Category Archives: Good Books

Are You Willing to Make the Choice?

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Most of us want to be part of a “great” organization – if we are the owner, we want it to be a great organization.  Often times when we do encounter a great organization we think that they were just at the right place at the right time of in other words, lucky. The reason our organization is not great is because we weren’t so lucky.

According to Jim Collins in Great by Choice - that argument is not valid based on their research of over six thousand years of corporate history.  He contends the following:

“. . .greatness is not primarily a matter of circumstance; greatness is first and foremost a matter of conscious choice and discipline. The factors that determine whether or not a company becomes truly great, even in a chaotic and uncertain world, lie largely within the hands of its people. It is not mainly a matter of what happens to them but a matter of what they create, what they do, and how well they do it.”

It is a choice to be great and the discipline required to be so.  It is a choice to set high standards – to not compromise and the willingness to act in a disciplined manner.  This is hard work and requires making difficult choices.  The bottom line is that a great organization is achievable – if you choose it and are willing to work to make it so.

What is your choice?
BG

Encouraging the Heart

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Good morning to you.  

As a leader you are, or should be, a dealer in hope.  Actually that should be fairly easy as we serve the One who is our Hope.  However, I am afraid that at times I lose sight of that fact in the midst of busyness.  We of all people should be brimming over with hope.

James Kouzes and Barry Posner in their excellent book Encouraging the Heart make the following statement:

“Encouraging the Heart is ultimately about keeping hope alive. Leaders keep hope alive when they set high standards and genuinely express optimism about an individual’s capacity to achieve them. They keep hope alive when they give feedback and publicly recognize a job well done. They keep hope alive when they give their constituents the internal support that all human beings need to feel that they and their work are important and have meaning. They keep hope alive when they train and coach people to exceed their current capacities. Most important, leaders keep hope alive when they set an example. There really is nothing more encouraging than to see our leaders practice what they preach.”

So are you keeping hope alive in those that you lead?  Including your family?

Have a great day!.
BG

The Kernel of Good Strategy

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Good morning!

Yesterday we talked some about the four signs of bad strategy.  Today, let’s talk about the three things that make up the “kernel” of good strategy according to Richard Rumelt in his book Good Strategy, Bad Strategy.

1. A diagnosis that defines or explains the nature of the challenge. A good diagnosis simplifies the often overwhelming complexity of reality by identifying certain aspects of the situation as critical. You are essentially asking “What’s going on here?”. It is a judgement about the meaning of a set of facts.

2. A guiding policy for dealing with the challenge. This is an overall approach chosen to cope with or overcome the obstacles identified in the diagnosis. Good guiding policies are not goals or visions or images of desirable end states. Rather, they define a method of grappling with the situation and ruling out a vast array of possible actions.

3. A set of coherent actionsthat are designed to carry out the guiding policy. These are steps that are coordinated with one another to work together in accomplishing the guiding policy. The actions within the kernel of strategy should be coherent. That is, the resource deployments, policies, and maneuvers that are undertaken should be consistent and coordinated.

The “kernel” is not the totality of the strategic plan, but it is the core.  Without the kernel the plan is in trouble.

Have a blessed day today!  Headed out with my boss today to meet with another organization to talk about CEO coaching – ought to be interesting!

BG

Rumelt, Richard (2011-07-19). Good Strategy Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters (p. 77). Random House, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

4 Signs of Bad Strategy

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Good morning!

When you hear the term “strategic planning” does it conjure up images of long meetings, thick binders, and plenty of fancy trendy words?  Does it evoke feelings of frustration and boredom?  And at the end, do you wonder if you really have a good strategy?

Well, I am reading Good Strategy, Bad Strategy by Richard P. Rumelt and he lists four things that are indicators of a bad strategy:

1. Fluff. Fluff is a form of gibberish masquerading as strategic concepts or arguments. It uses “Sunday” words (words that are inflated and unnecessarily abstruse) and apparently esoteric concepts to create the illusion of high-level thinking.

2. Failure to face the challenge. Bad strategy fails to recognize or define the challenge. When you cannot define the challenge, you cannot evaluate a strategy or improve it.

3. Mistaking goals for strategy. Many bad strategies are just statements of desire rather than plans for overcoming obstacles.

4. Bad strategic objectives. A strategic objective is set by a leader as a means to an end. Strategic objectives are “bad” when they fail to address critical issues or when they are impracticable.

Do you see any of these four indicators in your strategy?

This is a good book for those that are serious about strategy development.

BG

Rumelt, Richard (2011-07-19). Good Strategy Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters (p. 32). Random House, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

What Did You Say?

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Good morning!  Still no snow up here in SW Michigan and in fact we have even had a few sunny days which is a great blessing.

Blah-Blah-Blah!  How many presentations have you heard, meetings you have attended, or memos (emails) you have read where at the end you go “What?”.  In this highly verbal world we live in it seems we believe the more words we use and the “fancier” the words the better.  However, we often leave our listeners (readers) saying “What?”

We seem to forget that the goal was communication which demands clarity – instead we often cause confusion.  So what do we do?

Drive towards clarity!  Learn to speak, write, draw, and so on in ways that engage your audience, not what makes you feel good or smart.

Dan Roam has several books out that are a great help – his latest one is Blah Blah Blah in which he introduces his Blah Blahometer – a great way to evaluate the clarity of your message.  I would recommend checking out his site as well as his book.

Remember – the goal is to communicate with great clarity and it is not to try to impress them with your vocabulary or extensive knowledge of corporate-speak / ministry-speak.

Hope you have a great weekend!
BG

Being Quiet Amidst All the Talking

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In the US, we love the large personality - we see the gregarious person as the ideal.  We see them as smarter and more successful while seeing the quiet person as less smart, less successful.  We equate the ability to talk fast and to talk well with success.  The quiet people we often ignore.

The problem is that by not valuing those quiet people, we lose so much.  We miss great ideas by out talking the quiet ones or think they don’t have any ideas simply because they are not talking excitedly.

In his book Good to Great, Jim Collins points out that ALL of the CEO’s of the great companies were quiet men who led from behind the scenes and were humble, but with intense will. In her book Quiet, Susan Cain illustrates how much we lose when we fail to tap into the quiet people in our organizations.

Pay attention to the quiet people in your organization, they have something to say – if you give them the chance to say it.  If you don’t, both you and your organization will lose.

BG

BE – The First Word in Leadership

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The first thing I want to do today is thank the Lord for the protection of my daughters. They were driving Saturday and hit a patch of ice and began sliding with no control of the car. They stopped one foot from a traffic sign that was just a couple of feet from a steep drop-off of about 20 feet or more. So glad they are safe!

The most important aspect of leadership is not what you know, not your skill set, or who you know. The most important aspect of leadership is WHO you are. In the Army’s leadership model, it is the BE of , BE-KNOW-DO.

In the book, BE-KNOW-DO, Leadership the Army Way, the author quotes General of the Army George C. Marshall speaking to officer candidates on the eve of World War II. “When you are commanding, leading [soldiers] under conditions where physical exhaustion and privations must be ignored, where the lives of [soldiers] may be sacrificed, then the efficiency of your leadership will depend only to a minor degree on your tactical ability. It will primarily be determined by your character, your reputation, not so much for courage – which will be accepted as a matter of course – but by the previous reputation you have established for fairness, for that high-minded patriotic purpose, that  quality of unswerving determination to carry through any military task assigned to you.”

We often read books, go to seminars, and attend training classes to become better leaders, when what we really need to focus on is what it means to BE a leader. To focus on the development of our character, to grow as a person. As has been often said, leadership is not a vocation, it is a way of life.

How are you intentionally growing in the BE aspect of leadership?

Have a great week!
BG

Hope or Despair – It’s Your Choice

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Things are really bad aren’t they?  Have you heard lately just how bad things are from the media?  Are you stocking up for the great financial crash when anarchy sets in and it will be every man for himself?  Are you hearing a steady stream of just how bad our world is? Are you pessimistic about the future of mankind?

Before you go jump off a cliff, Dr. Bradley Wright wants you to think about a few things that he has put in his book Upside.  First of all he reminds us that the news media is a business and needs to make a profit and that with the 24/7 news cycle it has become hyper-competitive.  They also know that fear sells.  If they can scare you enough, you will pay attention to their newscast, website, newspaper, and so on.  So fear is their primary means of getting your attention – even when what they are talking about should generate no fear at all!

Let me give you a few pieces of information from Dr. Wright’s book:

  • Total compensation in the US has risen by one-third from 1980 to 2004. A family of four today actually earns 41% more than a family of four in 1970.
  • Since 1955 world income has increased three-fold.
  • From 1915 – 1940 between 50% – 75% of Americans lived in poverty.  That number today is between 11% and 15%.  Of course what we define as poverty here in the US is wealthy in the rest of the world.
  • In 1981 a full 52% of people living in developing countries lived in poverty – this has fallen to 26% in 2005.  A full 50% reduction in only 25 years.
  • Commodities and goods are not only much cheaper now, but are of much higher quality. A measure they used is how many minutes of work does it take to purchase something.  In 1920 it took 27 minutes worked to purchase a gallon of milk – in 1998 it was only 7 minutes.
  • Americans now live longer than ever before. Someone born in 1900 could expect to live 47 years, born in 1950 could expect 68 years, now it is 80. Overall, life expectancy worldwide has doubled in just 100 years – an extraordinary accomplishment!
Those are just a few highlights – also, infant mortality rates have dropped dramatically, accidental deaths have dropped, there has been a radical decline in deaths from infectious diseases, AIDS cases are declining, hunger rates worldwide have dropped remarkably and on and on.
There are still serious issues in this world, but there has been great progress made and there is reason for hope.  And at the center of the movements to make things better are Christians injecting grace and hope into this world.
So, don’t give in to despair and pessimism - live a life of hope and joy!  Where things are broken, engage and be part of the process of redeeming a broken world for the glory of Christ.  Be an agent of hope!
BG