Over the years, some of my greatest learning has come from benchmarking successful organizations. While visiting FEDEX we learned about their Leadership Index; at Google and Pixar we learned about creating work space to fuel collaboration and creativity; from Disney we learned about the power of vision and values; from a visit to Starbucks, I saw first hand: aligned communication starts at the top. My list of learnings could fill an entire post. Here’s my point: benchmarking is powerful – when done well.
Category: Change Management
Here’s the context for today’s question: “I am a new leader in my organization. However, I am not a new leader – I have leadership experience in a previous company. Unfortunately, my experience doesn’t seem to count here. I’m having trouble getting traction in my new role. What advice do you have for me?”
I’m re-reading Henry Cloud’s book, Boundaries for Leaders, which I highly recommend. I just finished a chapter entitled Control and Results. It was so well written, I want to share a short version of Henry’s challenge.
This is the last post in my series on the five levers of change. Please don’t mistake the placement of this fifth lever with its value. If we use the first four levers of change: Communications, Measurement, Resource Allocation and Reward and Recognition, and fail to embrace the practices of Performance Management, our change efforts are still in jeopardy .
How do you honor the people in your organization? A couple of years ago, I was making a focused effort to improve in this arena. I knew intuitively different people place different value on various types of recognition. However, to truly honor people, I needed to know specifically what was of value to them individually.
This post may seem like a blinding flash of the obvious – if you want to drive change, you must resource change. There isn’t a leader in the world who would disagree with this statement. However, many leaders fail to act on this fundamental principle. To desire change without resources is a fragile hope.
Have you started working on your 2015 plans for your organization? If not, it’s probably time. Where should you begin? One approach is to determine what’s most critical for your organization to accomplish in the coming years.
I remember a leadership challenge I faced years ago. We had a goal to be ranked #1 by our customers in 25 markets around the country. We had been pursuing this for several years and we knew we were close. When we received our scorecard, we had met our goal in 23 of the 25 markets. The two markets in which we were lagging were my accountability.
I’ve written several posts over the last few years about change. Based on the enormity of the task we face as leaders, I probably have not written enough on this important topic. So, I’ve decided to devote five posts to the primary levers of change.
Last week, I wrote a post asserting that leaders must create change. I stand by that. If you and I can’t create positive change, we won’t be allowed to lead for long. However, there’s another facet of our role. We are also the guardians for what should not change.