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January 1, 2016 - November 23, 2017
Confronting someone about their behavior is a different matter. It involves a judgment call that is more likely to provoke a defensive response.
behavioral problems almost always precede—and cause—a downturn in performance and results.
Conflict is about issues and ideas, while accountability is about performance and behavior.
the only measure of a great team—or a great organization—is whether it accomplishes what it sets out to accomplish.
When members of a leadership team feel a stronger sense of commitment and loyalty to the team they lead than the one they’re a member of, then the team they’re a member of becomes like the U.S. Congress or the United Nations: it’s just a place where people come together to lobby for their constituents.
CHECKLIST FOR DISCIPLINE 1: BUILD A COHESIVE LEADERSHIP TEAM Members of a leadership team can be confident that they’ve mastered this discipline when they can affirm the following statements: The leadership team is small enough (three to ten people) to be effective. Members of the team trust one another and can be genuinely vulnerable with each other. Team members regularly engage in productive, unfiltered conflict around important issues. The team leaves meetings with clear-cut, active, and specific agreements around decisions. Team members hold one another accountable to commitments and
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DISCIPLINE 2 Create Clarity
There is probably no greater frustration for employees than having to constantly navigate the politics and confusion caused by leaders who are misaligned.
SIX CRITICAL QUESTIONS What leaders must do to give employees the clarity they need is agree on the answers to six simple but critical questions and thereby eliminate even small discrepancies in their thinking.
These are the six questions: 1. Why do we exist? 2. How do we behave? 3. What do we do? 4. How will we succeed? 5. What is most important, right now? 6. Who must do what?
More than getting the right answer, it is important to simply have an answer—one that is directionally correct and around which all team members can commit.
a plan is better than no plan.
General Patton who once said, “A good plan violently executed today is better than a perfect plan executed next week.”
QUESTION 1: WHY DO WE EXIST?
Answering this question requires a leadership team to identify its underlying reason for being, also known as its core purpose.
First, they must be clear that answering this question is not the end of the clarity process.
Second, an organization’s reason for existence, its purpose, has to be true.
Third, the process of determining an organization’s purpose cannot be confused with marketing, external or internal. It must be all about clarity and alignment.
“How do we contribute to a better world?”
As Porras and Collins say, the next question that needs to be asked, and asked again and again until it leads to the highest purpose or reason for existence, is Why?
That point will be somewhere just shy of to make the world a better place.
The point here is that an organization’s reason for existing is not meant to be a differentiator and that the purpose for identifying it is only to clarify what is true in order to guide the business.
QUESTION 2: HOW DO WE BEHAVE?
when it comes to creating organizational clarity and alignment, intolerance is essential.
The answer to the question, How do we behave?, is embodied in an organization’s core values, which should provide the ultimate guide for employee behavior at all levels.
Collins and Porras addressed in Built to Last.
An important key to identifying the right, small set of behavioral values is understanding that there are different kinds of values
Core Values These are the few—just two or three—behavioral traits that are inherent in an organization.
An organization knows that it has identified its core values correctly when it will allow itself to be punished for living those values and when it accepts the fact that employees will sometimes take those values too far.
they should be used to guide every aspect of an organization, from hiring and firing to strategy and performance management.
Aspirational Values These are the characteristics that an organization wants to have, wishes it already had, and believes it must develop in order to maximize its success in its current market environment.
Permission-to-Play Values These values are the minimum behavioral standards that are required in an organization.
Accidental Values These values are the traits that are evident in an organization but have come about unintentionally and don’t necessarily serve the good of the organization.
QUESTION 3: WHAT DO WE DO?
QUESTION 4: HOW WILL WE SUCCEED?
Michael Porter’s book, Competitive Strategy,
That means every single decision, if it is made intentionally and consistently, will be part of the overall strategy.
We came to realize that the best way for an organization to make strategy practical is to boil it down to three strategic anchors that will be used to inform every decision the organization makes and provide the filter or lens through which decisions must be evaluated to ensure consistency.
They need to start by creating an exhaustive list of all the decisions and realities that form the context of their current situation.
How will we succeed? Or put another way, How will we make decisions in a purposeful, intentional, and unique way that allow us to maximize our success and differentiate us from our competitors?
As is true in many mission-driven organizations, there is a real temptation in schools for leaders to want to be all things to all people. Of course, with limited resources and high stakes, the cost of not being strategic is great.
“If everything is important, nothing is.”
every organization, if it wants to create a sense of alignment and focus, must have a single top priority within a given period of time.
The Thematic Goal (a.k.a. The Rallying Cry)
the thematic goal is the answer to our question, What is most important, right now?
A thematic goal is … Singular.
Qualitative.
Temporary.
Shared across the leadership team.
If we accomplish only one thing during the next x months, what would it be? In other words, What must be true x months from now for us to be able to look back and say with any credibility that we had a good period?
