But in today’s competitive corporate climate, it’s not enough to have just a basic and operational company culture. To succeed and stand out above the rest, an organization must encourage and foster a true high-performance organizational culture. A culture of performance provides a company with its single greatest source of competitive advantage since this type of environment inspires people to go the extra mile, and to make and execute good decisions even when management isn’t looking. So what breeds these high performing cultures? Typically the environment in these companies fosters beliefs, values, character, and rituals that create a deep bond among employees, making their work meaningful and rewarding.

So how do you create this culture in your company? The first step is aligning all levels of the organization. The leadership must connect today’s work with where the business is heading and provide employees with a unified message that reinforces the company’s mission. Every manager needs to model the high performance culture and show employees how to “live” the organization’s mission. Modeling the desired behaviors shows employees that the culture and the supporting behaviors are real.

Similarly, these cultures have employees who think like owners and have an incentive to action. The leadership and employees equally participate in discussions and decisions and are open to change. When individuals understand the boundaries in which they can operate, as well as where the company wants to go, they feel supported to decide and act, and most often make the right choices. They are empowered and begin to think and act like an “owner”.

Next, high performance cultures employ an effective performance management process that allows leadership to schedule regular and open one-on-one conversations with their team. Employees need to understand their individual and collective responsibilities and management needs to support them and ensure that they are aligned to the company goals. Good leaders disseminate and individualize key messages and follow up as needed to make sure employees understand those messages. Also, help your employees set challenging targets. Your team will rise to high standards and the more they expect from themselves, the more they will achieve. But be careful to differentiate between good stretch goals, which can energize a person, and bad ones, which can lower morale.

Finally, cultures that churn out high performers are customer-centric. Employees recognize and respond to changing information from the marketplace and feel empowered to develop innovative ideas to meet market demands and stay ahead of the competition. Contributions from high performing employees at varying levels allow the organization to connect with customers and create a branded and unique experience.

Starting with these basics, you can build and better your organization’s culture and put everyone on the path to high performance and success!

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Culture

Culture defines the way people interact. It is lived every day by your people. A strong and positive culture should be modeled by everyone in the organization from the CEO to tech support to the sales representative. Culture drives the company, its behaviors and results, and guides how employees think, act and feel.

So how do you become a true leader and implement a positive culture? By living it. When employees see that their leadership is committed body and soul to the organization, they are also likely to strive to embody those cultural tenets. If you feel a certain culture is important to the success of your company, you must show that commitment by demonstrating the culture in your own behaviors. Developing and exhibiting a strong and positive culture is one of the most important traits of a true leader.

Performance

Another quality of a true leader is performance. This means having great performance yourself and also enabling your team to operate at peak performance. When your team sees that everyone around them, including you, is aligned with the company goals, this encourages them to keep improving. Providing your employees the right framework and tools to perform at high expectations encourages your team to want to reach those goals.

Alternatively, when a mistake is made, true leaders address it, put a plan in place for improvement and move on to the next issue. A good leader will align the performance plan to the company goals, and encourage the employee to take responsibility for the improvement plan. This type of resolution motivates employees to take action and elevates their performance.

Mission

Finally, leaders align their organizations with a unifying mission. It sounds simple, but you’d be surprised at how many employees don’t know what their company mission or goals are, or how to articulate them. A mission should be something that everyone can rally around, including customers, and should also be clear and relevant.

And, like culture, the company mission shouldn’t just be mentioned on websites and printed on business cards. It should be woven through the fabric of the organization and should dictate what type of performance behaviors are valued and rewarded at your company. And of course, the mission is something that is reflected in the way you act as a leader. Modeling the mission statement garners respect from your team and inspires them to align their behaviors, too.

Implementing these three things in your organization will put you on the path to becoming a true leader!

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Some people embrace it and some people resist it. Experienced and successful leaders will agree that effective change demands planning. Developing the skills and a process to realize and manage organizational change requires enhanced leadership abilities. How do you gain the support of your employees for even the most drastic of changes? Let’s take a look at some key behaviors to facilitate change in others.

Communicate

We’ve all heard the phrase, “it’s not what you say, but how you say it” and that is paramount when rolling out change to an organization. When you’re intending to introduce change, the planning process should involve input from the workforce on the best way to implement the change. If your organization has conducted employee surveys in the past, draw on that information and discuss with employees the reason for the change. Incorporating their feedback and their role in the transition process will be received well because they feel like their voice is heard. You’ll find people will be far more committed to the change if they see that their feedback has been considered. They will embrace the change with a more open-minded stance and do so with a sense of ‘ownership’ over the proposed change. Also, align your proposed changes with the corporate and company goals. Positioning the decision as ‘progress’ towards these goals is a great way to enable your employees to focus on the positive side of the process.

Support

Good leaders recognize that their team is diverse and are aware that people adjust differently to changes. In the initial phases, people don’t know what to expect and wait with anticipation. Some employees may become angry and resentful. When they realize that change is actually going to happen, people experience sadness about leaving behind the former way of doing things. Finally, they begin to accept the change and move forward. Learn to be patient when helping employees deal with change. Provide adequate training for any new policies, technology, and procedures. Your team and the organization will need this time to develop a new comfort level and replace the old. Since it usually takes at least four weeks to develop a new habit, make sure to provide adequate training and support with this in mind. Don’t just give a hour seminar on a new procedure or technology and expect everyone attending to be proficient after one or two sessions. Encourage employees to tell you when they feel comfortable and confident with the new change.

Implement

Once you’ve communicated a change that aligns with the goals, and provided support for this phase, it is time for a successful implementation. Develop a timeline on specific actions of implementation and determine the priority of actions. Along the way, facilitate and support the change to ensure a smooth transition. Open communication is also important at this stage, and giving employees a timeline and expected outcomes will ensure everyone is aligned and is moving in the same direction. Finally, affirm, appreciate and reward your employees frequently during the period of change implementation. When employees feel your appreciation and praise, they are motivated to keep pushing through the transition phase.

Monitor

After the implementation phase, don’t just disappear behind closed doors and assume that everything has successfully transitioned and people have adjusted. Review the progress of the change and maintain open lines of communication. To do this, good leaders walk around their organization and talk to their teams. Set a good example and walk around to see how the change is affecting your organization. By doing this, your employees will trust in the change process and this quality communication reduces the low productivity and morale issues that typically come with transition. Timely information also helps you overcome resistance, complacency, and other obstacles to transforming your organization.

Overall, keeping an open mind and employing these behaviors will facilitate a successful transition in any organization.

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1. Micromanaging

Leaders are usually applauded for their ability to “think big.” But the danger of failure creeps up when their focus shifts and they suddenly start thinking small and begin to micromanage. Good leaders are those who can delegate tasks and make sure that everyone on their team is learning, growing and being challenged. When leaders start to do the work that they should be delegating to their employees, they end up hurting themselves. They get caught up in details better left to their team and in turn become consumed with minute and trivial tasks. As a result, they become stressed out because they are overloaded with work and their employees feel disempowered, get bored, and look for work elsewhere. Trust in the people around you and the team that you’ve hired to get the job done.

2. Poor communication

When leaders are unclear about their own purpose, they often hide their confusion and uncertainty in ambiguous communication. An underlying clarity of purpose is the starting point for all effective communication. In other words, leaders need to believe in the purpose. Also, leaders make the mistake of thinking that their followers automatically sense their goals and know what they want without being told. If you want to lead a team, you’re going to have to constantly communicate with them and make sure they are all in the know.

3. Fear of failure

Past successes create pressure for leaders, so much so that they can become passive and stop taking risks because of a fear of failing. Prudent leadership never takes reckless chances that risk the destruction of what has been achieved, but they are not paralyzed by fear either. Leaders seek out the advice of their team, drawn on their own knowledge, and then take calculated risks to move the organization forward.

4. Questionable ethics

The highest principle of leadership is integrity. When integrity ceases to be a leader’s top priority, you compromise your ethics and rationalize it away. It is imperative to your leadership that you constantly subject your life and work to the highest scrutiny.

5. Lack of self-care

While leadership is invigorating, it is also tiring. Leaders who fail to take care of their physical, psychological, emotional, and spiritual needs are headed for disaster. Take time to clear your schedule and take care of yourself. It is absolutely vital to your leadership that you continue to grow and develop.

6. They don’t give enough criticism.

Leaders often fall into the trap of trying to please everyone and to befriend co-workers. This strategy is hardly effective and may backfire. You have to take a step back and look at the weaknesses of your team and talk to them about what they can improve. If all you do is compliment everyone, then you are doing them a disservice. On the other hand, you should accept criticism from your team. Some of your leadership tactics might not be best for the group and you need to know that.

7. They don’t respond to criticism

Finally, it’s not enough to give and get criticism. Leaders that fail to work on personal development, or don’t take it seriously, set themselves up for failure. Take action and work on your skills that need improvement, and do the same with your team. Instead of focusing on employees’ weaknesses, the leader should build on and reinforce the individual’s strengths and abilities.

Understanding these warning signs and how to avoid them, and also manage yourself through them is an important step to becoming a well-rounded and successful leader.

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1. Responding to new ideas with openness

Instead of immediately responding to a new idea with “no,” isn’t it better to say, “let’s look at it, why not?” Naysayers create an environment where no one wants to take chances. The famous statement attributed to Robert Kennedy, “Some people see things as they are and say why? I dream things that never were and say, why not?” apply also to the ideas that your employees may have. If they are free to express them, you have created a culture that nurtures innovation. If you believe innovation is important, then openness to new ideas is a must. Without this cultural orientation, your company is at risk of passing by many ideas that could, if adopted, add to the growth and profitability of the business. By having a habit of saying no, you also run the risk of losing quality talent – talent that continues to grow impatient with corporate sluggishness and either leaves or becomes lethargic.

2. Collaborating

The old adage “no man is an island” is especially true within an organization because the talent of all is needed to pursue a common goal. Yet, lack of collaboration remains an important barrier to progress. Why is it that people prefer to work in silos instead of collaborating? There are many reasons. However, the root cause in our experience is the desire of each individual to apply his or her own solution toward the fulfillment of the common goal. The thinking goes something like this, “I know that my scheme works; I don’t understand the schemes proposed by others; I’ll do mine and prove it’s efficacy; I’ll convince others to follow my way.” But if everyone thinks this way, no scheme will have sufficient support to succeed. Cultural transformation requires a change in this behavior.

We have developed five laws necessary for collaboration: First, never make a command decision unless there is an emergency. Second, never take back responsibility after delegation unless the collaborator is incompetent and is being replaced. Third, never take a decision about your own area of responsibility without first getting the input of those who have indispensable influence on your success. Fourth, never take a decision that impacts the performance of a person on whom you have indispensable influence without first consulting with them. Fifth, if you are managing people who have indispensable influence on someone else’s results, never encourage them to take over from the person who is accountable. Their contribution should be only through influence and persuasion.

3. Responsibility / Accountability

What does taking responsibility mean and what do you do when you are responsible? A closely related question is accountability, what does it mean and what do you do when you are accountable? The answers to these questions are not clear in many organizations. When you ask managers in a company, who is responsible for sales? Everyone will come forward. When you ask, who is accountable for sales, everyone will come forward. Our response is that if everyone is accountable, then no one is. Accountability should be assigned to the person at the lowest appropriate level of the organization, to the person who logically has the scope to perform. In a sales organization, this person would be the sales person. Managers of sales people at upper levels of the organization don’t sell. They influence sales through their management influence. While they are responsible to be sure sales quotas are achieved, accountability for sales is at lower levels. Companies need to define accountabilities for all the key performance indicators in the company to the appropriate levels. Setting up a corporate rewards system that links performance to rewards is encouraged to motivate people to be more responsible and accountable.

4. Proactive Action Planning

Ideally, each manager in the organization should be held accountable for at most 5 main performance indicators. More than that would cause the person to lose focus. But, for the five indicators, proactive action planning is necessary. What do we mean by that? We mean the person should analyze what he or she can do to cause the indicator to improve. The analysis should determine the root causes that affect the indicator in the negative or positive fashion, and a proactive action plan for dealing with them must be developed. This is not an exercise you do one time. Rather, it is a habit you form to improve your performance on a day-to-day basis. The promotion of the action planning mentality along with applying the problem solving tools that enhance the quality of the action plans are important characteristics of cultural transformation we are proposing.

5. Following through

Naturally, following through with commitments that emerge from the action planning process is key to good execution. In many organizations, managers make commitments, but forget them as time passes without making sure that the commitments are done, or if they are not relevant, they are deleted or the deadline is moved. In one-on-one vertical meetings, collaborators review the commitments completed with managers and get approval. The cultural transformation we propose promotes the discipline of completing commitments on time and with proof of completion. We also propose incentives for follow through to be linked to compensation in order to strengthen this important element of the cultural transformation process.

6. Making decisions based on facts

Successful corporations and leaders make decisions based on facts and not emotions, biases or opinions. Fact-based decisions help mitigate our inherent cognitive biases. They reduce the chance of these standing in the way of rational decision making. The habit of making decisions based on facts requires looking for data to validate or eliminate conclusions. It is at the heart of the action planning process we discussed above. This habit presents a huge cultural change for many managers. Yet, it should not be taken to extremes as it could stifle valid conclusions that are based on intuition.

7. Reflecting on action and learning

Many people think without translating their thoughts into action, or act without a sound thinking prior to action. Many act, but don’t reflect after action to figure out what they could have done differently, what they learned, and what they would do differently going forward. The cultural transformation we propose encourages managers to constantly evaluate how things are progressing and what behaviors need to be adjusted to ensure meeting goals. The habit of planning, action and reflection is key to the learning culture that promotes innovation and moves the organization to greatness.

Employing these 7 habits will lead to more rewarding behaviors, and in turn to a great culture.

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With today’s workforce of a different generation that is more educated and diverse, it is important to reevaluate a process that has been in place since the last century. Today’s generation works best in collaborative and empowering environments, requiring continuous feedback from managers and co-workers. Without feedback, talent tends to leave and look for  jobs with more support and career development. It’s time to abandon the performance appraisal concept of the last century and build a new one. Here is how:  

Have a more frequent conversation between you and your collaborator and change the format and content. Call it vertical results process and focus the conversation on improving results through building capacity. Make it a process rather than an event, a process that begins with a conversation followed by action and then reflection and learning. Improving results implies helping the collaborator improve his results, and is very different than evaluating the collaborator and putting him or her on the defensive. Building capacity implies giving the collaborator the support and accompaniment he or she needs to improve competencies. Feedback is at the center of this process. Given in a constructive and positive manner, feedback is a powerful driver of talent improvement. How and when you give feedback is as important as what you say. If done badly it can actually hinder a person’s ability to learn and damage their confidence.

Create an environment in the vertical meeting where hierarchy is not allowed to extinguish valuable contributions by your collaborator. This is different than the environment in performance appraisals where collaborators are on guard and careful about what they say. You want to create an empowering environment where the two of you are exploring how the collaborator can become more competent, and how the results for which he or she is accountable can be improved.  

Four Topics for Conversations

In a vertical meeting you can cover four topics: culture, performance, development and other important topics. Culture conversation aims at discussing the values of the organization and encouraging congruence of behaviors with values. By initiating a conversation about culture, you become the agent of change and help the collaborator align his or her behaviors with the company’s core values. You are not only helping your collaborator align his or her behaviors, you are reminding yourself to reflect on how you can lead by example. And when this vertical process is cascaded downwards, your collaborators will have a similar conversation with their collaborators.

The next topic is performance conversation. Here is your opportunity for reviewing the performance of the collaborator over the pervious month. By looking at, highlighting and reinforcing the positive performance, your collaborator gets the energy needed to pay attention to areas needing improvement. Specifically, take the opportunity of looking at and improving the action plans the collaborator has developed. Be sure the environment you are creating is one of collaboration and exploration, where you are helping to improve the action plan already developed rather than evaluating and criticizing it.  And, as this performance conversation is cascaded downwards to the next levels, all levels will have the benefit of paying attention to performance and results.  

Development conversation is the next topic in a vertical meeting. The purpose here is to ascertain that your collaborator is improving his or her competency on the skills needed to succeed in the job. This is a valuable discussion as it aims to develop capacity at the next level of the organization and aid in succession planning. Your collaborator may or may not know exactly what skills he needs or how to improve on the skills. During the conversation, help your collaborator zero in on the needed skills, and encourage him to develop a self-improvement plan. With your support as the manager and assistance from the Human Resource department, capacities are enhanced that improve your collaborator’s results and through that, the bottom line of the organization. Imagine the impact of this conversation on strengthening the pool of talent and impacting results when this conversation is cascaded downward to cover all levels!

The last conversation covers other topics that are important to either you or your collaborator. We have provided this space to be sure that your collaborator leaves the vertical meeting having covered all the important topics he or she needs in order to stay focused on the job. Ideally, your collaborator leaves the meeting highly focused and motivated.

It is important to remember a few key points in order to get the most out of this powerful process. See your collaborator as an equal who needs your accompaniment to learn, and also one who can provide you with the opportunity to learn. When giving feedback, be sure you focus on the positives, the strengths. Be sure you give specific examples of how his or her performance has added value to you and the organization. When giving negative feedback, remember you are not criticizing the person; you are giving an example of behaviors that are undesirable. Be sure that your style of leadership is appropriate to the development level of your collaborator. If you are too directive when you should be supportive, then you will freeze creative input. Be sure you maintain discretion and privacy when discussing your collaborator’s performance. Nothing ruins trust between a manager and an employee more than a violation of trust and confidentiality. These are the characteristics of an important management process that replaces the existing performance appraisal.

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Thinking

Before we see any real change in our behaviors, we have to change our thoughts. Aligning our thoughts with our values has a measurable impact on behaviors. Our thoughts should support our values. Whether the values come from our personal beliefs or our organization’s value statement, we cannot sustain behavior change unless our thoughts and our values are fully congruent. This congruence will give us the energy to stay the course through the change process.

Planning

We’ve all heard the phrase “fail to plan means plan to fail”, and this is especially true when changing and improving our behaviors. The best plans include a written document that has simple, clear steps about how this behavior is going to be changed. It’s also worth noting that successful leaders write down potential obstacles to their behavior change and possible solutions to overcoming them. In our plan we could include turning the behavior we want to get rid of into a behavior we want to increase. For example, if we tend to be late for meetings, the behavior we want to increase is to “be on time for meetings.” Then, focusing on one behavior at a time and successfully turning that behavior to a habit, will help us learn about ourselves, and how we can change other behaviors on our list.

Doing

Surprisingly, “doing” the new behavior could actually be the most rewarding part of this whole process. Once a person starts seeing results from their changed behavior, this positive reinforcement encourages more of the new behavior. To help keep ourselves on track it is good to set reminders and record our progress. Reminders or triggers for the behavior are the necessary component of the change process because without them, we would forget all about our plan and fall back into the existing patterns. Recording our progress is also important. And if we can find a trusted friend or colleague to give us feedback on our behavior change, then we are really increasing the probability of the change actually happening and being sustained.

Maintenance

Anyone who has joined a gym as part of their new year’s resolution to exercise understands how important this step is when it comes to behavior change. Staying the course, keeping up with the new behavior and ultimately transforming it into a new habit is probably the most difficult part of the process. Remember that new habits take time to develop. Setting up an accountability system for ourselves and tracking our results will encourage continued behavioral change.

When others in the organization see how leaders are changing, they will want to follow suit. Ultimately, it is Aristotle who put it best when he said, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” With these four steps, leaders can improve their behaviors and demonstrate this excellence in their organizations.

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1. Dwelling on the negative

All actions lead to outcomes, some desirable and some not so desirable – successes and failures. Naturally, we are pleased to see the desirable outcomes, but what about the undesirable? Recognizing them and taking remedial action is necessary, but dwelling on them is unhealthy. Savvy leaders know that everyone in the company carefully watches how the leaders respond to failures. Do they see failure as an opportunity to learn or an opportunity to punish? The first is positive. The second is negative. The first reinforces action and encourages creativity and innovation. The second discourages action and causes fear of failure with the consequence of squelching creativity. Dwelling on the negative should be avoided at all costs. Instead, acknowledge the failure, make sure learning has taken place and focus on the successes as the lever with which the failures could be more than compensated for.

2. Acting defensively

When criticism comes your way, you have a choice of ignoring it, considering it an opportunity for improvement, or acting in a defensive fashion. Of the three choices the most destructive response is the last one. There is nothing to be gained by being defensive, except calming your ego. Okay, maybe the criticism was not fair and the accuser was trying to put you down for his or her gratification, but how would a defensive reaction benefit you? It would probably further alienate the accuser and reinforce the accusation. When you act defensively, you tend to seek out ways to minimize interaction with your peers or direct reports, and deprive yourself of valuable input. This doesn’t mean you should not defend a concept, a principle or a value. You should, indeed you must. What we are talking about is avoiding a defensive discourse based on taking the message personally. The culture of defensiveness should be avoided. Instead, people should be encouraged to be detached and try to let critical input bounce off and take the message as feedback for their improvement.

3. Giving in to Apathy

Apathy saps the energy the organization needs to achieve its vision. When apathy sets in and grows beyond a few people, the organization is in trouble. Leaders should be on guard to notice cultural patterns that cause apathy and change them immediately. A person is usually apathetic because the real purpose of working in the organization has been lost. The sense of mission, of helping others, of serving the customers and making a difference is no longer meaningful. It is an indication that the person may s never have understood or bought into the mission and vision of the organization. Hence the person sees no reason to serve others and to collaborate with peers to achieve a common goal. The way to combat apathy is to facilitate involvement, ownership of the mission and vision of the organization and, most importantly, a clear definition of how each person can add value.

4. Introducing fear into the organization

Some leaders introduce fear in the organization in order to force people to perform. But this tactic at best produces a temporary result. Under the threat of fear people freeze their creative contribution and perform only what is necessary to avoid their actions getting detected. They would not go out of their way to do great things for the company. Fear sets up the organization for mediocrity and mediocrity gives market share to the competitors. In today’s business environment, what keeps you in the business game are new creative products and services that would differentiate you from your competitors. With differentiation, you can demand higher prices and the income needed for growth. By bullying and creating fear amongst your team you are extinguishing creativity as well as multiplying the problem, as those who succeed in such a culture are likely to be bullies, too.

5. Hiding the truth

There is no other destructive habits as damaging as hiding the truth. Truth is information, and without accurate, timely and complete information a business cannot survive. The culture will soon degenerate into dishonesty and corruption. Some people feel that when something unpleasant appears, hiding it will protect them and guard their position. Far from it. Hiding the truth is cause for immediately getting fired. Leaders should make every effort to stop this behavior at all costs. Instead, people should know that the truth is their best friend, and any news, however unpleasant, can only help them if they deal with it in a responsible fashion.

6. Protecting turfs

Protecting turfs also stems from the lack of understanding and ownership of the mission and vision of the organization. When a person applies for work and is placed in a particular function whether it is human resources, finance, information technology or a line area, the tendency could be to focus only on strengthening their position in this function. Yet, there is a higher purpose beyond the functional silo. It is to help the organization to fulfill its mission and achieve its vision. When there is conflict, one can have the temptation to serve the immediate master. That is unhealthy and should be avoided. What a healthy culture requires is selfless effort to serve the good of the whole, not be blinded by the requirement of the part and be tempted to protect a turf. Sadly, many large organizations tolerate a culture of silos and turfs. This should be avoided at all costs.

7. Causing disunity

An organization is a collection of people who are brought together to accomplish a common goal. Unity of these people creates the energy to advance toward the goal. Imagine someone causing disunity among this group. It saps energy, causes people to blame each other, to protect turfs, act defensively, hide the truth and other toxic behaviors we have discussed in this post. What sets in is apathy and lethargy. Such an environment is not attractive to talent retention. Your good people will escape and without talent, the organization will lose its ability to succeed. When failure becomes imminent in the organization, that is when leaders should be sure that people don’t lose faith, don’t move into a survival mode and cause disunity. Their faith must be restored and the habit of causing disunity must be avoided at all costs. Instead, people should be encouraged to gain an understanding of the purpose of the organization and explore how each person can contribute to its advance.

Eliminating these negative behaviors and replacing them with positive ones will enable your corporation to nurture a healthy culture and move forward towards success.

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“Success starts with a clear vision.”

Clarity of the corporate vision is the fundamental prerequisite for any organization to achieve greatness. With clarity of vision comes clarity of understanding, which in turn produces the energy to move forward. Many of the problems organizations are facing can be solved if the vision is made clear for the workforce, if everyone becomes inspired by it and finds a part to play in turning it into reality.

 “Better strategy or better strategy execution?”

CEOs are always looking for new strategies and they should be. But what they often fail to do is to pay attention to the execution of their last strategy. Did it fail because it was a bad strategy or because it wasn’t well executed?”

“If you’re leading and they are not following, you have a problem.”

There are leaders who really don’t care about what the other levels of their organization think or feel. They are in a leadership role because of their position, and expect those they manage to follow them. Some may follow because they have to, not because they want to. Others won’t. In either case it’s the leader’s problem.

“Being aligned with your boss and being aligned with company strategy is not the same thing.”

What if you boss is not aligned with the strategy of the organization? Aligning with him or her might please your boss, but is not the best for the organization you are serving.

“Strategy alignment comes before execution alignment.”

Being aligned to deliver excellent execution of a strategy is great. But, what if the strategy of the business unit you are serving is not aligned with the strategy at the company level? What if the business unit is out to grow as fast as it can, but the company strategy for the business unit is actually to grow only in certain niches? First the strategies must be aligned and then comes the execution of strategy.

“It is better to be aligned with strategy than aligned with vision.”

Imagine the situation where your company has a common vision and there are several ways to reach that vision. The strategy created at the top is by definition the best way. As a person working in this organization, would you try to be aligned with vision or strategy? To be aligned with vision implies that you can take any road you want toward vision. In other words, you invent your own strategy. To be aligned with strategy means you are supporting the strategy already selected. Which one is better? The first will dilute the resources necessary to make the company strategy successful. The second will combine resources for excellent execution.

“If you ignore good performance, it will go away.”

Most managers have the tendency to focus on what they can fix; to zero in on what is not working in order to set things right. Few pay attention to focusing on what is working and to recognize good performers. They fail to realize that when they ignore the good performers who are behind these successes, their performance will either eventually diminish, or they will move on and find employment elsewhere.

“It’s more important to be doing the right things than to be doing things right.”

The focus on quality that has been emphasized for a long time has the tendency to get people to do things with quality, to do them right. This is great. But, what if what you are doing is not the right thing, or not even necessary. It is always important to analyze actions within the framework of strategy and be sure that you are focusing on the ‘right thing’.

“Information is a means not an end in itself.”

As important as information is in helping us reach our goals, it is still only a means to an end. It is an essential tool – but is still a tool. Preoccupation or obsession with data without the narrative behind what the data represents and how it is used can cause us to lose our orientation and lose sight of the goal.

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