“When a man does not know what harbor he is making for, no wind is the right wind.” - Seneca
I’m going to scooch out on an admittedly-safe limb and make the following assumptions about you as a leader:
· You have a great deal of passion
· You want your organization to be the very best
· You need financial resources to make it happen
In his best-selling masterpiece Good To Great, author Jim Collins introduces the Hedgehog Concept, which is defined by answering three mission-critical questions:
· What are you deeply passionate about?
· What can you be the best in the world at?
· What drives your economic/resource engine?
It's not easy, but your honest answers to Collins' questions will provide you with a crystal-clear DNA stamp of who your organization is, where you want it to go, and where the necessary financial support will come from to help you get it there.
Side note: In my very humble opinion, each and every leader should read Good To Great at least once - the evidence and principles are simply too important to ignore.
Okay, let's continue. In addition to helping you recognize your organizational raison d'être, your answers to those three questions can be used as a filter for EVERY decision you make. If something does not conform to your organizational DNA - meaning, if it does not align with your passion, help you to become the best, or add to your resources – it should be discarded. Immediately. Our new friend Johnny Q. Leader will show us why.
Johnny Q. Leader has plenty of passion, big dreams, and wants his organization- JohnnyCo - to be the very best. But Johnny’s passion and natural abilities don’t completely match each other (think: American Idol auditions...). In addition, he either does not know or has not defined his organization's DNA. JohnnyCo lacks clear direction, and has therefore developed multiple personalities. Now Johnny's followers can't see the vision beyond the task at hand.
But rather than acknowledge the ugly facts, Johnny allows himself to become mesmerized by all the latest gadgets, gizmos, and wizbangs on the market. (Note: there can be a proper place for those things if they fit your organizational DNA, but remember - JohnnyCo doesn’t have one.) Johnny gasps in awe at all things shiny and fresh - then grasps at straws - pulling everything imaginable into the mish-mash culture of his organization, further muddying the already murky waters. Thinking this will help him achieve greatness, it actually mires JohnnyCo in mediocrity. Would it surprise you to know that JohnnyCo has chronic financial and resource problems? Probably not.
As Collins says, "Greatness is largely a matter of conscious choice and discipline." Sure, Johnny’s intentions are noble and his passion unquestioned. However, without knowing who he is, where he is going, and how he is going to finance the journey, Johnny lacks clear focus, rigid discipline, and unwavering intentionality. He makes bad choice after bad choice, literally losing himself in the endless circle of chasing the wrong wind, practicing what I call Grab Bag Leadership. "Let's try this...let's try that...let's try that other thing...maybe something will stick..." You get the picture. And now Johnny has inadvertently created a losing culture that will take years and years to rebuild. Unfortunately, JohnnyCo's culture prohibits him from being able to hire or retain the great people it will take to turn things around.
A leader like Johnny - one who chases the wrong wind by practicing Grab Bag Leadership - can always (and enthusiastically) tell you all about what’s “hot and now”. And he can most likely tell you what worked for somebody else. But what that same leader probably cannot do is tell you who his organization is, what harbor he is leading them toward, or how they will fuel their financial/resource engine. Ouch.
Another example of this is found in historically awful sports franchises who, year after year, fail to build a winner. Rather than slamming a stake in the ground and shouting “THIS IS WHO WE ARE, WHERE WE’RE GOING, AND HOW WE’RE GOING TO GET THERE!”, they allow themselves to become hypnotized by what’s momentarily hip. They build new stadiums and design new team logos instead of building and designing a viable team. They may acquire a good player, but without leadership's commitment to an organizational DNA, no player is the right player. The culture becomes sick, the passion wanes, and the financial resources suffer (in this case, tickets and merchandise sales). Greatness remains a pipe dream at best.
This subject really flips my lid, and while I could go on and on, I'll close here for the sake of brevity. Much more to come on this topic at a later time.
By the way, I hear JohnnyCo is hiring. Again. I'm happy to put in a good word for you, if you'd like...
J.
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