

Never stagnate, never park in the same spot - keep moving ahead. 

Manage What You Put In

What you put in determines what you get. What you plant determines what you reap. To reap junk, sow junk. To become nothing simply be lazy and do nothing. 


The Mind
What you put into your mind determines the way you life becomes. Your mind is the processing and control tower of your life. Feed you mind with good stuff and empowering information. Feed your mind with knowledge and information. Your life becomes listless when you stop feeding your brain. A starving brain is a burden to its owner. 


The Body
What you put into your body and do with your body has a lot to do with how you feel about yourself. Your body is a great temple and the best vehicle on earth. How you treat your temple determines the level of respect that people will accord your religion of life. How you treat your vehicle determines how long you are likely to enjoy the vehicle. Maintenance is not an option for those who care for their vehicles. Mainteance of your life is also not an option if you desire greatness. If you put junk into your body, it will show. If you love and honour your body it will show. Your habits and lifestyle always in time show in your body. 


The Spirit
Thats the real you. If you ignore your spirit you are ignoring you. Feed your spirit and exercise your spirit. You need many a time to let both your body and mind that the spirit is boss. The practice of prayer, meditation and contemplative thought are important spiritual exercises. Spiritual literature will also feed your spirit. Once your spirit is alert and active, you start moving faster because the spiritual level is fast and unconstrained. 


So what are you feeding on today? Which part of you did you forget to feed? 

Who has been pushing you around?

Its easy to think, feel like and be a victim. Many people go through life looking for self-pity. Regrettably, there are no customers for self pity. No one owes you a living. If your life has to move forward you have to get up and start taking massive action.

Never let your problems and challenges push you around as though you are a dumb goat. Stress your stress and worry your worries. It's better to take action than to just observe and accept the status quo. Change never comes until you start to take some radical action to make things happen.

What action are you taking to make a difference? What did you do differently today?

Answering Your Call and Purpose

Some names are difficult to pronounce and somethings are difficult to do. Nonetheless they must be done and every generation has a few people who choose to stand up, make a difference and change the course of history. Some of these people are not celebrated in their time and some of their contemporaries choose to spit on them. Yet, in a few years after their death, the tide changes and they are revered as heroes and visionaries. It is not the glory of today that matters, but the verdict of posterity. If generations yet unborn can applaud us, then we are truly great for our time and resources are borrowed from them.

Greatness is a choice. Those who follow the crowd will never be followed by the crowd. History will always forgive you if you are willing writer and not a mere observer in life. Go for your purpose and bite your bullet of destiny.

Effective Strategy - Strategy is Not Rituals.

No organisation that is really serious about its reason for existence can dare operate without a strategy. Regrettably, not all strategies are effective. Leaders are responsible for developing and executing effective strategies. For strategy to be effective it must rise above mere rituals. 

Strategy is not Formology

Some organisations have strategy templates which they expect their managers to mechanically fill in the name of strategy development and then present at a strategy conference held at some resort hotel. The forms usually have things like: vision, mission, values, SWOT, goals, etc. 

While the intentions are good and noble. It is regrettable, that most of these forms are hurriedly completed and many times they are a cut-paste-change date affair, created to impress senior managers who will question this and that but this exercise rarely constitutes real strategic thinking or meaningful strategic conversations. Regrettably sometimes these templates are filled out the night or morning before a strategy conference. This is a sophisticated form of self deception that neither helps organisations to lift performance nor help the organisations to change and improve things. 

This perhaps explains why many organisations are frustrated with their strategy processes that do not any rain. Although they sit through the so called strategy sessions, they find that little or no execution really takes place. Strategy is not formology - the mere filling out of glorified forms. 

Strategy is not Religion

For some organisations strategy is treated the same way we take religious rituals: no questioning, always the same way, same period, same format, no real concern for results. When your strategy setting takes the form of a mere ritual, performed to gratify higher corporate beings, you are headed for trouble and you are wasting resources. 

Innov8 Strategy Services works with organisations to confront the realities of their businesses and develop effective strategies that raise the game. If you would like us to discuss your strategy please drop me an email at: milton@innov8.co.zw

Execute or Leave Office!

Leaders create and champion strategy. Without execution leadership is lost and has no value to an organisation. Good strategy is far better than bad strategy. Most strategies do not fail because they are poor. They fail because people take strategy to be an academic exercise and ritual.

Strategy is the ground of organisational life or death. The purpose of strategy is execution. The essence and content of execution should be strategy. Getting things done is an important and critical discipline. Without this discipline things fall apart.

Any executive who does not execute is not worth to be one and will likely not be one for long. As competition intensifies, the intensity of execution must also rise. Failing to raise your execution tempo is a choice for the death of the organisation. Regrettably, no competitor will execute for you.

Why is that most organisations do not execute? There are many reasons. One of the reasons is veiled laziness. It is easy to be busy doing and doing things but not executing strategy. Routine business activities are not strategy but just that: routine. Leaders who are obsessed with routine are corporate terrorists. You cannot afford to be lazy by being busy. Execution is about results not a litany of veiled and imbelished excuses. In the heat of battle excuses simply do not count as merits of valor.

Every business is potentially a good business. What makes the difference is the person managing or controlling it. Boiled to its essence what makes the difference is the quality and intensity of execution. Execute, when you do you will have very little competition.

Choose to Think!

Choose to start a new page and start thinking like you should. Think positively. There is always something that you can do if you are willing to be creative and to think. There are no locked doors in life but lazy and closed minds.

Choose to start a new chapter and start thinking like you should. Think big. Size is only a perspective. You can do more and be more, only if you are willing to go for it. Change the size of your thinking by changing the size of the challenges that you choose to exercise your mind on. If you camp on survival issues you will forever be a victim of donors.

Choose to start a new book and start thinking like you should. Think differently. If you continue doing the same things that you have always done you are fast losing your relevance. Choose to change your actions, field and level of play. Do something that you have never done, go somewhere you have never gone. It takes a choice for you to grow. Refuse to be stuck in a rut. Your mind is there ready and equipped to be fully employed. You can never blame the brain supplier!

What are you thinking about? How big are your thoughts? Do you have a thinking schedule? How do you think and where are your thoughts recorded?

Make Your Strategy Work!

Strategy is like a pregnancy: It is relatively easy to conceive, with the right midwife (facilitator) but difficult to deliver (execute). Most progressive organisations take time at least once per year to review their strategies and develop annual strategies or work-plans. Some set up longer term strategies for three to five years.

It’s not so much the periodicity of the strategy but whether the strategy is working and effective. Your strategy should be tested often for relevance, effectiveness and performance. Strategies should also be reviewed often in order to ensure that they maintain their motivational power and flame.

You cannot navigate new territory using an outdated map. Change is happening fast and strategies must factor in the changes almost dynamically in order to maintain the edge. An organisation that loses its strategic edge is a mere accident waiting to happen.

What the competitive neighbours are doing is well and great. It should never be ignored. The challenge is whether your strategy is well suited for your organisation. Yes, you must factor global and local realities in planning. You then need to confront the brutal facts of your business and ask if the path you are moving in has goodness of fit. Organisations must learn to swim or run in their chosen lanes.

How effective is your strategy? How up to date is it? Is it worth being called a strategy at all? What if your fiercest competitor saw your strategy - would they laugh or panic?

Where is your heart?

Where your heart is - there will your treasure be. If your heart is not in your work all you bring to it a life and passion-less motion and involvement. When there is a heart in any work it shows. Where is your heart? Do people feel and sense your passion?

Many people talk of your purpose. The reason why you were born, the thing for which you live and are willing to die. The only problem is that for most people purpose seems to be a mystery. Does it mean that if I have not discovered my purpose I am any less of a human being? I think I have some ideas that could help those who have found their purpose and those who are still confused about it. Mine is a simple and direct solution and anyone can use it immediately.

Commit to doing your best everyday in every way. You are not practicing to live. Everything in life is connected to everything else. Your purpose is connected to and works together with everyone's purpose. Commit to doing the best you can in this moment. What you are doing today is a foundation for the future. What you are doing today does not matter - what matters is what it is doing to you and in you. When you commit to excellence you develop habits of excellence and responsibility.

You Have More in You Than You Think!

Who has been lying to you? You are not small regardless of what your situations, parentage, ethnicity or genetics may have suggested. You have God living within you - you are a child of God, heir to the universe. You are a mover and shaker. You are a catalyst and an agent provocatuer. You make things happen! If you can only decide to.

You can count the number of seeds in an orange, or apple. However, you can never count the number of fruits that are stored in a seed. Every seed is a promise of a forest of possibilities - your life’s possibilities. Every seed is a metaphor of you. You carry a great genetic code in everything that is you. You have far more potential than you can imagine. You are able to do so much more. I thank God for your achievements to date but most likely those achievements only represent 3% of your real potential. Let the seeds in you germinate. Find your space.

The world is waiting for your gifting, your product, your idea and you. Go forth now and do something with all that is in you.