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It's what the British call the silly season -- elections -- or more precisely the Primaries. If you're like me you've watched debates, stump speeches and interviews. You may have visited websites and blogs and tried to figure out what each candidate is offering. It can still be confusing. When people tell pollsters that they made up their mind as they entered the voting booth, I cringe.
Deciding on a presidential candidate is a privilege of living in a democracy. Over the last few years as I've researched the early American republic and its leaders, I've discovered 5 criteria you should consider when choosing a candidate.
(WARNING: You will have to think and ponder. You will have to examine your own heart and values and beliefs. You may have to make some hard choices.)
1. The candidate must have a Vision -- a big picture of where they want to lead the nation. They must also be able to tell you what they want to see happen by the end of their four year term.
2. The candidate must be able to make that vision a reality. For some candidates this may be done through their experience and based on their track record. For others it may be based on their ability to inspire others to act through their positive persuasive powers.
3. The candidate must have the proven ability to grow, to change and to evolve. They should have demonstrated that they can continue to examine the facts and change their minds in a principled way, based on changes in circumstances. They must be able to admit both mistakes and evolving thinking.
4. The candidate must have "character." They should demonstrate their values in their actions.
5. The candidate must be willing to be the leader of the entire nation and all the people. To quote James Madison in Federalist 10: They are people "whose wisdom may best discern the true interest of their country, and whose patriotism and love of justice will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary or partial considerations."
Line your favorite candidates up against these criteria. Do they make it on all 5 criteria? Can you say that they make the grade 100%? If not, time to think some more.
Whoever your candidate is, show up and vote. There is an old adage that says people get the government they deserve. I don't necessarily agree with that but if you don't vote, you really can't complain. See you on Primary or Caucus day.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Be Careful What You Ask For: Getting the Mission Wrong
Be Careful What You Ask For: Getting the Mission Wrong
Is your Mission statement leading you to new and greater accomplishments or down the road to perdition?
No, this is not a rhetorical question. Although everyone today is aware that they need a mission for their organization, just having one doesn't mean you will automatically be successful. In fact, many mission statements are simply meaningless. They've been wordsmithed by marketing types and vetted by the lawyers to a point where they no longer really say anything.
The mission should bind the individual to the organization. It should give him or her a clear statement of what the organization is all about. Then the person can make decisions and take actions by asking one simple strategic question:
Will this decision or action move me closer to or further from accomplishing my mission?
No firefighting. No knee-jerk reactions. No crisis management...or at least not as much!
The first step is to have a clear concise mission statement. It should be short and to the point. It should provide guidance for action.
Ritz Carleton Hotels stated in its credo: We are Ladies and Gentlemen Serving Ladies and Gentlemen. Every employee can view his or her work through this clear lens.
It's 2 AM and you're the desk clerk facing a disgruntled guest who just got in from a grueling trip. He's tired and cranky and taking it out on you. What do you do? In most hotels the rest of the story would not be pretty. At Ritz Carlton, the clerk goes through something like this in his or her head: 'I'm a gentle person and that guest is a gentle person having a very bad day. What can I do to help?' And then the clerk acts accordingly...the key word is 'act' not 'react.'
A couple of decades ago the city of Portsmouth, Virginia was down on its luck...but not completely out of luck. The City brought in a remarkable and talented City Manager who set a new -- simple -- mission for the city: ‘Clean City, Economic Development, and Customer Service.’ And then George Hanbury spread that mission and it's meaning to every official and employee.
The city turned around under Hanbury's leadership. Eighteen years later they invited him back for a special 'George Hanbury Day.' At the reception a man came up to him. "I'm sure you don't remember me but I drove a garbage truck when you became City Manager. I still remember that mission you gave us, 'Clean City, Economic Development, and Customer Service.' It changed everything."
That's the power of a good mission. It's transformational.
But there is a nasty little problem hiding under the surface in many mission statements. They can contain the seeds of their own destruction. And when you get it wrong and follow it successfully, you can destroy yourself. A major utility company presents an object lesson. The company decided to reinvent itself and implement a new quality philosophy. They stated their road map for action this way.
"During the next decade, we want to become the best managed electric utility in the United States and an excellent company overall, and be recognized as such."
On the surface it looks fine. It is striving to be well managed and excellent. These are admirable goals if a little vague. But the problem comes in the final part of the statement, 'be recognized as such.' At first it seems reasonable. Come up with a measurement that will demonstrate this excellence. Sounds OK. It helps counteract the vagueness.
Here's where things took a wrong turn. The CEO and his team decided that the 'recognition' would be winning the Deming Prize. This was the prestigious Japanese quality award named for the great guru of quality, Dr. W. Edwards Deming, who had been pivotal in helping Japanese industry recover after World War II. A special foreign division prize had just been announced. So the company decided to 'go for it.'
Now this in itself was not necessarily a bad thing. The prize required great rigor, dedication and leadership to be achieved. It would certainly be an important recognition of excellence. So far so good...
They set off on their excellence journey. Without meaning to or even noticing it, the mission shifted to emphasize the 'recognized as such' part of the mission. This happened slowly, imperceptibly despite a lot of good intentions and excellent improvement results that were well documented. As the prize itself slowly refocused people's efforts, a 'quality bureaucracy' materialized. As a former employee quipped, 'you couldn't plan lunch without doing a 7 step storyboard!'
The great day came and sure enough the company achieved its mission measurement -- the Deming Prize. It was a Pyrrhic victory.
First they were attacked in the local paper and then Public Service Commission got into the act. Who was going to pay for all of this? The rate-payers didn't want to foot the bill! This was despite the fact that the company made significant strides and reduced costs. There was that initial investment that people did not want to pay for. Later that year there was a freak storm and service was interrupted significantly. The howling media jumped all over the notion that the company was 'excellent' or 'well-managed.'
It wasn't long before the CEO was out of work and a memo was 'leaked' to the papers announcing the dismantling of the quality improvement program and its infrastructure.
What went wrong? That decision to add 'be recognized as such' led to choosing to win a prize and then to a distortion of the company's focus. No one meant it to happen. These were bright, experienced and well intentioned people. And the media weren't fair but by that time it was really too late. Chasing the prize (which Dr. Deming himself always criticized) did the damage long before the papers got into the act.
The point here is not to 'put down' the company. In fact, I was a great admirer of their efforts and accomplishments. I used much of their methodology to accomplish some great results. The point is to be very careful in constructing your mission. If you use it right, you will accomplish it, unintended consequences and all.
The mission requires regular scrutiny. Is it still leading us in the right direction? Is it as powerful in achieving results as those of the city of Portsmouth and Ritz Carlton Hotels? Have we slipped off the path without noticing it? Does every single person understand it, embrace it and use it every day? Are we on the happy path or the road to perdition?
There's a wonderful old country tune that the Carter Family used to sing:
Keep on the sunny side, always on the sunny side,Keep on the sunny side of life. It will help you on your way, It will help you every day,If you keep on the sunny side of life.
Keep your mission on the sunny side.
Advantage Leadership, Inc.
* * * * *
Want to learn more about creating a strategic plan that gets robust results?
There are two easy ways to get our best selling book, Success Planning: A 'How-To' Guide for Strategic Planning. It is now used in hundreds of companies world wide and is part of the curriculum at one of the US military War Colleges.
(1) Buy it directly from our website: www.AdvantageLeadership.com/book.html Add on our unique 30-day e-mail mini-course on strategic planning for more practical tips and techniques.
(2) Buy it on Amazon: Search on Strategic Planning -- we are on one of the first few pages
Look for our new book, Conventional Wisdom How Today's Leaders Plan, Perform and Progress Like the Founding Fathers early in 2008 and read more about how leaders handle mistakes and much more.
Based on the US Constitutional Convention of 1787 and interviews with successful CEOs, this unique business book combines history and business. I examine the Convention as an example of typical strategic planning with all of its creativity and messiness. Spring forward to the present and see how today's CEOs use the same techniques to transform their companies and translate vision into reality. Learn from all of the leaders --what works in the real world so that you can improve your own abilities as a strategic leader.
Is your Mission statement leading you to new and greater accomplishments or down the road to perdition?
No, this is not a rhetorical question. Although everyone today is aware that they need a mission for their organization, just having one doesn't mean you will automatically be successful. In fact, many mission statements are simply meaningless. They've been wordsmithed by marketing types and vetted by the lawyers to a point where they no longer really say anything.
The mission should bind the individual to the organization. It should give him or her a clear statement of what the organization is all about. Then the person can make decisions and take actions by asking one simple strategic question:
Will this decision or action move me closer to or further from accomplishing my mission?
No firefighting. No knee-jerk reactions. No crisis management...or at least not as much!
The first step is to have a clear concise mission statement. It should be short and to the point. It should provide guidance for action.
Ritz Carleton Hotels stated in its credo: We are Ladies and Gentlemen Serving Ladies and Gentlemen. Every employee can view his or her work through this clear lens.
It's 2 AM and you're the desk clerk facing a disgruntled guest who just got in from a grueling trip. He's tired and cranky and taking it out on you. What do you do? In most hotels the rest of the story would not be pretty. At Ritz Carlton, the clerk goes through something like this in his or her head: 'I'm a gentle person and that guest is a gentle person having a very bad day. What can I do to help?' And then the clerk acts accordingly...the key word is 'act' not 'react.'
A couple of decades ago the city of Portsmouth, Virginia was down on its luck...but not completely out of luck. The City brought in a remarkable and talented City Manager who set a new -- simple -- mission for the city: ‘Clean City, Economic Development, and Customer Service.’ And then George Hanbury spread that mission and it's meaning to every official and employee.
The city turned around under Hanbury's leadership. Eighteen years later they invited him back for a special 'George Hanbury Day.' At the reception a man came up to him. "I'm sure you don't remember me but I drove a garbage truck when you became City Manager. I still remember that mission you gave us, 'Clean City, Economic Development, and Customer Service.' It changed everything."
That's the power of a good mission. It's transformational.
But there is a nasty little problem hiding under the surface in many mission statements. They can contain the seeds of their own destruction. And when you get it wrong and follow it successfully, you can destroy yourself. A major utility company presents an object lesson. The company decided to reinvent itself and implement a new quality philosophy. They stated their road map for action this way.
"During the next decade, we want to become the best managed electric utility in the United States and an excellent company overall, and be recognized as such."
On the surface it looks fine. It is striving to be well managed and excellent. These are admirable goals if a little vague. But the problem comes in the final part of the statement, 'be recognized as such.' At first it seems reasonable. Come up with a measurement that will demonstrate this excellence. Sounds OK. It helps counteract the vagueness.
Here's where things took a wrong turn. The CEO and his team decided that the 'recognition' would be winning the Deming Prize. This was the prestigious Japanese quality award named for the great guru of quality, Dr. W. Edwards Deming, who had been pivotal in helping Japanese industry recover after World War II. A special foreign division prize had just been announced. So the company decided to 'go for it.'
Now this in itself was not necessarily a bad thing. The prize required great rigor, dedication and leadership to be achieved. It would certainly be an important recognition of excellence. So far so good...
They set off on their excellence journey. Without meaning to or even noticing it, the mission shifted to emphasize the 'recognized as such' part of the mission. This happened slowly, imperceptibly despite a lot of good intentions and excellent improvement results that were well documented. As the prize itself slowly refocused people's efforts, a 'quality bureaucracy' materialized. As a former employee quipped, 'you couldn't plan lunch without doing a 7 step storyboard!'
The great day came and sure enough the company achieved its mission measurement -- the Deming Prize. It was a Pyrrhic victory.
First they were attacked in the local paper and then Public Service Commission got into the act. Who was going to pay for all of this? The rate-payers didn't want to foot the bill! This was despite the fact that the company made significant strides and reduced costs. There was that initial investment that people did not want to pay for. Later that year there was a freak storm and service was interrupted significantly. The howling media jumped all over the notion that the company was 'excellent' or 'well-managed.'
It wasn't long before the CEO was out of work and a memo was 'leaked' to the papers announcing the dismantling of the quality improvement program and its infrastructure.
What went wrong? That decision to add 'be recognized as such' led to choosing to win a prize and then to a distortion of the company's focus. No one meant it to happen. These were bright, experienced and well intentioned people. And the media weren't fair but by that time it was really too late. Chasing the prize (which Dr. Deming himself always criticized) did the damage long before the papers got into the act.
The point here is not to 'put down' the company. In fact, I was a great admirer of their efforts and accomplishments. I used much of their methodology to accomplish some great results. The point is to be very careful in constructing your mission. If you use it right, you will accomplish it, unintended consequences and all.
The mission requires regular scrutiny. Is it still leading us in the right direction? Is it as powerful in achieving results as those of the city of Portsmouth and Ritz Carlton Hotels? Have we slipped off the path without noticing it? Does every single person understand it, embrace it and use it every day? Are we on the happy path or the road to perdition?
There's a wonderful old country tune that the Carter Family used to sing:
Keep on the sunny side, always on the sunny side,Keep on the sunny side of life. It will help you on your way, It will help you every day,If you keep on the sunny side of life.
Keep your mission on the sunny side.
-- Rebecca Staton-Reinstein, Ph.D., President
Advantage Leadership, Inc.
* * * * *
Want to learn more about creating a strategic plan that gets robust results?
There are two easy ways to get our best selling book, Success Planning: A 'How-To' Guide for Strategic Planning. It is now used in hundreds of companies world wide and is part of the curriculum at one of the US military War Colleges.
(1) Buy it directly from our website: www.AdvantageLeadership.com/book.html Add on our unique 30-day e-mail mini-course on strategic planning for more practical tips and techniques.
(2) Buy it on Amazon: Search on Strategic Planning -- we are on one of the first few pages
* * * * *
Look for our new book, Conventional Wisdom How Today's Leaders Plan, Perform and Progress Like the Founding Fathers early in 2008 and read more about how leaders handle mistakes and much more.
Based on the US Constitutional Convention of 1787 and interviews with successful CEOs, this unique business book combines history and business. I examine the Convention as an example of typical strategic planning with all of its creativity and messiness. Spring forward to the present and see how today's CEOs use the same techniques to transform their companies and translate vision into reality. Learn from all of the leaders --what works in the real world so that you can improve your own abilities as a strategic leader.
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