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Archives for January 2018

Strategy and Execution by the Few

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Only 8% of leaders are good at both strategy and execution according to the Harvard Business Review article by Paul Leinwand, Cesare Mainardi, and Art Kleiner.  That is a bit shocking. Expectations – Strategic and Tactical is one of the Executive Presence attributes in our book, “Seeing Yourself as Others Do – Authentic Executive Presence at Any Stage of Your Career”

The HBR authors surveyed 700 executives in multiple industries. Only 16% were rated very effective at either strategy or execution, and just 8% were seen as effective at both.  The authors identified that those who were strongest in those attributes were able to move easily back and forth between strategy and tactics, as we note in our book. They are able to clearly connect the components of execution that are needed to achieve the strategy.  They are also able to frame the context for all actions in the context of the strategy they support.

Those who are good at strategy and execution have a high regard for the importance of a strong culture that they personally model to the organization. They maintain a strong awareness of the external influences on the future of the organization. They make sure they build the talent needed to support the future strategy and execution.

Can you teach someone to be strategic?

It is not uncommon to hear the question, “Can you teach someone to be strategic?”  These questions are normally regarding someone who is seen as executing well in multiple situations. The company wants to promote her to a senior level. My belief is that you cannot teach someone to significantly improve their strategic abilities. However, in 80% of those situation, the person in question is very strategic in her thought. She thinks it should be so obvious that she shouldn’t need to talk about strategy. What she needs to learn is to talk more strategically.  We have seen amazing transitions. (We talk about this in our book). Looking at the methodology for the study it is not clear if they identified those that think strategically, but do not talk strategically.

Target Stores Talent Development

Many years ago, I saw Target Stores build growth strategy and execution into their five-year plans. They had the capital to grow more quickly than they chose to grow. The limiting factor was the development of store managers and other key leaders to support the new store growth. Their plan required a realistic talent assessment and succession plans that detailed where the leadership would come from to make stores successful.  As a result, their strategy and execution were both considered to be critical to their success. It served them well.

The results of the HBR article were:

Angela Ahrendts’ Authenticity

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I have received multiple inquiries asking whether Angela Ahrendts was one of our clients. If she were, I could not acknowledge that fact without her permission.

Angela Ahrendts is Senior Vice President of Apple

Ahrendts is currently a Senior Vice President of Apple. There was an INC article quoting her in an interview that said she went to Minneapolis for two days of video coaching and walked out after the first half-day because she felt she was being asked to be something she was not. Her Shakespeare quote was “So, I just think that to thyself be true.”

To Be Perfectly Clear

We have never had a client walk out on us after a half-day. Our goal in coaching is to help people be more authentic and not less so. We provide a money-back guarantee that no one has ever claimed in over three decades of coaching.

“Seeing Yourself as Others Do” informs each of us about what everybody else already knows. Having a new awareness and choosing to communicate more effectively does not change our core being.  In fact, awareness increases our authenticity. One of the more common responses when people see themselves through others’ eyes is, “That is not what I meant!” The natural action is to improve communication to better reflect one’s intent. That seems more authentic to me.

Being Ourselves

We all have a meter in our heads when someone is talking that tells us if we believe the other person is authentic, or if we believe they are a fake. We value authenticity in others and hopefully strive to be authentic ourselves.

What does that really mean? There is an internal authenticity … making choices that align with our values and principles … our true north.  Most discussion of authenticity focuses on internal authenticity, which is very important. There is an external authenticity where others believe we are being authentic or not. When attempting to influence or lead others … external authenticity is very important.

When our visual, vocal, and content messages are aligned, people see us as authentic. When the vocal tone or voice do match the content … we believe the visual and vocal over the content. We see them as fake. We intuitively know that managing our facial expression and vocal tone is harder to manipulate than our words. Even method actors need to imagine the emotion or situation to get their face and voice to express that emotion.  For the rest of us, it turns out that understanding the Other Person’s Point of View (OPPOV™) and being more thoughtful in our communication is much more effective and more authentic.

Saying whatever comes to our mind is not being authentic … it is immature. We are one person and yet we appropriately communicate somewhat differently with our children (as a toddler or a teenager), parents, college friends, work associates, and our neighbors. The communication can all be somewhat different and still be authentic. Being choiceful and aware of how we are impacting the other person is self-awareness. It is also our key to being externally authentic.

Authentic Executive Presence

Over a decade ago, as we wrote our book, we asked people about “executive presence”. Some thought it was being fake or an “empty suit”.  Yet, when we asked about who had executive presence and why … the answers were around vision, motivation, listening, presentations, relationships, effectiveness and many other positive characteristics. We were choiceful in adding “authentic” to the title of our book, “Seeing Yourself as Others Do – Authentic Executive Presence at Any Stage of Your Career”

Being authentic requires us to spend more time being our “higher self”, which is a choice based on understanding our impact. We all have a complex of good and bad instincts in us. We get to choose every moment as to which part of our “real self” we are going to be.  Both sides of us are authentic and impact our relationships.  Understanding our impact and choosing which part of ourselves we want to be is the ultimate authenticity.