"We will never know how good we really are unless we are leading people to be better than they think they are." -- Brent Filson

“Authority is a poor excuse for leadership. Poor leaders order people to do a job. Action leaders have those people choose to be the cause leaders of that job -- for more results faster, continually.” –Brent Filson

Vol. 1 Number 1 - July 1, 2003
Publisher: The Filson Leadership Group, Inc.
413-458-4403
filsonlead@aol.com
(c) Copyright 2003 The Filson Leadership Group, Inc.

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Reprinted from "Brent Filson's Action Leadership Report,” a free e-zine about helping leaders be more effective. Subscribe at: www.actionleadership.com and receive Brent Filson's free report: 49 Tips On Using Action To Achieve Results.

IN THIS ISSUE

SECTION 1: Brent Filson’s Weekly Tips To Lead By.

1. Good Enough Is Bad News

2. More IS more.

3. Speed.

4. “Continually.”

SECTION 2: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.

1. The Good.

2. The Bad and The Ugly.

SECTION 3: Guest Column.

SECTION 4: Points of Light.

SECTION 5: News.

SECTION 6: In Next Month’s e-zine.

SECTION 1: Brent Filson's Weekly Tips To Lead By:
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Week 1: Good Enough Is Bad News
Whenever I meet a leader for the first time to talk about Action Leadership, I ask, “Are you satisfied with the results you’re getting now?”

It’s a simple enough question, yet it points to a world of difference between leaders. Because if the answer is “yes” then our meeting will be brief. We’ll quickly go our separate ways. I can’t help a satisfied leader, a leader who lives by “good enough.” I can only help if that leader has a powerful dissatisfaction with the resulting h/she is getting now.

Let’s go back to basics: Leaders do nothing more important than get results. If you can’t get results, you won’t be leading for long. Somebody who can get results is always waiting in line to take your place. If “good enough” is okay with you, you are the next best thing to somebody who can’t or won’t get results. So, “good enough” is your enemy, “powerful dissatisfaction” your champion.

I’m not saying that you should go around in a funk powerfully dissatisfied with everything and everyone. You’d be a royal pain. What I am saying is that whatever results you get should be seen not as an end in and of themselves but part of a natural process to get more. Powerful dissatisfaction does not have to be a downer. It can be a joy. The joy of having the opportunity and privilege of thinking anew and acting anew. To be truly powerfully dissatisfied, one must be relaxed, open, caring, and humble. Banishing “good enough”, embracing “powerful dissatisfaction” becomes a profoundly enriching way of leadership and of life.

So, take a joyful, powerful dissatisfaction into your leadership activities this week and see the difference it makes in your interactions with others and in results.

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Week 2. More IS More
You’ve heard the adage “less is more.” However, in regard to leadership, less is not more, nor is more (as it is sometimes stated), less. Instead, more IS more.

Many people mistakenly think that leadership is simply a different form of management, that the two differ in degree, not kind. It’s a misunderstanding that has actually torpedoed careers.

The difference between leadership and management is the difference, to paraphrase Mark Twain, between lightning and the lightning bug.

And that difference is defined by “more.”
Clearly, every organization that has ever been formed has been formed for a particular purpose. However, that purpose, the raison d’ê-tre, does not exist unchanged in a static universe. Quantum mechanics and relativity have taught us that there is no such thing as a static universe. Change happens.

Generally speaking, management helps the organization stay stable in a changing environment. In biology, the concept is called homeostasis. Homeostasis is the biological equivalent of organizational management. In biology, homeostasis promotes the well-being of organisms. In organizational dynamics, homeostasis can lead to disaster.

Don’t’ get me wrong — Up to a point, homeostasis is important to an organization. After all, every organization must possess an element of stability. So, management is vital to organizational success. However, when concern for stability overrides the necessity to adapt to change, ruin follows.

Leadership is the antidote to the disaster of over weaning stability. What leadership does (or should do), its raison d’e-tre, is to strive to achieve “more.” Leadership uses organizational purpose as a tool to DRIVE change — getting more of the tangible and intangible aspects of purpose. And “more” does not necessarily have to be quantitative. “More” is also qualitative.

Leaders, managers, organizations stumble when they don’t understand and manifest “more.”

Begin this week by examining the purpose of your organization. Define what “more” is in relationship to that purpose. Find ways to get more of “more.” This means understanding the precise actions people must take to get more. More importantly, find ways to motivate others to take those actions. Unless you see that more IS more, your leadership will be less.

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Week 3. Speed
Speed is a resultsmultiplier. When you are not only getting results but getting results faster, you can tap into a new results motherlode.

However, many leaders misunderstand the concept and execution of speed. They think that to get results faster, they must speed things up — doubling the drum beats per minute for the galley rowers. But speeding things up is often the WORST way to go faster.

This week, slow down before you speed up. Getting speed is usually the result of getting different parts working together more efficiently or differently. Or finding new parts altogether! To do that, you have to first slow down. Slow down and look at what you want to get done faster. See the parts in the whole. Improve each part for speed. Improve their interaction for speed.

See speed as fundamentally a leadership dynamic. If you are not getting the speed you want, look first at the leadership cause. Draw a leadership map for speed. Who are the people you need as your cause leaders to achieve more speed. Win them over to your cause. Get them to commit to specific leadership actions that they will take to make speed happen. Draw up evaluation and monitoring systems.
Finally, see speed as a crossfunctional issue. When I helped a company get speed in its ordertoremittance cycle, we had to engage sales, marketing, administration, supply chain, technology, and manufacturing. Getting cause leaders in every one of those functions then getting the cause leaders to work together as a unit was a function of leadership.

Only then, after you have first slowed down and put these processes in place, are you ready to speed up and claim the results that can only be claimed in the realm of speed.

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Week 4. Continually
You may get more results. You may get more results faster. But can you get more results faster ... continually? “Continually” trips up many leaders -- especially if they are order leaders, those leaders who go about getting results by ordering people to do tasks.

To have “continually” happen, you must work with people on deeper levels than simply order giving. Instead of ordering people to go from A to B, say, you need to have those people want to go from A to B. That ‘want to” is the fertile ground for having “continually” take place.

After all, the order is self-limiting. People may respond to an order and stretch themselves to do extraordinary things; but often, after they have done those things, they usually snap back to the original state and wait for the next order.

People who ‘want to,’ however, are more likely to get “continually.”

Getting “continually” takes careful preparation on your part. Your challenge this week is three-fold: EXPECT, ENGAGE, FOLLOW-THROUGH.

EXPECT: Be clear about what you expect. Expectations can be self-fulfilling prophesies. Expect “continually,” and you’ll probably get it — if not now, later. Expectations don’t simply create your environment, they ARE your environment. But just don’t THINK expectations, DO expectations. For instance, build “continually” into the design phase of your products and services .

ENGAGE: Challenge people to take leadership action for “continually.” Get their ideas on what actions they should take. Get them challenging others to manifest “continually.”

FOLLOW-THROUGH: “Continually” depends on follow-through; and follow-through pivots on the armature of conviction, you on one pole, the people you lead on the other. When your conviction becomes theirs, you’ll get follow-through for “continually.” When it doesn’t, you won’t. One way to promote “continually” is for you to continually follow through with them on reaching an agreement on the stakes of a difficult challenge that you confront. Often, people will not be motivated to follow-through on committing themselves to your cause simply because they disagree with you on what the stakes of the cause are. More about stakes in the next e-zine

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SECTION 2: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.
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This section is devoted to leadership activities in the field. As in all activities devoted to having people get results, there are good and bad outcomes. Readers are encouraged to e-mail their contributions to this section. If you wish, we will leave your name out.

The Good.
A first line supervisor at a power generating plant had been putting in requests for many months to have his department manager purchase an electric cart to get mechanics quickly to various job sites and to help carry supplies. The manager kept turning down the requests, citing that the plant couldn’t afford the purchase.

In an Action Leadership course, the supervisor learned that the problem did not lie with the manager but with the supervisor himself. “When you talk with the manager,” Brent said, “you’re talking about your needs. You’re not going to get that cart unless you talk to the manager about HIS needs.” The supervisor understood that the manager’s needs were tied to the senior executive of the plant demanding that the manager’s department achieve continual increases in productivity.”

The supervisor put together a detailed study showing how the purchase of the cart would more than pay for itself within three months in terms of higher productivity gains. He got help from the accounting department who crunched the numbers to support his assertions.

The upshot was that the manager immediately approved the purchase of the cart. The supervisor said, “Changing the focus from my needs to his needs was the game breaker. We’d be lost without Action Leadership!”

At first blush, this may seem like an facile example — the supervisor makes a small change in his thinking and gets relatively big results. But let’s remember, this is a typical challenge of small-unit leaders, who are the backbone of many organizations. The way these leaders tackle these kinds of “production floor” challenges, multiplied many times over day in and day out, can make or break operations. Having the supervisor change his thinking in that one instance showed him how a similar change in thinking done many times daily can have a significant impact on his leadership and on the results he gets. Get many other supervisors engaged in changing the way they think and act, and big results can accrue.

The Bad and the Ugly.
In a hotel ballroom, I watched the CEO of a large insurance company stand up on a platform in the glare of a spotlight to speak to several hundred of his sales people at their annual meeting.

He said, “Ask me anything that’s honestly on your mind about where I company is headed. Speak your mind!”

Somebody at one side of the room raised his hand and asked about the company’s stock price being slightly deflated.

The CEO shaded his eyes with his hand, marched to the front of the platform and bellowed, “Who asked that question? WHAT’S HIS NAME?”

The questioner sat back down out of sight. Needless to say, there were no more “honest” questions asked.
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SECTION 3: Guest Column
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Each month, a leader will write a 500 word or less piece on a specific leadership challenge h/she tackled and a lesson learned from that challenge that the readers can take to heart. Please e-mail your contributions to brent@actionleadership.com

“Be careful what you wish for” is a an adage that leaders should heed when they are seeking to fill leadership positions in their organizations. This held true when I was looking around for a C.E.O. for my educational company. I was very excited about the company and the direction I wanted to take. I interviewed a number of candidates and selected a dynamic man who had a track record of great sales success in another company.

The trouble is when he assumed the mantel of C.E.O. he underwent a personality change. He became controlling and started giving a lot of orders. He felt he could make decisions on his own without input from experts. He began alienating a lot of people. He saw the position of CEO as an Olympian mountain from which he looked down upon people and pontificated. I saw the position more of as a chief mechanic, working on the nuts and bolts of things, getting his hands dirty. We had to part ways. The lesson I learned is clear: When you select somebody for a leadership position know what skills and experience they bring to the job but also try to understand not only how they will fit into the job but how the job will fit them. I wanted a strong C.E.O., and I got one — that was the problem!

Emiliano De Laurentis, Owner, Knowledge Environment, a company that brings high tech solutions to educational dynamics. Contact: edl@knowledgeenvironments.com


SECTION 4: Points of Light
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“It’s not enough that we say we are doing our best. We must succeed in doing what is necessary.” Winston Churchill

“Ever since Adam, fools have been in the majority.” Casimir Delavigne, French poet and playwright.

“The best way to communicate an idea is to bundle it in a human being.” Brent Filson

“All bad precedents begin as a justifiable measure.” Julius Caesar

“Happy is the man with a wife to tell him what to do and a secretary to do it.” Lord Mancroft, British politician.

“The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule,” H. L. Mencken

“A man will fight harder for his interests than for his rights.” Napoleon Bonaparte

“Enough research will tend to support your theory.” Quoted in “Murphy’s Law”

“In the long run, the most important results of leadership are not what we achieve but what we become in that achieving.” Brent Filson

SECTION 5: News
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Brent Filson’s ActionPlan™ Leadership Sessions will be given at the Princeton Club in New York: July 30, August 13, September 24, October 29, November 21, December 17. Brent started giving the Sessions at the Princeton Club in the Spring of 1993. Their purpose is to both introduce the participants to Action Leadership and have them develop an Action Plan that they can take back to their jobs and achieve more results faster, continually. Many leaders from Fortune 100 companies have participated. For more information, go and click on Princeton Club.

Brent’s latest book, The Leadership Talk: Motivating People To Get More Results Faster, has just been printed. It is due for publication in the spring of ‘04. Prepublication copies are available now for bulk purchase.

Earn Referral Commissions
Commissions can be earned selling Brent’s books and products as well as helping him get booked for speaking engagements. For more information, e-mail: brent@actionleadership.com:

NEXT MONTH: “The anger” issue.

1. Anger You’ll Always Get

2. Their Anger Is Your Opportunity

3. Your Anger Is Your Opportunity

4. Crowns For Convoy