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The Initiative Strategy: A Leadership Blue Print For Career Advancement. (Part One Of Two Parts.)

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"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. 2 Number 6 - June, 2004.

Publisher: The Filson Leadership Group, Inc.

(413) 458-4403 brent@actionleadership.com

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(c) Copyright 2004 The Filson Leadership Group, Inc.

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

Brent Filson's Action LeadershipTM Report is a monthly e-zine devoted to helping leaders achieve more results, faster results, continually.

(IN THIS ISSUE: The Initiative Strategy: A Leadership Blue Print For Career Advancement. (Part One Of Two Parts)

SECTION 1: Brent Filson's Weekly Tips to Lead By

Week 1: The Initiative Strategy

Week 2: Identifying the Right Initiative

Week 3: Testing Results

Week 4: Identifying Cause Leaders

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

SECTION 3: Points of Light

SECTION 4: Message from Brent Filson: Product Strategies vs. Growth Strategies

SECTION 5: News

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SECTION 1: Brent Filson's Tips to Lead By

Apply these week-by-week throughout the month.

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Week 1: The Initiative Strategy

A human resources director told me, "We hire people for their skills and experience, and we promote them… or we fire them… for their leadership skills or lack thereof. So, what we hire for and what we promote and fire for are two different things!"

If you're truly serious about advancing your career, you must come to grips with the challenges of leadership. Since leadership is simply about getting people to take action for results, those who understand how to do that will live up to their career potential; those who don't, simply won't.

Experience has taught me that the latter is the common rule. The vast majority of leaders I've encountered don't know how to have people get results on a consistent — and fully realized — basis. And what's more, a majority of those don't know that they don't know. On a daily basis, either by commission or omission, most leaders are making choices that hurt own careers.

There's a simple, practical, tested way for leaders to remedy this sad state of affairs. It's called The Initiative Strategy.

You can use it continually throughout your career, whatever type of career you have. It will help you boost your leadership skills and provide an ongoing showcase for those skills. It will help you give great added value to your organization. It will enable you to help others progress in their careers, and to forge bonds with them. It will open new opportunities for career advancement.

This month I'm going to show you how to make it happen consistently.

To understand the Initiative Strategy, first understand the principles it's based on. Without it being aligned to principles, it can't work consistently for you.

The Initiative Strategy is based on the principles of Action Leadership:

* Organizational success is a function of people getting results.

* Leaders do nothing more important than have people get results.

* The best way leaders have people get results is by motivating them to take action.

* The results attained must be more results, faster results, continually.

These principles apply whether you are leading 2 people, 200, 2,000, or more.

Here is a 9 step process for making the Initiative Strategy happen:

(1) Identify the results your organization needs to achieve and the results your specific part of the organization needs to achieve.

(2) Identify an initiative that will help get more results than are presently being achieved.

(3) Test the results using the SAMMER test.

(4) Identify the cause leaders you need to achieve the results.

(5) Have your boss and your boss's boss be aware of what you are doing.

(6) Enlist cause leaders in your initiative.

(7) Validate the results.

(8) Be humble, be helpful.

(9) Keep repeating this process throughout your career.

This month I'll take you through the first four steps of the process. Next month, we'll do the final six steps. At the end of next month, you'll have learned a process that can make an important difference in your career advancement.

This week, identify the results your organization needs to achieve and the results your specific part of the organization needs to achieve. (See Vol. 1 Number 4 of this ezine, "Results Are Limitless.")

When asking about the results of your organization — and your part of the organization — ask: "Are they the right results? If not, what are the right results? And what are the right ways to achieve them?"

For example, I worked with a number of General Electric leaders to help foster, through my leadership methods, a major quality program in a key division. When I first met them, the main result they intended to achieve was to put employees through the quality training programs so they could be certified as instructors. I suggested that there were more important results that they hadn't thought of. Those results were not simply to enlist people as certified instructors, but also to have those people, as certified instructors, get increases in business results in their various departments by leading the quality initiatives, not simply doing them. Changing the identification of results from a certification numbers game to an across-the-board increase in business results through leadership notably raised the effectiveness of the program.

The lesson is clear: A rigorous analysis of the results an organization must achieve often reveals that the wrong results were targeted or the right results were targeted through the wrong means.

Unless you're a CEO or own your organization, you might not be able to do much with organizational results. But you can do something about the results your individual unit is tasked with. And that means constantly asking, "Are we going after the right results in the right ways?"

You don't necessarily have to be directly in charge of a team to develop and execute an Initiative Strategy. In fact, in many cases, you'll be forming and leading teams in an environment in which you have little or no direct control over people.

Week 2: Identifying The Right Initiative

Once you focus on the right results, you can identify the first initiative you want to develop to get increases in those results.

A few focal points of strong initiatives: speed, productivity, operations efficiencies, sales closes, sales leads, administrative efficiencies, customer satisfaction, failure prevention, failure analysis, health and safety, quality, training, logistics, marketing targets, new revenue streams, reinvigorating core revenue, sales multiplication, business erosion, price, cost reductions, and developing and maintaining right measurements.

Initiative selection is crucial. Remember: an Initiative Strategy can be carried out throughout your entire career. You should always be developing new initiatives and carrying out the ones you've developed. When you're learning how to best put them together, focus on having them be quick, simple, and successful.

Quick: In my seminars, I had leaders implement their initiatives for thirty-five business days before reporting back on how they were doing. Ultimately, the initiative might take many more months to accomplish, but there should be a quick report-back time to insure that it doesn't linger unproductively.

Simple: It should be simple to understand, simple to plan, and simple to execute.

Successful: The objective in this stage is to achieve a win. The best way to do that is to go after low-hanging fruit. Having helped many hundreds of leaders develop and execute Initiative Strategies during the past decade, I've found that their getting more results quickly is relatively easy. Most leaders get a fraction of the results they're capable of. Armed with Leadership Strategies, those leaders substantially increase the results they achieve. Later on you'll see how you can get a lot more results by harvesting top-hanging fruit, more difficult to achieve but potentially more remunerative. Focus on a good initiative that shows your cause leaders and your supervisors that you can pick a winner that has a relatively quick payoff.

Week 3: Testing results

Once you understand the results you want and the initiative that will achieve those results, it's time to test the results, so you can make sure you're on target and stay on target. Use the SAMMER Test. Results should be:

· Sizable - The results you aim for must meet the standard of more results, faster results, continually.

· Achievable - The results must be challenging, but not impossible, to meet.

· Meaningful - Your cause leaders must be passionately committed to achieving them.

· Measurable - In most, but not all cases, you should be able to quantify them to provide a standard of value.

· Ethical - You must achieve them with integrity and report on them honestly.

· Repeatable - These results should be springboards for even more results.

This week, test your initiative using the SAMMER Test.

Week 4: Identifying Cause Leaders

Remember the second principle of the Initiative Strategy: Leaders do nothing more important than have people get results.

The word "have" may seem rather passive, but in truth it's extremely powerful in terms of producing results. The best way to have people get results is not by forcing or ordering them, but by having them make the choice to get the results.

More results, faster, continually can only happen in the realm of free choice.

The key to accomplishing a successful Initiative is acquiring cause leaders -- people who will not simply do the tasks associated with the Initiative, but people who will take leadership of the tasks.

When one takes leadership of a task, instead of simply doing it, one brings an added dimension of initiative, commitment, energy, and focus to that task.

At this point, you're not engaging with the people who are your potential cause leaders, you're simply identifying them. Next month, I'll show you how to go about motivating them to be your cause leaders.

A good way to identify your cause leaders is with a cause-leader map. Draw a wheel with spokes. The wheel is the initiative, the spokes the cause leaders you need to carry it out.

Clearly, you're not going to be able to motivate every one of your potentials into a cause leader, so you should identify a backup for each potential cause leader you target.

Your next month's issue will deal with the remaining steps of this unmatched career booster, the Initiative Strategy.

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SECTION TWO: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

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The Good:

The publisher of Russian composer Igor Stravinsky was eager to publish his latest composition. He went to Stravinsky's home and urged him to complete it as soon as possible. "Hurry?" exclaimed Stravinsky. "I don't have time to hurry!"

Take your time with your initiatives, do them well, and you'll find your career hurrying along.

The Bad:

At the historic 1913 Paris premiere of Stravinsky's ballet, The Rite of Spring, the audience, enraged at the strange rhythms and dissonance, began booing lustily and throwing chairs. The impresario Gabriel Atruc came onstage and shouted into the noise, "First listen, then boo!"

When you lead, you'll often encounter people who want to boo rather than listen. When you do, tell this anecdote about Stravinsky.

The Ugly:

Stravinsky once had an argument with an airport ticket agent over excess-weight charges on his baggage. When the agent began to explain the reasons for the charge, Stravinsky interrupted him, saying, "I quite understand the logic of it. What I'm objecting to is the money!"

Throughout your career, most initiatives you develop will be objected to not in terms of their logic but in terms of the money. Know the value of the money in terms of the value of the results you need to achieve.

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SECTION THREE: Points of Light

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"In leadership, you don't have to expect the worst, you just have to make the most of it when it happens." — Brent Filson

"If you are to win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend." — Abraham Lincoln

"Few are open to conviction, but the majority of men are open to persuasion." — Goethe

"All Initiative Strategies are based on the truth that your cause leaders will believe in what they need." —Brent Filson

"One is to be fond of people and trust them if one is not to make a mess of life." — E. M. Forester

"Just as every conviction begins as a whim, so does every emancipator serve his apprenticeship as a crank. A fanatic is a great leader who is just entering the room." —Heywood Broun

"Persistence is one opinion has never been considered a merit in political leaders." Cicero

"One must not only believe in what one is saying but also that it matters to the people to whom one is speaking." — Norman Thomas

"What men value in this world are not rights but privileges." — H. L. Mencken

"Our distrust is very expensive." — Ralph Waldo Emerson

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SECTION FOUR: Message from Brent Filson

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A Product Strategy Isn't A Growth Strategy

In the jungle, it's eat or be eaten. In the world of organizations, it's grow or die. An organization, whether for profit or nonprofit, that doesn't have a growth strategy is a "dead man walking."

A key factor preventing many organizations from growing consistently centers on their leaders misunderstanding the differences between product strategies and growth strategies.

Here are some differences that leaders of all levels and functions must understand.

(When I talk about products, I'm including services.)

· A product strategy sees products as ends that deliver the best possible customer value at the highest possible price and lowest possible cost. A growth strategy sees products not as ends, but as processes for organizational growth.

· A product strategy gets you into the market. A growth strategy multiplies the markets you get into.

· A product strategy enhances job opportunities. A growth strategy enhances career opportunities.

· With a product strategy, the customer is always right. With a growth strategy, the customer is often wrong.

· A product strategy emphasizes how customers use a product. A grow strategy emphasizes how customers can grow their organizations by using the product.

· A product strategy uses R & D, design, and manufacturing in product-focused ways. A growth strategy uses R & D, design, and manufacturing in growth-oriented ways.

· A product strategy may or may not rely on cross-functional teams. A growth strategy must rely on cross-functional teams.

· A product strategy uses the power of emotion tactically. A growth strategy uses the power of emotion strategically.

· A product strategy has the customer see you as a supplier. A growth strategy has the customer see you as a partner for his growth.

· A product strategy has cost determining price. A growth strategy has price determining cost.

· A product strategy has salespeople selling. A growth strategy has salespeople consulting.

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SECTION FIVE: News

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Brent's book, The Leadership Talk: The Greatest Leadership Tool, will be available in bookstores in the fall. You can purchase advance copies by calling 800-403-5368. Mention this e-zine and you'll receive a free wallet card with the Leadership Talk processes. If you purchase the hardcover book, you'll receive a free copy of Brent's newest book, 101 Ways To Give Great Leadership Talks. In addition, you'll be eligible to receive a set of Brent's previously published books at half price.

Quick Speech is up and running. If you have a speech to give, go to the Quick Speech button at www.actionleadership.com and download the template. Fill in the blanks and you'll have a powerful speech. Quick Speech is the highly popular companion supplement to Brent's book, Executive Speeches, 51 CEOs Tell You How To Do Yours. Quick Speech has sold thousands of copies, but now it is available to you for free. Remember: the speech is not an end in and of itself, but the gateway to The Leadership Talk. Learn to give speeches Brent Filson's way and you'll be better grounded to give Leadership Talks later on.

Brent has been interviewed on a number of radio shows. He is aiming for at least 150 radio and TV interviews before the fall election. If you're interested in having him on your show or at your meeting, go to the Action Leadership website and click on either the "Meeting Planner" button or the "Press Room" button.

The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. is putting together a CD collection of interviews with leaders, entitled the "Leaders Speak Series." It will begin this month and can be found on the Action Leadership website. Click on "Leaders Speak CD Series." Brent says, "I want to interview leaders from a broad spectrum of endeavor. Don't be surprised to find landscape contractors, gang leaders, horse trainers, and sports coaches, as well as business and political leaders. Almost everyone practices leadership, and we'll bring it to you on the CDs in all the richness of human relationships." For more information, call the F.L.G. headquarters: 413-458-4403 or email Brent at brent@actionleadership.com.

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