I grew up around airplanes and even flew a bit myself. The business of flying is rife with life lessons and especially leadership lessons. So when colleague and fellow blogger Andrew Wargo offered to do a guest column on leadership and piloting, we were quick to seize the offer. We hope you enjoy his work as much as we do. – Wendi

 By Guest Writer: Andrew Wargo

Like flying an airplane, leading an organization can be exhilarating, terrifying, and rewarding all at the same time. And many of the lessons for successful piloting well apply to leadership. Doing so won’t guarantee success, but it certainly helps. Here are fifteen of those lessons, and in some cases the analogous leadership application. However, in most cases, I intentionally leave the connection open to creative interpretation, so you can apply the lesson to your unique situation.

• Understand the tools at your disposal. From the flight planning and the pre-flight weather check, to unerring familiarity with the plane and the airports you will fly between, you must understand the purpose, strengths, and weaknesses of each. Misunderstand them, or use them incorrectly, and disaster can occur.
• Know the prevailing environmental conditions. What’s the weather like where you’re departing, arriving, and in between? Is it likely to change? Are you qualified to fly in all of those conditions? Are you competent enough to say you shouldn’t fly in that type of weather? Know your operating environment and the capabilities of your plane, as well as yourself. And make sound decisions that will increase the likelihood of success.
• File a flight plan. Like setting goals, a flight plan tells people what you plan to do, and when to worry if things go awry. It also helps prevent conflict with other related flight plans. The stakeholders in your organization – employees, shareholders, and clients – will appreciate knowing where you plan to go and how you intend to get there.
• Use a pre-flight checklist. Really. If a successful arrival really matters, you don’t need to go anywhere in such a hurry that you skip the pre-flight check. And the routine of a checklist will ensure you don’t forget something critical if you do end up distracted by other events. Planning for strategic initiatives, critical presentations, or important meetings is like planning to fly. They will benefit from the calming, centering routine of a pre-flight check. And you’ll lessen the likelihood of missing something important.
• Declare your intentions to the air traffic controller and other aircraft. Don’t taxi your aircraft to an active runway without declaring your intentions, and requesting clearance, if appropriate. When you’re piloting what is basically a flying fuel tank, it’s life threatening not to coordinate with other pilots and airport officials. Likewise, in your organization, synchronizing your efforts with your peers and superiors can be critical to success. Don’t head off on your own without knowing where the traffic around you is headed and where you are in relation to it.
• Steer with the right controls. Determination alone will not turn an aircraft (or a boat, or an organization, for that matter). You have to make sure you’re using the right controls and at the right time. For example, if you’re taxying an aircraft without a steerable nose wheel, you can’t just use the obvious “steering wheel” in front of your chest – you’ll also need to use the rudder pedals in careful coordination. Learn what actions make things happen in the right way and practice until it’s second nature.
• Ensure clear airspace. You’re responsible for ensuring your actions don’t endanger other aircraft and your own. And you’re responsible for warning others about dangers they may be unaware of.
• Take off using full throttle. Attempting a takeoff at taxi speed will result in you driving off the end of the runway. And attempting a takeoff at 80% of maximum takeoff power will result in you running off the end of the runway even faster. Full throttle is required to ensure sufficient speed to generate lift at the right time. If you’re going to commit to launching an aircraft, a project, or a product, have the vision to apply the required resources.
• Abort the takeoff when necessary. Ending a takeoff rather than proceeding at undue risk is not a failure. It is a prudent safety decision based on instinct, training, and observation that often prevents disaster. I’m reminded of a time when, after commencing a full-power takeoff roll and nearing takeoff speed, my flight instructor told me to abort the takeoff due to wildlife running near the runway. Rather than debate whether my trusted instructor was being overly cautious, I immediately reduced engine power and taxied the aircraft off of the active runway. Could I have taken off safely? Perhaps. But the wildlife did veer directly onto my original takeoff path. My flight instructor and I had a productive discussion about why we each made the choices we did, and then we re-entered the takeoff queue to spend some very nice time in the air. A good leader knows when to abort an effort because the risks are too high. By avoiding a potentially fatal crash, you have the opportunity to try again.
• Select, and maintain focus on, your frame of reference. You cannot safely taxi, navigate in flight, or land an aircraft by looking at a spot just in front of the cockpit window. You will get lost at best, and most likely crash. You can’t make leadership decisions by focusing solely on what’s under your nose. Look in front of you and to the sides. Maintain awareness of what’s behind you. Always remain aware of the frame of reference you’ve chosen. And periodically reevaluate whether it’s the right one.
• Respect the approved traffic pattern. There is a prescribed traffic pattern at every airport. There is no “default” pattern that applies to all. Be sure you know what applies where you plan to fly. Everyone else will expect planes to take off, land, enter, and exit the pattern according to its rules. Failure to know this information will result in confusion for you and other pilots at best, and a collision at worst. There’s a traffic pattern in organizations, too. There’s room for different styles, just as there are allowances for different types of aircraft and their flight priorities. But when you enter, if you ignore the standing protocol – such as the way decisions are made, your ability to maneuver later or land safely might be very limited.
• Learn to manage multiple tasks. You cannot fly an aircraft without multi-tasking – from constantly scanning your instruments to responding to changing conditions. There can be a lot going on at any point in time. Similarly, you cannot be a successful leader if you can’t deal with issues as they crop up. You don’t have the luxury of finishing the task you’re working on before addressing urgent problems. At the very least, you need to quickly assign a priority level and immediate actions.
• Be prepared for the unexpected. It happens all the time. Things rarely go as planned. In fact, the unexpected should be expected. By planning ahead, however, you can avoid being stunned into paralysis. You certainly can’t envision every unexpected condition, but many can be anticipated, and many others can be effectively addressed if plans are made – and practiced – in advance to address deviation from expected performance.
• Know how to get where you’re going. This, too, should go without saying. But, plenty of inexperienced or harried pilots have lost their way when their navigational landmarks looked different due to weather or obscuring conditions, or when navigation equipment failed. Regardless of the flight plan, or your project, knowing the landmarks that indicate successful progress will enable you to proceed in your intended direction, while enabling course corrections along the way. Additionally, planning an alternate route to your destination can often save what would otherwise be a terminated trip.
• Learn how to land smoothly. A beautiful takeoff and gorgeous day flying can easily be ruined – or can feel that way – due to an awkward, rough, or botched landing. A really bad landing can damage the landing gear and other critical parts of the plane, as well as the pilot’s authorization to fly. And, despite a beautiful flight, the landing will be what passengers and observers remember most. Likewise, a difficult flight can be eclipsed by a great landing. Bringing a plane back to the ground safely requires planning and sensitivity to the operating environment, advance knowledge of airplane’s capabilities, thorough awareness of what can go wrong, and a great deal of practice. Regardless of what you’re working on, effective leaders must know how to wind down a project, a difficult conversation, or any other delicate endeavor with skill and grace. Take the time to learn to “land” your leadership endeavors gracefully.

Great pilots are trained in specific skills, procedure, and knowledge. And they must be aware of changing conditions, monitor their instruments, creatively solve problems, and make spur of the moment decisions. As a leader, you can apply these flight-training lessons to ensure you reach your destination with success.

Andrew Wargo writes at 360 Minutes, where he shares his best advice on becoming more productive and effective, so you can gain the time to do the things that you love. Get his RSS feed directly, and take a look at his Getting Started page for ways to get your head above water at work.

Henry Ford said that failure is the opportunity to begin again, more intelligently.

But many of us begin again with no increase in intelligence. Or, we don’t get smarter because we won’t risk failure in the first place.

We covered how organizations fail at failure in our last post. Here, we will look at how leaders create organizations that fail productively – a necessary step on the path to innovation.

Innovator’s Sweet Spot

Relative to “smart failure,” there are two dimensions for innovators to optimize: (1) rate of non-fatal failure (experimentation that does not kill the organization) and (2) amount learned from any given failure.

1) Increase the rate of non-fatal failure with small, fast steps. As you may know, Bloomberg L.P. is a vast business media empire, founded by Michael Bloomberg, now mayor of New York. In his pre-political days, he once was asked how his corporation managed to complete such large information technology projects. He replied that they were successful precisely because they did not undertake large projects; they undertook lots of little projects.

At a time when huge IT projects were all the rage, this insight was piercing. The many-small-projects approach bestows powerful benefits, central to which are that failures are small and learning is frequent. Brilliant investor that he is, Bloomberg had found a way to minimize risk while maximizing outcomes.

In our own work assisting clients with strategy planning and execution we’ve learned that grand and perfect strategic plans are a waste. To paraphrase a military adage, no strategic plan survives contact with reality. It’s better to get your grand plans 60% right and then start an execution cycle of rapid, small steps that makes you smarter, fast – adjusting and refining the plan as you get smarter. As long as you’re going to be wrong (most often you are), you might as well be wrong sooner, with lots of instructive failures in the short-term instead of a few terminal ones in the long-term.

2) Increase the amount learned from failure. When an employee takes an educated whack at a problem, and the problem remains unsolved, that employee and her boss are at a crossroads. One path is to deflect responsibility, such as claiming that she had no choice. Or that it didn’t happen. Or that it was someone else’s fault.

The other, better path is to pick the bone clean, with the employee learning every possible lesson from the tuition paid. Better yet, the lesson gets spread and learning is celebrated so that everyone in the team, department, or organization goes to school on one person’s tuition.

Innovation How-To for Leaders

Leaders can improve their organizations’ performance on both dimensions – frequency of productive failure and amount learned per failure – with some reasonably simple straightforward techniques. Here are a few to consider.

• Nix any project that does not sharply define its intended outcome. Your team will never learn what works and what doesn’t unless they have spelled out in advance the result they’re aiming for. It may be impossible, in advance, to specify exactly how something will be done (especially if innovators are improvising!) but it’s generally quite possible to spell out the result you are after. Without a crystal clear target, too much after-the-fact rationalization creeps in and then everything is an alleged success and nobody learns anything.

So, for example, next time someone wants to re-organize a department, ask him exactly what outcomes he’d like to produce, what side-effects he’d like to avoid, and how he’ll know if he’s been successful. Press hard for precision (blog regulars will be familiar with the Bar Bet as a litmus test of clarity).

• Make learning – rather than performing – the first task. When entering new territory, assume that you and your people are smart enough to learn, but not smart enough already to know exactly what you’re learning (otherwise, it wouldn’t be “new territory”). Define the task as one of learning before you define it as performing.

Goal researchers have found that performance improves on difficult tasks if your initial aim is simply to learn how to perform the task. In other words, there’s a time when perfect performance isn’t the key; at first, the key is learning how to perform well, which is different from performing well.

Good management consultants always enter uncharted waters with a “discovery phase” of the project before the “performance phase.” In the beginning, only the discovery phase can be clearly spelled out. How could it be otherwise? You have to learn what you need to do before you try to do it.

• Watch your language. Call innovation projects “experiments,” or “learning pilots.” Make it clear from the onset that the point is to figure out what works; or at the very least, figure out what doesn’t work. You can’t just give people “permission to fail and learn.” That permission has to permeate your language.
• Limit Your Losses. Target initial efforts that won’t kill you if they fail; don’t bet the farm until you’ve bet a few acres. For example, if you have a theory that putting a design team and an engineering team under one boss will produce more marketable products, then try one project that does just that; don’t change the whole organization until you’ve lowered your risks by upping your knowledge. Likewise, break your big, slow, risky projects down into lots of fast, little ones. Take a clue from Bloomberg and decrease the impact of failures while increasing the speed of learning. In theory, this approach should take longer, but in reality it doesn’t; but how many mega-projects do you know that came in on time? On budget? How many weren’t disasters? Think: “fast, small, and low risk.”
• Banish happy talk. Demonstrate that you are looking for truth, not Prozac. And then don’t punish the truth-tellers. When Alan Mulally took over as Ford’s president and CEO in 2006 he apparently got fed up with the deflected lessons that dodged both learning and accountability. As Economist tells the story: “He asked managers to color-code their progress reports – ranging from green for good to red for troubled. At one early meeting he expressed astonishment at being confronted by a sea of green, even though the company had lost several billion dollars in the previous year. Ford’s recovery began only when he got his managers to admit that things weren’t entirely green.”

Incidentally, we have to wonder if part of the problem was that “green” had not been defined.

• Make “Aha!” and “Doh!” part of every progress brief. While you look to your subordinates for results, also look to them for learning. When people brief the boss (that’s you), they need to know that part of the way to get an “A” is to share discoveries. If all you get is happy talk, then prod them: “Surely not everything has gone well; what have you learned from the glitches?” Assume glitches and applaud learning.

Everyone wants to look good in front of the boss. Just change the rules a little so that looking good includes excavating negative experiences for lessons. Just like at school, make learning something to talk about and evaluate – in addition to results.

• Feed forward lessons learned. Don’t just capture lessons learned. Require that plans for new initiatives demonstrate how they are incorporating past learning. One of us (Wendi) did that with project managers whose “lessons learned” exercise had become a useless bureaucratic exercise. By requiring new projects to demonstrate use of lessons learned, the learned lessons became applied lessons, leading to consistently smarter, more innovative projects.
• Embrace DISproof before you embrace proof. The point of experimentation is to get smarter, not to be right. So rather than tasking your team to prove that an idea works, task them to disprove it instead. For example, if a vendor you love has a new “solution,” find where it fails instead of looking for evidence that it works. Scientific philosopher Karl Popper taught us that we get much smarter by trying to disconfirm our theories than by looking for cases where we are right. This is a big deal.

Rapid, ongoing innovation demands that leaders treat intellectual capital like any other capital: accumulate it, nurture it, and use it. Requisite to that game is the organizational capability for frequent, productive failure. And that kind of smart failure requires smart leadership.

NOTE: Okay, we’ve emphasized here one type of innovation, the type in which a specific problem needs to be solved. We obviously aren’t touching on serendipity-based innovation, in which prepared minds get lucky, as when Columbus found America, or Fleming found penicillin. There’s a lot to be said for noodling around with your eyes open. But that’s a different topic. Or perhaps it isn’t? What do you think?

The great experimenter Thomas Edison is famous for comments such as, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” The design firm IDEO keeps up that spirit with their now-famous phrase, “Fail often in order to succeed earlier.”

Successful Failures

But let’s distinguish between two different kinds of failure: instructive failure and terminal failure. Apple’s Newton (PDA) and Lisa computer were of the instructive variety: they were failures to grow on, not failures to stop on. Circuit City was a electronics store chain that failed terminally because they didn’t have enough instructive failures. Failure is inevitable, but you can choose whether it’s instructive or terminal.

Early on, Hewlett Packard exploited the power of instructive failure. According to Peter Sims, “Hewlett Packard cofounder Bill Hewlett said HP needed to make 100 small bets on products to identify six that could be breakthroughs. So, little bets are for learning about problems and opportunities while big bets are for capitalizing upon them once they’ve been identified.” Sims’ “small bets” are what we’d call experiments: exposure to non-fatal failure that can teach you something.

The entrepreneur’s challenge can almost entirely be summed up as ensuring that the learn rate exceeds the burn rate: those who don’t learn fast enough go under.

Deliberate, inquisitive exposure to failure is an experiment. And a clever experiment is like a clever investment: your downside (risk) is manageable, and your upside (lesson) is spectacular. Of course, there is a time to bet the farm, but that’s after you’ve learned which farm to bet on.

Failing at Failure

Some people fail at failing: they fail without gaining anything. What’s the difference between failure that’s experimentation and failure that just failure? Maybe this: if you make a non-fatal mistake and learn from it, then it was “experimentation.” But if you make a mistake and deflect any lessons, then it was simply a failure. Lessons learned lead to innovation; lessons flunked, as in school, tend to be repeated.

Here are some ways to flunk at failing:

• Finger pointing. When the question is, “Who screwed up?” instead of “What did we learn?” then the only thing that’s learned is how to keep your head down.
• Reasons, stories, and excuses. When an organization’s lousy results allegedly stem from “the poor economy,” or “difficulty finding talent,” or “tough competition,” then nothing is learned or even speculated about what the organization can do better. Part of Warren Buffet’s initial fame stemmed from his annual reports in which he gave blunt assessments of what he and Berkshire Hathaway could have done better. It showed shareholders that lessons were not wasted on him.
• Unclear success. Like a scientist with an untestable hypothesis, a leader with an unclear goal can spend a lot of time and money without learning much. For example, when any given organization consolidates two departments to “capture synergies,” what does “synergies” mean? Lower costs? Faster product development? Quicker response? What? Without some sense of the measurable goal, it will be impossible to get the Edison advantage of learning ways that won’t work. (And we’ve nixed the trick of defining success after the fact in an earlier post.)
• Activity-based success. Of course, you can be clear about your success, but define it as an activity rather than as a result. In which case, failure and learning are equally unlikely. Again, no hypothesis is tested. For example, government officials often declare success after they’ve added programs or increased spending. That’s it! Nothing about goals set, goals met, or lessons learned. Costs go up, but learning stays flat.

All these problems function as organizational learning disabilities: dysfunctions that block learning and therefore block innovation. In the next post we’ll suggest some cures.

Meanwhile, what have you done that works? How have you overcome your own organization’s learning disabilities? How can you create a failure friendly environment, where team members feel comfortable with experimenting and learning from their failures? 

John Paul Jones (painting by Charles J. Andres)

Deep wisdom directed at today’s leaders isn’t what you’d expect from a guy who’s been dead since 1792. But Captain John Paul Jones, having been successfully channeled by Rear Admiral Rob Wray, has stern advice for today’s officers of the American Navy.

Do you agree with him? And, does his advice apply to other leaders? Leave us a comment and tell us what you think.

MEMORANDUM

From: John Paul Jones, Captain

To: Officers of the American Navy

Subject: Standards of Virtue and Honor

Date: July 4, 2011

Officers and Commanders of Navy units!

Two hundred and thirty-five years ago, when I was in uniform, the Continental Congress established in Navy Regulations their expectations for American naval officers. They wrote (as I remember), “the commanders and officers of American ships and vessels are strictly required to show themselves a good example of honor and virtue to their crew…”

At the wardroom table, my officers asked me what I believed to be the standard of honor and virtue. What did I expect from my officers, specifically? I believed then, and believe now, that being honorable and virtuous requires two things: the intellectual understanding of the specific actions and attitudes that comprise honor and virtue, and the moral resolve to display those actions and attitudes. So I wrote for my officers the following definition:

“It is by no means enough that an officer of the navy should be a capable mariner. He must be that, of course, but also a great deal more. He should be as well a gentleman of liberal education, refined manners, punctilious courtesy, and the nicest sense of personal honor…. He should be the soul of tact, patience, justice, firmness, and charity. No meritorious act of a subordinate should escape his attention or be left to pass without its reward, even if the reward is only a word of approval. Conversely, he should not be blind to a single fault in any subordinate, though, at the same time, he should be quick and unfailing to distinguish error from malice, thoughtlessness from incompetency, and well-meant shortcoming from heedless or stupid blunder.

In one word, every commander should keep constantly before him the great truth, that to be well obeyed, he must be perfectly esteemed.”

Much time has passed, and my days serving our flag in uniform are long gone. Ships and weapons have changed in ways I never thought possible. But the requirement for virtue and honor has not. No leader can lead without the esteem and respect of those led. As a result, I have been asked to come back to write to you, today, to pass on what I view as a modern definition of virtuous and honorable behavior.*

First, my expectations for all officers:

Officers must be, above all, scrupulously honest. They must always tell the truth, regardless of the personal or professional consequences. Honesty cannot be turned on or off. Once sacrificed, it can never be regained. The smallest of white lies cannot be tolerated, for any reason, because the mind, over years, can learn to justify larger and larger transgressions. The slippery slope applies; stay away from the edge. If I ever detect any hint of dishonesty in any of my officers, they are escorted off the ship at the next port; it is the only inviolate rule. Dishonesty can include sins of commission (telling a lie), and sins of omission (failing to disclose important information, usually to protect oneself). Both are lies. Do not lie to yourself in pitiable rationalizations about why you are not being forthright.

Officers must, in all cases, set the example. They must look smart and professional; they should be well- groomed. They must be in good physical condition, not only to perform their duties, but to set the example. A portly officer cannot urge his men to be fit to do their duties, because his men will smell the stink of hypocrisy.  They should have clean, sharp uniforms; they should stand upright and erect; they should not slouch with hands in pockets; they should set the example of that the crew wants an officer to be. All followers want to look up to their leaders; leaders should take care not to disappoint.

Officers should be courteous, to each other, and to those outside the ship. They should speak softly, clearly, without the need for profanity or volume to make themselves heard. They should be able to sit at a table with royalty, and not embarrass the service through poor manners, speaking with mouths full, inability to use silverware, and the like. They should not speak disparagingly of others. They should not gossip. Coarse, slovenly, unkempt, flatulent, ungainly, inconsiderate, inappropriate, discourteous—these terms should never be used to describe any officer with whom I would associate.

Officers must genuinely, sincerely, care for the crew. Officers should eat last. They should ensure that the crew is safe and warm and fed and are given the opportunity to sleep and be well. They should seek to the development of their people, prior to their own. They should know their people—their names, their needs, their families, their problems, their hopes and aspirations. This is not fraternization with the crew; this is caring about them. You must care about your men, because, as I wrote many years ago, the “men mean more than guns in the rating of a ship.” Caring for your men is caring for your ship, which is caring for your service and your country. Caring for your people means learning their names, and pronouncing them correctly, no matter how difficult.

On the other hand, officers must keep their distance. The Naval Service is not a normal clerk’s shop, in which all can gossip and remain equals. Officers must earn the respect of their crew, because that respect is essential to the running of a ship; without that respect and trust, all else fails. And true respect requires a level of distance. Officers ashore may enjoy a drink with their sailors they meet in a bar, but they should never plan a night out with their sailors. They may join their sailors on the ship’s sports team, but should not recreate with their sailors outside a ship-sponsored event. Officers should be friendly with their sailors, but not friends with them. Friendship with one’s sailors, sad to say, for the officer can make difficult decisions more difficult; for the sailor it can make result in the loss of trust which is so essential to the successful running of the ship.

Officers must be brave, not only physically, but morally. In a career you may have only a few days in which you must display physical courage. But every day, you must show moral courage. Telling the truth; facing consequences; making the hard decisions; placing ship and crew above else. Moral courage. I once heard it said of an officer: “He would gladly sacrifice his life for his service and country, but is not willing to sacrifice his career for the same.” A sad statement, reflecting a lack of moral courage. If forced to choose between your career and what is right, what would you choose?

Officers today face complex social situations I never faced—mixed gender crews. Good officers do not disparage members of the opposite sex; they treat their fellow officers and sailors without regard to gender; they do not engage in gender-related banter, or romantic relationships, or physical touching. Their behavior is above reproach. Even if single, when in uniform or on the ship, they behave around the opposite sex with the level of probity and correctness that they would display if they were married and their spouse were watching. That is the standard.

Officers will value their honor and their virtue more than money. They will never take more from the service in expense reimbursement than is their due. They will never, in any way, seek to “work the system” for extra benefits. They will never engage in any activity which profits them at the expense of other Navy sailors.

Good officers are calm. They are steady, unflappable. They minimize their displays of emotion, both good and bad. They rarely raise their voice, and do so with all forethought for its effects. They are rock-solid, dependable. They are not hysterical or depressed, or, worse, mercurial, so that their subordinates never know how they may react. They provide a predictable steadiness on which their people can rely. They must be trustworthy, because placing trust in someone, or something, requires predictability.

A good officer will never drink to excess, and will never drink a drop while in a status which requires a clear head. A drunk officer, or an officer who drinks to the point of being visibly affected in front of his or her sailors, is a pitiful creature, and not respected. The officer who searches for popularity with the crew through parties is a fool; the officer should search for respect, not popularity. And deep respect from the crew leads to admiration. Drunk officers are not admired.

Good officers will not speak ill of the service, and especially will not degrade the Navy in front of their men. If the Navy determines that a certain requirement will be made of the ship—from a training drill to an unexpected voyage—the good officer may be disappointed or bitter in private, but will not share that with her sailors. Instead, she will explain to them the Navy’s need for that requirement, and the reasons why it is important for the ship to comply. The crew needs assurance from their officers that their toil and their sacrifices are worthwhile; disparaging those requirements takes away that worth, which takes away their satisfaction. Ultimately, if a sailor believes that his life is being employed in a worthy cause, he will be happy; disparaging requirements steals that happiness.

Officers must know their trade. They must be, first, capable mariners. They must know their equipment, their procedures, their planned actions, better than anyone on the ship. They must be experts—enough so to be recognized as such. Their reputation, and the lives of their sailors, depends on it. Too many officers, I have found, minimize the importance of sheer, raw, unadulterated, professional competence.

Competence generates confidence in the men, which leads to respect.

A good officer knows his people by their name, and looks them in the eye, and puts his or her hand on their shoulder, and asks them about their welfare. He does this every day, so that over time, each member of the crew knows he is valued.

Good officers must persevere! They must push through impediment, overcome obstacles, thwart enemies and opposition. They must exude willpower and tenacity to their crew and ship. When my crippled Bonhomme Richard fought HMS Serapis, all we had left was our determination! It was enough.

Finally, a good officer will study his trade—will study leadership and ethics and seamanship and tactics. A good officer reads a book a month to help her be a better officer. Virtue and honor are both innate and learned. Books can provide the learning.

Officers! As I said before, to be virtuous, you must know what virtue means, but, more important, you must make the mental and moral decision to be virtuous. Too many officers, I find, feel that theirs is but a job, an occupation. They see no reason to try to be a better person. Your goal should be to emulate every great officer you know, to try to become a great officer yourself. Your goal is to be the man or woman that every sailor will look up to—that every sailor will want to emulate—that every American family will want their sailor son, daughter, mother, father, sister, brother to work for. That requires a decision on your part. It requires resolve. It requires willpower. It requires dedication and determination. To be a good officer, to serve your American nation, you MUST resolve to be better, smarter, more honest, harder working, than your peers not in uniform. If you do not make that decision, early in your career, you will first be doing yourself a disservice, because your career will be eclipsed by those who do so resolve, but, more important, you will be doing your shipmates a disservice, and your country a disservice.

Second, my expectations for Commanding Officers:

As a fathom is to a foot, so must your standards of behavior be many times higher than the already high standards of an officer. As Commander, you are now not only an example for your crew; you are an example to your officers. A Commander who drinks too much, swears too much, doesn’t know his or her profession, who doesn’t place the welfare of his people far above his own – that Commander will create officers who behave that way, for lack of proper example.

A good Commander will, immediately upon taking command, publish in writing to his command his expectations, his desires, his standards.

A good Commander will write himself a private letter, describing the Commander he resolves to be. He will set standards for himself. He will re-read that letter at least monthly during his time in command.

A good Commander will sit with his senior officers and instruct them: “Help me to be better. Help me to avoid temptation. Help me to avoid breaking any rules, however slight, either through ignorance or neglect or lack of attention.” A good Commander knows he is human, and seeks the counsel of his support team to keep him on the straight and true.

A good Commander will have read all the guidance provided by the service concerning the ethics and behavior required of commanders. He will keep those papers in a packet at his desk, for frequent reference. As even the godly among us go to church often, and re-read from the Bible often, so too must even the virtuous Commander frequently review, and re-read, the guidance on ethics and behavior. Actions form habits, which in turn form character, which leads to destiny.

A good Commander is transparent; he does not hide facts; he provides knowledge. He imbues his crew with confidence, because they know where the ship is, they know where it is going, and why. They know their mission, and that they have a good Commander to lead them there.

A good Commander teaches. She understands that her ship is only as strong as the skills of her officers and crew, and that she must teach, daily, the ethics, the professionalism, the dedication, on which our service relies. And she understands that the greatest teacher is simply in her setting the example.

A good Commander shows up at social events on time, and leaves early, leaving the crew time to socialize without his presence.

A good Commander never, ever, has more than two drinks at a time, or has a drop of alcohol in his veins when in a duty status.

A good Commander never profits by a single penny from any involvement with his ship or service.

A good Commander leads a clean life, both on the ship, and off. Even when unobserved, he behaves in virtuous ways that, if observed, would cast credit upon him and the service.

A good Commander takes care that his personal staff does only what is allowed and required by naval traditions and regulations. Staff members are not considered vassals or servants; they are not butlers or maids; they are used only for official business as prescribed by service rules.

A good Commander never demands loyalty from his subordinates. Loyalty is earned, not demanded. It is unasked for. I have found that Commanders who demand “loyalty” from their officers generally want the officers to choose the commander over the service. They want “loyalty” to cover up, or forgive, some shortcoming on the part of the commander. Loyalty to the country is first—then loyalty to the service— then loyalty to the ship. “Loyalty” to a transgressing commander is disloyalty to country and service. A good Commander would never ask his subordinates for that.

Finally, a good Commander puts his crew first. If the ship is sinking, he is the last to step off. If a space is on fire, he is the first to step in. He leads through subordination– subordinating his personal welfare to that of his unit and his crew.

How to acquire virtuous values:

Some may say that my views of officers and Commanders are outdated. I assure you– while ships and weapons and circumstances may change, the concepts of honor and virtue are timeless. What was important and valued three hundred years before my service was valued when I was in uniform, is valued now, and will be valued three hundred years after your day.

I said before: virtue and honor requires two things. The understanding of what virtue and honor is, and the moral conviction to be virtuous. Of the two, the latter is most important, because with that conviction, you can attain understanding. But understanding without conviction is worthless.

That conviction is not in-borne; it is acquired. If you do not feel it, it can be grown within. How? By absorbing into your heart and soul the messages from the past. By talking to those who have served before you, and who embodied honor and virtue. And by reading. I assure you: if you read books, you will know. Read, and through those words, listen to the lives of Navy leaders like Preble, Decatur, Farragut, Dewey, Nimitz, Halsey, Spruance, O’Kane, Peary, Rickover, Stockdale, and Michael Murphy. Those lives, those stories, will paint for you the picture of Navy honor and virtue. If you don’t feel it after reading those stories, you never will.

You are an American naval officer. You have a terrible responsibility and a wonderful opportunity. We need you to be up to the task, in all respects. You must be above reproach. You must fulfill your duties. You must carry on the torch that I once held, and now pass to you. Our job never ends. What my friend Thomas Paine once wrote in 1776, still stands today, in many different ways:

“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives everything its value.”

I pray that you will resolve to take on this task, and to carry my torch – America’s torch. I wish you good luck, fair winds, and God speed. May He bless you, and our American Navy!

JPJ

*Because I am unable to operate the computer by which modern officers seem to communicate, I was assisted in transcription by Rear Admiral Robert Wray.

(Reprinted with permission.)

We believe that if we ask what “accountability” really means, when it’s present, when it’s missing, and why, then the answers will lead to a prescription. In conversations and seminars with leaders over many years we have come up with an operational definition of accountability that actually leads to a cure.

Accountability exists when these three elements exist:

1. Clear request from an authorized manager
2. Commitment from the subordinate to complete the assignment
3. Consequences for performance

Sounds simple enough, but each of the three elements can be difficult to deliver, which is why accountability can be elusive. So, a little more on each:

1. Clear request from an authorized manager

Often, we mistake our own redundancy for glistening lucidity. Or we mistake our audience’s apparent agreement (or fawning) for their genuine understanding.

One tech company’s CEO confided to us that he wanted to fire seven of his eight vice-presidents. He was serious. “They just don’t get it,” he complained, explaining that he couldn’t get them all pointed in the same direction.

But he had been talking in broad strokes – his request was not crystal clear. So we spent time with each VP, clarifying expected outcomes well enough to pass the bar-bet test.  Their performance increased dramatically, and the CEO whittled his “firing list” down to one particular VP  (probably a good pick).

Sometimes leaders give unclear direction because they have thought about something so much that, after a while, it seems intuitively obvious. It’s like when someone uses an acronym on you that you couldn’t possibly know, but that they use frequently. Or when a clerk is flummoxed that you don’t know a bureaucratic rule that she lives with daily.

And sometimes leaders give unclear direction because they are still unclear about what the destination will actually look like. The reasoning seems to be, “Let me think the big thoughts and you run along and figure out the details.” But there’s a difference between tactical details and precise direction; leaders shouldn’t have to figure out all the details of execution, but they should be able to spell out precisely the outcome they’re seeking.

Clarity rarely arises from dictate, but it can arise from dialog, which brings us to the next point.

2. Commitment from the subordinate to complete the assignment

A subordinate doesn’t need to agree with the brilliance of an assignment, but they do need to commit to do it. Two elements are critical to commitment: an opportunity for dialog and an answer to the question of why the assignment is important.

Except in rare instances such as military operations or medical emergencies, leaders can create the opportunity for dialog, even if it’s only a closing line to an email: “Please contact me directly if you have any questions or suggestions concerning this assignment.”

Through dialog comes understanding – for both parties. Sometimes the authorized manager gets smarter about what she’s requesting, or ought to be requesting, after talking with someone who actually does the work. And this opportunity to ask questions, clarify expectations, and offer ideas also implies mutual respect.

Dialog often leads to conveying why something is being requested, which is the second requisite for commitment. Knowing why gives people context for thinking about how best to approach their assignments and, perhaps more important, it gives their tasks meaning. “Do it because I told you,” works no better for grown-ups than for kids because it provides no context. In fact, we believe that it’s a leader’s moral duty to continually help his people see how their work fits into a bigger picture.

Part of meaningful context is that work should be a matter of consequence, both for the organization and for the individual. That takes us to the next point.

3. Consequences for performance

If you have ever sat in a meeting, made a clear request of one of the participants, received sincere commitment . . . and then NOTHING happened, the problem might have been an absence of performance consequences.

Your work likely fell into a queue behind other work on that person’s plate and, guess what? Your work (of no consequence) was continually displaced by other work (of consequence), until your work dropped off the plate. Work without consequences tends to be regarded as inconsequential.

This is one reason our first component of accountability specifies that the clear request must come from an authorized manager. (We inserted this critical word years ago at the suggestion of now-deceased management theorist Elliott Jaques). Managers who have been duly authorized can deliver performance consequences; for others, it’s harder.

Now, we hope that you don’t equate the word consequence with punishment, like one of our friends who thought it sounded like we wanted to take non-performers out back and shoot them. We don’t … at least, most of the time.

The word can have a positive connotation, too, as in rewards (Plus, it starts with a C.) Performance consequences can range from a private, “Thanks! That was good work,” to public praise, bonuses, promotions, and opportunities to do preferred work. But they can also include reprimands, negative performance appraisals, and firings. Research has shown that a 4:1 ratio of specific compliments to corrections maintains an optimal work environment. (We’re pretty sure there’s no research on taking non-performers out back and shooting them.)

Interestingly enough, performance consequences need not happen every time to be effective; only the possibility need happen every time to create accountability.

So, there you have it, our 3 C’s: Clarity, Commitment and Consequences. We believe that if you remember — and apply — them, you will find a cure to your organization’s accountability problems.

Any serious strategist must ask, “How will we know when we’ve succeeded?” Strategies have intended outcomes – goals – and it’s terribly helpful if those outcomes are clear enough that success or failure will be indisputable.

So, we’re offering an alternative to the usual questions such as: “Do we have metrics?” (Or worse, “Do we have enough metrics?”) Instead, lead with, “Is our success stated so clearly that we could place a bet on it?”

The Bar Bet

At some point most of us have been in good-natured arguments with friends that amounted to not much more than redundant bickering. Such as:

You (beer in hand): “Yeah, I’ve seen that guy play. He’s a natural-born athlete. He’s going to have a great first year.”

Friend: “I doubt it. He might have natural talent, but he hasn’t developed it yet. I predict a ragged first year for that guy.”

You: “No way! He’s going to surprise everyone. That guy is good.”

Friend: “You’re crazy.”

. . . and then something magical happens, something wonderful, something that halts the bickering and then transforms conversation . . .

One of you says, “I’ll bet you twenty dollars that you’re wrong.”

This is the kind of comment that, as some academics would say, provokes an “epistemological shift.” Now, you both must work together to agree on objective and verifiable proof of success – a definition of “a great first year.”

If you have ever been through this kind of bar chatter, then you know exactly how to have “the right metrics.” It’s all about crafting a description of success that is so clear, you and a friendly skeptic could bet on it. It’s that simple.

Non-bet-able vs. Bet-able

Some typically vague (non-bet-able) strategic goals, and some bet-able alternatives:

Go Ahead and Argue

Notice that you might not agree with all our bet-able alternatives. That’s a good thing. It means the proposed definition of success is so clear that we can argue over it before we start spending time and money to achieve it!

Next time you make a grand declaration of direction (say, “We’re going to be an employer of choice!” or, “We’re going to provide humanitarian assistance,” or “I’m going to start being a better parent,”) ask yourself how you would define success if someone bet twenty dollars against you. If your declaration passes the “bar bet” test, then you’re good to go. The people paying for the result will know what they’re getting; the people doing the work will have clear direction; and you will have the satisfaction of knowing – without question – whether you’re successful.

Learning “What Works”

Related point. There are many ways to learn “what works.” (A favorite of ours is “be a Borg, like Genghis Kahn.”) Economist Tim Harford’s recent TED talk touts the importance of getting at “what works” through humility, trial, and error (or “trial and correction,” as one friend calls it). The only thing left out of Harford’s powerful talk is the importance of defining “what works.” The bar bet helps you do exactly that.

Regardless of the type of your organization – small business, big business, non-profit, or government – there’s something here for you. Thanks, Mike!

Wendi & Bill

The Challenge of Strategy: Seven Lessons

Mike Kipp

“There is nothing more difficult, nor more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order of things.” -Machiavelli – 15th Century

Each year, thousands of companies go through a ritualized process they hope will prompt new vision, renewed energy and sufficient focus to enable them to prevail into the next century. Nearly 70% are disappointed.

Under the best of circumstances, the intended outcome for Strategy Development is, in the words of James Brian Quinn, “a sustainable pattern of response to market needs, consciously selected in light of probable shifts in the environment, relative competencies of the firm and the anticipated moves of intelligent competitors.” Such patterns initially develop through superior business insight and are maintained through entrepreneurial instinct. Sooner or later, though . . . and increasingly sooner . . . it becomes necessary to formalize the call for insight and instinct.

Four Threshold Challenges

All my work with companies in developing and executing on strategy finds leadership confronting a quartet of concurrent challenges:

• The intellectual challenge of discerning a unique competitive posture within an evolving business environment;
• The social challenge of sustaining healthy dialogue among parties who, for a variety reasons, see the world through different lenses;
• The organizational challenge of aligning activities and processes with strategic intentions; and
• The ethical challenge of living that posture, day in and day out.

Seven Lessons About Strategy Formation

Against this backdrop, seven fundamental lessons about strategy emerge. Three of these concern themselves with content; three with process; and one with leadership:

One: The “Right” Process is the one that gives you the most direct confrontation with your core challenge. In recent years, management has become something of a packaged goods industry with both consultants and academics proclaiming victory through new formulas for business renewal. No size fits all. Although the result of strategic thinking must be managed, strategy making is not a neat, analytical, administrative process. Leadership does best when it endorses an approach which promotes passion and synthesis through an “in your face” relationship with both vulnerability and opportunity. Avoid the temptation to shop for the new “Rosetta stone.” Ask first what the core challenge is under all that third class mail. How is it disguised? Construct all design decisions regarding participation and pre-work so as to keep what it takes to WIN . . . what’s important now . . . at the center of your attention.

Two: Most people are more interested in business as usual than bold moves. As much as we want change, most of us would rather counterfeit the process than undergo the pain of abandoning a past that worked so well. Rather than opening the whole system – market dynamics, organizational design, leader behavior, etc. – to inspection, most teams really want the same business case to work better as an outcome of their deliberations. Focus on concepts and context rather than forecasts and fixes. Proceed on the assumption that operational issues such as on-time delivery have been rectified. What’s the enduring question beneath that question? Engage people in regular dialog around strategic issues to develop cognitive capabilities and maximize the opportunity for ideas.

Three: New initiatives seldom come from old insights. The gathering of new knowledge is essential to new thinking. At its most effective level, this goes well beyond the accumulated experience of customers, suppliers, distributors and internal process managers. Nor is fact gathering the sole purview of a Strategic Planning, Research or External Affairs department. Everyone should be involved in gathering primary data outside the range of their normal experience so as to equip themselves for true dialogue on strategic intent. Make the building of a robust fact base an ongoing project, constantly extending the boundaries of inquiry. Do not settle for cumulative experience alone. Organize your analysis around categories such as Industry, Competitors, Company and Financial Dynamics. Catalog and mine the hundreds of “fugitive studies” that are conducted by people throughout the organization.

Four: Dysfunctional teams prevent both breakthrough and follow-through. Executive teams often handle conflict poorly, conduct themselves according to unwritten rules that limit their effectiveness, and waste time in “violent agreement.” Members bludgeon one another over differences in mindset and style. They tacitly consent not to learn from their collective experience for the sake of keeping peace in the family or “staying safe.” Alternately, everyone speaks his or her mind but no one ever changes it. Unless these dysfunctions are addressed squarely, no process will produce meaningful change. Conduct regular biopsies on the “health” of the Executive team from a process standpoint. Review incentives for (and injunctions against) appropriate and relevant team behavior. Genuinely encourage managers to bring a whole person to work rather than a role and a persona. One of the greatest strengths a team can develop is the capacity to be vulnerable with one another.

Five: Organizations are perfectly designed to achieve the results they are getting. While management texts argue that “form follows function,” form once cast invariably limits function. A three-business unit design, for example, will often impede cross-selling, geographic focus or the achievement of enterprise-wide synergies. Deliberations on strategy that don’t consider design barriers to new behavior unwittingly accept the limits imposed by reporting relationships, work flows and other elements of organizational architecture. Spend time on identifying how key initiatives, best practices or even operations are thwarted by design elements. Ask what unintended consequences might be traced to organization design, going beyond a general critique to a specific taxonomy of design decisions . . . structure, reward systems, information flows, decision protocols, etc. Consider how design will influence decisions regarding participation, the organization of data and the articulation of strategy itself.

Six: People do better at things they had a hand in creating. Executives often ask how they can get “buy in” as if there were an after-the-fact communications program that might “win the hearts and minds of men . . .” At a profoundly important level, however, strategy is not just about facts; it is about meaning…and meaning grows from the opportunity to engage around important matters. Companies that execute well at the “muzzle end of the system” have found creative ways of engaging people in both the development of strategy and its meaning for their work lives. Seek out opportunities to substantively involve people in the strategic dialog . . . stretch assignments; fact-finding missions; supplier councils; customer visits; role swaps, etc. Never be lulled into the view that “all hands” meetings, tee shirts, newsletters or Vision statements communicate depth or behavior.

Seven: All organizational change begins with personal change. It is virtually impossible for an organization to “transform” itself if its members – particularly at the executive level – think “that’s just the way I am . . .” For an organization to truly change, a critical mass of people must fundamentally alter their perspectives on themselves, their working relationships and the world in which they live. Individuals always undergo significant change before organizations do. Any genuine assessment of “readiness to change” must go well beyond markets, channels, technology or “them.” It’s usually not up to them. It’s down to “us.” Ask what the change you profess to desire might call for from you. Use the “more of . . . less of” formula. Ask those who love you, as well as those who clearly do not . . . and listen. Then tell people what it is you are willing to leave behind for the sake of the future you want.

© Michael F. Kipp, May, 1998, 2009, 2011

This article was originally published as “The challenges of strategy: seven lessons” in Strategy & Leadership, 1999, Vol. 27:1

A speaker and consultant, Mike has written for Emerald Press’ Handbook of Business Strategy and McGraw Hill’s Handbook of Consulting based on his role in the development of IBM’s consulting skills school. He has authored articles (quite Google-able) such as, “Seven Mindsets in Strategic Governance,” “The Accidental Leader,” “Mapping the Business Innovation Process,” “Governing Boards at the Crossroads,” “Frameworks for Board Development,” “Strategy and the Board,” and “Rethinking the Non Profit Board.” He blogs regularly at www.thetripleaim.com about leadership for a re-formed healthcare.

Strategic plans almost always assume certain things to be true about the future. For example, when one company plans to acquire another, its leaders may assume they can achieve synergies to drive down costs. They might assume they are buying their way into a high-growth market or blocking a competitor’s moves. Or they could assume any combination of the above.

Unfortunately, many strategic plans include assumptions that don’t mean much. And some plans just skip the idea altogether. Lousy or absent assumptions cause problems, such as:

• Strategy is harder to get right the first time. Discussion and debate works best when our premises are crisp and defensible. Clear premises enable clear thinking. In strategic planning, assumptions are our premises, and it’s hard to think clearly without good ones.
• Strategy is harder to correct quickly. Strategy should be corrected immediately when its underlying assumptions don’t play out. But that’s tough to do that when you don’t know what your assumptions are.

For strong strategy – and quick course correction – you need clear, and useful strategic assumptions. Here are ten tips on how to make sure you get exactly that.

1. Keep Your Head Out of the Sand

As kids, both of us (Wendi & Bill) were lectured that, “To assume makes an ‘ass’ of ‘u’ and ‘me.’” That was always in reference to an assumption that hadn’t been discussed until it didn’t pan out. “But, Mom, I assumed somebody would give me a ride home!” That’s when the lecture began.

Many strategic plans have the same problem, their important assumptions being unexpressed or obscured. If mentioned at all, they are banal, such as “There will continue to be competition.” They might as well say, “There will continue to be air.” They declare the obvious without contributing anything useful or meaningful.

Consequently, pivotal assumptions go unstated. We call this flaw the “head-in-the- sand” problem: obliviousness to what one is actually assuming. This is the most pernicious problem we see with assumptions and strategic plans. It is the inability or unwillingness to actually state what you are assuming.

2. Stay above Hubris

Hubris is another common problem. Too many plans arrogantly assume away important barriers, pitfalls, and problems. For example, when we blithely assume that a complex, technical project will come in on time and on budget, we are presuming god-like powers not normally associated with reality. When we assume that a strong competitor will be cowed by our advances rather than goaded by them, we are living on a different planet.

The point of strategic assumptions is not to sweep away problems, but rather to articulate a likely reality. Chest-thumping strategic goals are fine, but chest-thumping assumptions are dangerous. They project an optimistic future or capability without provisions for achieving them.

Louis Armstrong wanted “A Kiss to Build a Dream On” (wonderful song); a strategic assumption is a guess to build a strategy on, so it had better be a pretty good guess.

3. Really Question Your Assumptions

Although it helps to be a pragmatic optimist when writing strategic goals, we suggest you play the pragmatic skeptic when writing assumptions.

The assumption-writer asks annoying questions such as, “Will the adversary truly respond the way we think he will?” “Has this ever worked in the past?” “On what basis do we think funding will continue to be available?” “How good are we, usually, at implementing big ideas?” “Why do we think our competitors’ technology will not advance sufficiently for them to gain the advantage?” “Do our constituents really want the same things they need?”

To write good assumptions, temporarily divorce yourself from your enthusiasm for the plan, platform, personality, or future. Launch a cascade of cranky questions. Call in diverse and dispassionate experts who have no vested interests in your situation and ask them periodically to “red team” your plans with critical questioning of your unstated premises. Get them to explicitly articulate your assumptions about what your own organization is capable of – and then question those assumptions. Get them to do the same with assumptions about your external environment, such as adversaries, allies, technology, legislation, and so on.

4. Think of Categories Before You Think of Assumptions

Before you and your team (and red team) brainstorm assumptions, you will find it immensely helpful to first brainstorm categories of assumptions. Cognitive psychological research (and our experience) indicates that people will generate about twice as many useful ideas if they have categories in which to fit their ideas. So, for example, an assumptions brainstorm for a commuter airline might start by identifying possible assumption categories such as:

• Legislation & regulation
• Interest rates
• Fuel costs
• Quality and cost of non-face-to-face meeting technology
• Labor markets
• Miscellaneous (none of the above, but relevant)

After categories have been identified, then most people will have an easier time generating assumptions. And remember always to include a “none of the above” category; the list is meant to be an aid to thinking, not a constraint.

5. Close the Assumption-Strategy Loop

In theory, you should start by generating a nice, clean set of assumptions before crafting strategic goals. After all, good assumptions enable solid strategic goals. But the truth is, the whole process is a messy, iterative loop that can start anywhere you like. Feel free to start with glorious strategic goals, and then question the assumptions that supported those goals. Or, start with assumptions and build strategic goals on that foundation. In either case, circle back and forth from one to the other a few times before you settle on assumptions and strategic goals. This is like the good judgment loop we discussed a few posts ago.

6. Keep Your Plan Relevant

Good implementers continually ask, “How are we doing against our plan?” But great implementers also ask, “Is our plan still relevant?” A powerful way to address relevance is with your assumptions. If your assumptions have not held true, or have been incomplete, then it’s time to re-tailor the plan. Even before your results tell you that your plan is off the mark, occasional review of your assumptions serves as an early warning system before bad results start rolling in, and informing you that something needs changing. Here are the kinds of questions to ask:

• “Our plan assumed that corn would stay below $6 per bushel. Has it?”
• “Our plan assumed that our competitors would lower their price at least 10 percent within six months of our entry to the market. Did they?”
• “Our plan assumed that our two Tennessee plants could consolidate without a reduction in monthly output after six months. Did they?”

If you have tied strategies to assumptions, then you’ll have a considerable advantage in knowing what to change when assumptions have to change.

7. Make Them Crystal-Darn Clear

Of course, just knowing your assumptions will put you ahead of the pack, both as a planner and as an implementer. But knowing exactly what you mean by each assumption will put you even farther ahead. We’ve written elsewhere about the importance of clear and measurable strategic goals. Well, the same goes for assumptions.

Precision and specificity are essential because assumptions such as, “The market for widgets will continue to grow” aren’t terribly useful. Such unfocused assumptions can create confusion and disagreement. Worse, broad, fuzzy assumptions tend to be ignored, and disconnected from strategic adjustments. Much better are specific assumptions such as, “The market for widgets will continue to grow at least 3% per quarter,” which can be monitored as a straightforward and unambiguous task.

8. Connect Assumptions to Strategies

There is another requisite for the correction loop to work: the relationship of a strategic goal to one or more assumptions should be absolutely explicit. Otherwise it’s too difficult to change your strategy, even if you spot discrepancies as your assumptions unfold. Too often, there is no clear relationship between the strategies in a strategic plan and the assumptions on which they are based. The relationship between assumptions and strategies need not be only one assumption to one strategy. Those relationships can also be many-to-one or one-to-many.

9. Make Contingency Plans

If assumptions are measurable, they serve as effective tripwires for contingency plans. For example, your strategic plan might state, “If assumptions x, y, and z hold true, we’ll stick with course A. But if any two of them prove incorrect, we’ll switch to course B.” In other words, you don’t need to wait until an assumption is disproven to create a replacement strategy.

Furthermore, your contingency plan needn’t always be a fallback plan. If assumptions turn out to be too conservative or pessimistic, it may be useful to also have a “seize-the-opportunity” plan.

10. Hedge Your Bets

“Hedging” is one way to prepare for the eventuality of incorrect assumptions. A hedge is a relatively small investment, up front, to mitigate the impact of incorrect assumptions. A hedge might include the purchase of equipment that might never be needed (like a seat belt), training you probably will never need (like CPR instruction), or the right to use or lease something that might never be part of your future.

For example, in a municipality where it hardly ever snows, a savvy mayor might insist on purchasing a single snow plow or, better, snow plow attachments for existing trucks – and annual maintenance and training on the (probably idle) equipment.

Or one portion of a strategic plan might rest on the assumption that, “Public support for our work will continue to grow at its present pace for at least three more years.” But here is the “hedge”: “We will identify three specialists in handling crisis public relations, have their 24-hour contact information, and meet with at least one of them.”

In Summary

Well-considered assumptions make your plan smart and relevant. They give you a logical foundation and an ongoing grounding in reality. And, like many things in life that are both simple and hard, your payoff for careful attention to assumptions will many times exceed your investment.

Why do some bureaucracies succeed while many others fail? There are endless explanations for this, and we will add one more: slow courage.

We’re not talking about the kind of heroism displayed in 1987 by U.S. sailor Wayne Weaver who escaped a fierce on-board fire only to turn around and go back for his buddies — three times. On his fourth descent into the hellish flames he did not return.

That’s raw, gritty courage, the kind that brings tears to our eyes.

But there is a different kind of courage, and it’s what keeps the wheels of the world moving, even if its practitioners don’t get written up in their hometown newspapers.

People with slow courage do the right thing in organizations that reward the wrong thing, rising above the systems they inhabit. Rather than single acts of brazen bravery, it’s heroic habits over time.

You see, here is the problem with most bureaucracies, public or private: they say they are out to achieve some Right Thing (“help the kids,” “defend the country,” “delight customers,” whatever) but what they reward is realism.

Realism is about leaders who defer maintenance on critical equipment to make their numbers look great (and let the next guy clean up). Realism is about transferring bad employees, instead of firing them, because firing them is so damned hard. Realism is about cutting everyone’s budget the same percentage – the salami slice – because intelligent, surgical cuts require thought, work, and a thick hide.

But people with slow courage are patient idealists. They say, “The hell with ‘reality’; I joined to do the right thing.” They are the purchasing agent who buys what her company needs, not what her boss’s buddies are selling; the safety inspector who digs deep enough to actually protect people, even if it annoys them; or the Pentagon cost estimator who delivers real costs rather than the “right answers” her superiors are looking for.

These moral choices occur repeatedly over time and there are no medals for making the right choice, again and again. People with slow courage are not always happy people, but every morning they can look at themselves in the mirror and know that they will do the right thing. It is their integrity that drives the organization actually to deliver on its promised results, if only a little.

If the person with slow courage happens to be a leader, then here is what they do: they act as the crap umbrella for their people. They shield their people, saying, “We claim to be here to do the right thing. As long as you work for me, that’s what you really do. I’ll protect you from the idiots; now go and do the right thing.” And then they create a culture where the right thing is rewarded and the dumb thing is not, and they take the flak. They create an island of sanity in a sea of silliness.

Anyway, this brief post is a paean to the many, MANY anonymous people with slow courage. Whether you fulfill orders in a warehouse, deliver mail, or defend the country, we thank you. You don’t face one great moment of truth; you face many small moments of truth. Thank you. And you do the right thing. Thank you.

A REQUEST, DEAR READER: It’s likely we’ll say more on slow courage. For one thing, we’d like to herald examples of it. If you can tell us about any such examples you’ve observed (and we can share), we’d be obliged. Write us directly at billandwendi@elg.net.

In our business, we see a lot of strategic plans. In too many of them we see this cute little two-step trick we call, “The Wimp’s Way Out”:

Step one: First, declare bland, no fail, effort-based goals. If possible, make them sound aggressive without actually being aggressive. Here is an example from one military command’s plan:

“Using Lean Six Sigma process we will aggressively attack civilian employee lost productivity due to accidents and seek improvements to accident reporting and analysis.”

Gee, “aggressively,” eh? Wow.

Step two: Then scavenge for precise outcomes a year later. Somewhere between any organization’s random fluctuations and its random flailing, there is bound to be some good news you can claim as victory. From that same organization’s plan:

“Compared with the previous fiscal year, we reduced private vehicle fatality by over 10%.”

Note that now, only after the fact, the plan specifies indisputable results. But they are only cherry-picking successes to brag about, not planning successes to achieve. This is cheating, not leading.

When Babe Ruth pointed to where he was going to hit the baseball, and then did it, he impressed everyone. But hitting a ball, and then pointing to where it went, impresses no one.

This is an excerpt  from our book,  Precision Leadership: Four Principles To Target Results That Matter, to be released late this summer.