Leading people is labour intensive; popping the bubble of the 4-hour work week
Leading people is labour intensive; popping the bubble of the 4-hour work week

The 4-hour work week might be attainable if you forward orders of vitamin shipments to a third-party, or have only one employee—you. But if you are dependent on people to collaborate effectively for achievement of goal, here's the wake-up call. It takes time. In fact, the better your team and the bigger the change, the more time it requires.

Leading people is labour intensive. It takes time and energy. It requires passion for that role. If you don't have the appetite, stay away from this buffet.

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Culture, Leadership, Problem-solving, StrategySimon Luntleadership, change managementComment
Land of the Free, and the Home of the Brave: Can you handle the brutal truth?
Land of the Free, and the Home of the Brave: Can you handle the brutal truth?

Like any patient participating in a check-up, the leadership team has to be braced for any results arising from an examination.  For some, this thought alone prevents an appointment from being made. But for those who do proceed, the feedback provides a prodigious increase in corporate confidence about future organisational health. The process lifts the fogginess on possible routes to growth.

Investigating if there's a gap between culture and strategy is unnerving for some. Participation means exposing ourselves to the brutal truth, and dealing with the consequences of the results. Our corporate bodies are no different.

We can, though, may the process more comfortable.

 

 

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Culture R&D®, Strategy, LeadershipSimon Luntculture, strategy, lead, leadershipComment
Why do businesses continually enter races they can't win?
Why do businesses continually enter races they can't win?

Last week both Dennis Kimetto and I were in Germany. I was there to conduct a Problem-Solving Leadership workshop, and Kimetto was there to run a marathon. And though my programme went well, it was Kimetto’s performance that made the newspapers. 

Dennis broke the marathon world record in Berlin by completing the course in 2:02:57, beating the previous record by almost 30 seconds.

This is a remarkable feat, but remarkable feats in distance running are not uncommon within Kimetto’s, Kalenjin tribe of Kenya. Their five million members have won an incredible 40% of the major international distance races since 1980. 

Let’s put this into context: There are 17 American men in history who have run under 2:10 in the marathon. There were 32 Kalenjin men who did it in October 2011.

What is the secret of their success, and what can it teach organisations?

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Culture R&D®, Culture, StrategySimon Luntstrategy, cultureComment
Shutting up shop shouldn't mean closing doors
Shutting up shop shouldn't mean closing doors

Stout women remove skin from your ankles with their chariots. Old men stop-and-start foot traffic abruptly as they shake hands and kiss their acquaintances. It exasperates some of the younger locals and beguiles some of the visitors, but these are prices of participation in French local markets.

Local markets have always been important in Europe and set to become even more so. And while markets have been at the heart and soul of a town, they may become its lifeblood too.

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Culture, Customer R&D®Simon LuntCustomer R&D, leadership Comment
The sands in China are shifting
The sands in China are shifting

This week I conducted a leadership workshop in China’s largest and most prosperous city, Shanghai. It has been five years since I last visited the city, and there have been two dramatic change in that period.

Dizzyingly tall towers continue to shoot up at a rapid pace. Globally, Chinese contractors are now the masters of modular construction of these structures, and cosmetically at least, the results are impressive. But the quality of the electrical, plumbing and mechanical is far below the sophistication of the outer casing. 

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Culture, LeadershipSimon Luntleadership, cultureComment
Bead-counting alone doesn’t tell the story
Bead-counting alone doesn’t tell the story

The leader had self-esteem.

Contrary to popular belief, many business managers lack self-esteem; they are fearful of dissent and it bursts through their leadership style and binds the psyche of the organisation. 

Here are some tell-tale signs. If you see a large organisation that;

  • was once a leader but is devoid of competitive advantage
  • is diverse in population but not in thinking
  • hails investors yet hides from customers
  • tries to control rather than shape the future
  • put numbers before narrative
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Leadership, Culture R&D®, CultureSimon LuntleadershipComment
Why do we speak English—even when we don't want to?
Why do we speak English—even when we don't want to?

Leaders in organisations have two key roles: 

  1. Defining the common problems for the group to solve; some call this strategy
  2. Reducing the barriers to collaboration so the group can solve the chosen problem for mutual benefit: some call this Culture.

This first is the glamor-puss getting all the attention but it is the second, Culture, which is the real powerhouse.

But few know how to harness and lead this part of leadership; it is too messy, too abstract, too human. That's about to change. 

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Simon LuntComment
Can your team deliver innovation? Find out with my Christmas Gift to you.
Can your team deliver innovation? Find out with my Christmas Gift to you.

Are you hop-skipping delightfully from one good idea to another but never getting things done? Or are you perfecting the present, making a great sailing ship while the rest of the world moves to steam?

I have seen businesses that are so innovative, nothing ever gets completed. They flounder as they flail excitedly from one awesome idea to another. They may not run out ideas, but do they do run out of cash.

Conversely, I have worked with highly adaptive organisations who grow, painstakingly, by tweaking past successes. They make few mistakes, but one day they end up with perfect sailing ship, while the rest of the world has moved to steam.

The Holy Grail is, of course, Delivered Innovation. This requires the best of both approaches but each extreme often sees the worst of each other thus making mutual collaboration difficult.

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Culture, Leadership, Problem-solvingSimon LuntLeadership, problem solving, Innovator, Adaptor, KAIComment
Is the glass half empty or half frozen?
Is the glass half empty or half frozen?

-25'C flashing on the car dashboard always heralds is a fresh start to the day, but the cool temperature didn’t deter the hardy souls I saw jogging as I drove out for my morning coffee.

Yet, if the comments of dial-in listeners on the morning news show where representative of city, a visitor would take Torontonians as feeble-minded as well as feeble-bodied.

 Enough. This is winter. This is Canada.

You see, when it comes down to it, we can deal with these parky conditions in one of three ways:

  1. Complain. Wish things were different but do nothing about it.
  2. Ignore. Insulate yourself from current conditions and carry on in isolation.
  3. Embrace. Modify your actions to make the most of the environment, and change as it changes.
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Culture, Leadership, StrategySimon Lunt Comment
Which would you rather be—a perfect leader or a successful one?
Which would you rather be—a perfect leader or a successful one?

Winston Churchill was buried 50 years ago today and throughout the week, revisionist journalists have gleefully (and no doubt remuneratively) been picking over his bones in the UK press.  

Churchill was out of sync with the social changes in Britain in almost each of the decades he lived. So how does someone with that track record end up as being the only commoner in the 20th Century to have a State Funeral in St Paul’s?

Because he was successful, not perfect

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Simon LuntComment
What did the Ancient Greeks ever do for us? Quite a lot it seems.
What did the Ancient Greeks ever do for us? Quite a lot it seems.

The Ancients knew a thing or two about Strategy. 

The early Greeks viewed life as a voyage in which you would head in a general direction. Constantly navigating between Cosmos and Chaos—Order and Disorder with the realisation that winds from both sides could provide useful momentum. But sailing too close to the craggy shoreline of either extreme would lead to destruction. 

Contrast this with the modern, titanic, corporate warriors. Insulated out of necessity (internal meetings, financial reviews, presentations to analysts, fear of bad customer feedback), they delegate strategy to staff who, with finger-crossed confidence, report that every future has been anticipated, every contingency planned. This well engineered business will withstand any iceberg. Nothing left to chance. 

Or so they believe. It usually ends in tears—or an unfriendly take-over.

So what can we learn?

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Complexity, Leadership, StrategySimon Luntleadership, strategy Comment
Get the profits and avoid the perils of digital marketing: an (almost) free workshop
Get the profits and avoid the perils of digital marketing: an (almost) free workshop

If you're in the Greater Toronto Area on Tuesday 6th December join Rosalina and me at an (almost) free workshop on the strategic aspects of digital marketing.

Done properly, digital marketing can give you very loyal, high quality customers. Loyal, high-quality customers lead to loyal, high-quality gross margins.

But digital marketing abounds with sink holes and pit-falls. 

This workshop focuses on getting profits and avoiding perils. It will introduce digital marketing to strategic decision-makers, not tacticians.

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Simon LuntComment
O Brother (Steve Jobs) where art thou?
O Brother (Steve Jobs) where art thou?

It’s official. Tim Cook has stepped out of Steve Jobs’ shadow. 

Under his watch (no pun intended), the stock price has doubled, market capitalisation has gone from ~ $300bn to $660bn, and contribution of revenues from subscription services has boomed. 

Cook filled a big pair of shoes—and now he’s using them to walk to a destination far from Apple’s roots.

But at what price?

Apple is about to lose it's key competitive advantage: making us creators and communicators

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Simon Luntstrategy, LeadershipComment
Executives have to go where the rubber hits the road
Executives have to go where the rubber hits the road

Here’s the take away for Executives.

Despite your best endeavours, you may have 'defeat devices' installed in your organisation. To ensure this is not the case, you have to engage the source data.

What does this mean?

  • Even if your Net Promotor Score is a whopping 80%, you, personally, should still verify the data by engaging with customers.
  • Even if your employee engagement surveys tell you things couldn’t be better, you still need to confirm this by walking, talking and listening.
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Simon LuntComment
Concerned your poor strategic thinking will be exposed? Time to write a book.
Concerned your poor strategic thinking will be exposed? Time to write a book.

Wool-suited, french-cuffed and tied (at that time), executives can sit cooly for hours in 40C heat but don’t ever extinguish the projector. Nothing brings on a perspiratory flash-flood faster than the prospect of delivering a slide-less presentation. 

An executive should be able to communicate her or his strategy in 10 mins or less. They should be able to do so engagingly and with clarity. 

Any Executive who cannot do this surrenders their right to admonish sub-ordinates who are similarly fuzzy in their communication of the strategy.

Can’t past the test? Fortunately a remedy is at hand.

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Leadership, Strategy, CommunicationSimon LuntLeadership, communication, strategyComment
If you love your business, get involved
If you love your business, get involved
I had tired of the grouchiness of the Air Canada staff that welcomes you into their lounge at Pearson Airport, so I chose to spend my pre-flight time at the Priority Club, an alternate choice for frequent flyers and one not affiliated with an airline. The lounge was empty except for the presence of a dozen Air Canada pilots, enjoying their own company, and displaying boisterous good humour.
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Simon LuntComment