Posts by drjbnewman

Legacy Leaders Know their People

Getting to know your people is the number one goal for any leader. You cannot be a leader without followers. Some leaders seem to forget this simple fact. If you are leading the charge and you look behind you to find no one there? Well I guess you weren’t really leading after all. Getting to really know people is a skill we can learn. We are not born with this skill, we develop it over time. We refer to this as People Acumen.

Yourdictionary.com defines acumen as, “the ability to quickly and accurately understand and deal with a situation or choice.” Adding the word people to this word results in, People Acumen is the ability to quickly and accurately understand and deal with people in a situation or choice. Ineffective leaders struggle with People Acumen. They misinterpret the motives, fears, concerns, and the needs, wants, and desires of “their people.” Legacy Leaders get their people. Legacy Leaders quickly pick up on what motivates, what scares, what causes concern, and what their people need, want, and desire.

How do we acquire People Acumen? It’s really quite simple. We observe them. So, what does that mean? To observe means to watch, listen, and collect information about them. This is not done in a sneaky, covert way. It is done openly and with our intentions fully and clearly stated. We let our people know that we want to really get to know them so that we can help them be the most successful version of themselves as we possibly can. We let them know that we will be listening to what they say and how they say it. We let them know that we will be watching what they do and how they do it. We let them know that we would like to explore possibilities and dreams and even their “nightmares” so that we can all be the best we can possibly be. We also let them know that we care about them, not just at work, but in every part of their lives. The more we now about them and the more they know about us, the better able we will be to make decisions that are in the best interest of the organization and everyone the organization touches.

In our business, “Culture By Choice™,” we utilize an assessment that we call the Core Advantage Assessment ™ . This assessment combines the Hartman Values Proile, the DISC, and the Motivators assessments into one assessment with one report, our Core Advantage Report ™. This report tells leaders and followers what an individual is most likely going to do under both everyday circumstances and during more stressful circumstances. It also tells what is most likely going to be the motivation behind those behaviors. Thirdly, the report tells us about the values that underlie the decisions the individual makes before the actions are taken. The values exist with respect to the people involved, the problems that are faced, the systems and rules that govern the process, and the person’s own sense of self-worth, their role or place in it all, and their hope for the future. These assessments give leaders a huge advantage because in a very short period of time, the leader can discover a wealth of knowledge about their people. Legacy Leaders can use this information to help their people be the best version of themselves possible and that is always a goal of every Legacy Leader.

Legacy Leaders know that they are nothing without their people. They also know that they will never be better than the team they assemble. Knowing their people allows them to deploy them in the best way possible both for the organization and each person. Assembling highly productive teams requires excellent People Acumen skills. Being able to assess both the existing talent and the potential talent is critical for the organization today and the organization tomorrow. Legacy Leaders also realize that they can always improve. They can get better at reading people. They can have better People Acumen skills. So they never stop learning. They never believe they have arrived. They believe they are on a life long journey of trying to better understand people and to help people get better at understanding others and themselves.

Legacy Leaders and Sharing Information

Information is the currency of productivity. Information is necessary for success. Information is powerful and liberating. Information can open doors, minds, and hearts. Failure to provide adequate information to our followers can be the most detrimental leadership act for any organization.

When followers are not given all the information they feel they need, or if followers do not trust the information provided, or if the information is not given in a form they can understand and use, followers will fill in the blanks on their own. Sometimes this is ok but many times this creates real problems. When holes are left in the provided information, and followers are required to fill in the blanks, they will, most likely, fill in those blanks using their own biases as a selection filter. Furthermore, those filters are most frequently negative filters.

Many leaders lament the fact that their people are always looking on the negative side of situations and circumstances. But this is a very natural fear response. When faced with the unknown, discomfort often gives way to fear and fear results in one of two reactions; fight or flight. Either of those responses is counter productive and not in the best interest of the organization. To keep followers in the most productive space, Legacy Leaders must provide complete, trustworthy, and comprehendible information.

It is understood that there are times and situations that arise that limit a leader’s ability to share some information. When confidentiality dictates that specific pieces of information cannot be shared, there is nothing the leader can do about it. But how the leader deals with the situation can help put followers more at ease. Legacy Leaders want followers to be as much at ease as possible, so during these times a Legacy Leader will create a system that will help followers understand the level of urgency, the intensity of the threat, and how concerned they need to be.

One Legacy Leader I’ve met used a system that gave followers a numerical value for each of these factors; urgency, threat, and concern. If the situation was serious, the leader might tell followers, “there’s information I cannot share and I want you to know the urgency level is a 10, the threat intensity is a 4, and your level of concern should be a 3.” This would alert followers that the situation was very urgent, but the threat was moderate, and their level of concern was only low-moderate. This allowed followers to create scenarios in their own minds that were relevant to the situation and not completely off the wall. The Legacy Leader knew he couldn’t stop his people from filling in the blanks but he could give them a clue as to where their concern should be placed.

Information is powerful. Some unprincipled leaders use information as a weapon. Legacy Leaders always respect their followers and use information to empower people whenever they can. When their hands are tied and they cannot share everything they’d like to share, they create systems to help their people deal with the lack of information they are facing. Legacy Leaders understand that the better the information, the more productive their people will be. The more productive everyone is, the more satisfaction they get from their work. The greater the satisfaction, the greater their future efforts will be. This creates the upward spiral of success that Legacy Cultures most often experience.

Legacy Leaders Come in many Shapes and Sizes But Always set WISE Goals

Jay Newman, PhD, Founding Partner, Culture By Choice

I’ve met many leaders in my life that I would consider to be Legacy Leaders. They have not all looked the same. They have not all acted alike. There doesn’t seem to be a blueprint. But they do have a few things in common. I’ll talk about those things in a while, but first let’s dispel some myths about who makes the best leaders. The Legacy Leaders I’ve known have been very diverse. Some have been tall. Some have been short. Many were just average height. Some have been thin. Some were over weight. Many were just average weight. Some were women. Some were men. Some were gay. Some were straight. Some I wasn’t really sure about. But, they all cared very much about the people they lead and the job they were tasked to complete.

Legacy Leaders have a vision of the future that drives them towards something better. Their values and principles dictate how they will pursue that vision. Each of them will have one key, controlling idea that informs every decision and becomes that leader’s “true north.” But that controlling idea might be gender equity or environmental responsibility or even producing the highest quality automobiles in the world. There is no one best controlling idea. Controlling ideas will always be governed by the fundamental values and principles of a movement and Legacy Leaders tap into those values and principles as the foundation for every critical decision that is made.

There are many people in leadership roles who have not figured out that finding their true north and making sure that their true north is aligned with the fundamental values and principles of the organization is the most effective and efficient way to get the business of the organization done. These unprincipled “leaders” often think it’s about making money or being in control or having power but those are byproducts of seeking to achieve the organization’s purpose. The unprincipled Leader will jump from one shiny object to the next, all in an attempt to further themselves and their own agendas. No one wants to give money to someone they think is only interested in the money, but all of us are willing to part with our money in pursuit of fulfilling our needs, wants, and desires. If my company can help you fulfill your needs, wants, and desires and you believe we can do so in a way that provides real value for you, then my company has a great chance of winning your business. But, if I want to be a Legacy Leader I must be certain that what my company does is always aligned with our clearly defined and well communicated values and principles. And if what we do and how we do it is not what you are looking for as a customer, you should look elsewhere to get your needs, wants, and desires fulfilled.

It doesn’t matter what your race, creed, color, nationality, gender, or sexual orientation is if you adhere to your values and principles and make your decisions based on your controlling idea. When you find your true north and stay true to that, you will find people who are aligned and will want to associate with you. As a Legacy Leader, it is critical that you find your true north. Staying on that true north path requires you to set some goals. As you set goals, your goals should always be “WISE Goals.” SMART Goals are always a good idea but we all know that smart people can do some really dumb things but wise people know how to apply their intelligence in the most productive way. WISE Goals are designed to do the same thing for your organization; take the organizational intelligence and apply it in the most productive way possible.

Just as SMART is an acronym for Specific, Measurable , Achievable, Relevant, and Time limited, WISE is an acronym for Whole team buy in, Important to the Mission, Values and Principles, Statistics for Monitoring, and Evaluated for Progress and the need to Course Correct on a weekly basis. Legacy Leaders know that they must operate based on their values and principles and make decisions based on their controlling idea but they also know that they must have systems of operation that maximize their probability of success. Leaving things to chance allows too much opportunity for actions to deviate from the mission and in a Legacy Culture, deviation from the mission should only happen by design. It’s not that deviation should not occur, it’s that it should not occur by accident. Nor should it occur by the design of someone not aligned with the values and principles of the organization.

Becoming a Legacy Leader has been the most rewarding journey of my life. Having people on my team that held my feet to the organizational fire kept me on the best path while also supporting the creativity I brought to the table. One particular team member suggested during a staff meeting, that we give each team member a rubber stamp with the letters WDTHTDWTM, what does this have to do with the mission, on it. The rest of team sailed, no we only need one, give it to Bruce, he’ll be our Mission watchdog. So Bruce became our Mission watchdog and every memo, agenda, request for information or data, and every piece of information sent out was scrutinized for alignment. And if something didn’t pass muster, it was stamped with WDTHTDWTM. As a team we rejected those things that were not aligned unless they were required by law or someone hire up the food chain. We became a model high school and people marveled at what we accomplished.

I’ve seen a variety of approaches for staying aligned from many Legacy Leaders. Making sure you don’t go astray is critical to success. Having a method, such as our stamp, is helpful for keeping on track. Having WISE Goals also helps. Legacy Leaders take advantage of as many tools as they can. There is no single way to do it, so use every means you can find to keep your team heading towards true north.

Compassion and Integrity and maybe a little Courage

Writing this blog is very rewarding for me. Seeing how many people take a look at what I have written is a real ego boost. But, I started tracking which ideas were hitting home the hardest with my readers and I found that 2 articles have been viewed many times more than any of the others. These two articles were on Caring and Integrity; with caring getting a 1,000 more views than integrity.

When I started looking into why these two topics were so highly regarded, I noticed that there is an entire curriculum from Life University on Compassionate Integrity. As I dug deeper I discovered that a great deal of research has gone into these two qualities as being critical for Legacy Leaders along with one other component, Courage. It turns out that people will follow a leader that they trust and that trust must exist on three levels; reliability, believability, and vulnerability. If I am going to really trust someone, I must have faith that the person will be there when they say they will. I must also have faith that what that person says and does is honest, forthright, and not completely self-erving. We all are doing whatever we do because we believe it will fulfill our needs and wants but the best of us also want to make sure that what we do is not detrimental to those around us. Finally, I must have faith that the person will not take advantage of me when I am most vulnerable. This level of integrity seems to be so rare today but when we find it, wow!

When someone has the integrity that produces the trust we have just described, we know they care. It is not a hollow honesty that can throw your weaknesses right back in your face in the name of being honest. It is an honesty that says we all make mistakes and we all have weaknesses, it is how we deal with them together that will determine how we can all move forward together. In today’s society, where bullying is all the rage, people fail on the third leg of this integrity stool. Many people look for where the weakness exists and then exploit that weakness for any one of a number of reasons. This blog post is not about those bullies, however. The bullies are the true cowards of our society. This blog post is about those courageous few who learn of a vulnerability and then take the time to help the vulerable live more fully inspite of the weaknesses that exist.

In today’s society, there are many that say this type of compassionate integrity is weak and misguided. There is a trend for many so-called leaders to exploit whatever weakness they can find. These are not leaders, they despots. It doesn’t matter where we find them, let’s call them what they are. They are Bullies! The truly courageous people in today’s world are those that want to build people up, not tear them down. They do want to help the people they lead find their weaknesses so that they can take proactive and preventative steps. They want to make sure those weaknesses don’t limit success. But their real purpose is to help each person find their strength so that they can use their strength to create even greater success.

The thinking behind bullying and despotism is based on a view of the world that says there are very limited resources and if other people get these resources, I will not have what I need and want. The thinking behind compassionate integrity is the belief that the resources of the world are abundant and there is more than enough for everyone to share. Me having hundreds of times more than what I need and preventing others from even having the bare necessities, is not only immoral, in the long run it will not serve my own selfish purposes either.

It’s not about socialism. It’s not about lowering standards. It’s about opportunity, courage, compassion and integrity. In the face of conventional wisdom, we must have the courage to say, enough is enough. The bullying has to stop. The lack of integrity must not be tolerated. We must have the courage to allow leaders who have Compassionate Integrity to rise to the positions of authority that will really make a positive difference in our schools, communities, businesses, and state and national government. When we, as a society, finally realize that a leader can be courageous and compassionate and when we demand that they have those three levels of integrity, we will all be much better off!

A Sense of Humor and Being a Legacy Leader

Jay Newman, PhD, Founding Partner, Culture By Choice

When I was a young man, my dad, who was a very serious man and rarely smiled, told me that I took everything too seriously and that I needed to lighten up a bit. Now, more than 40 years later, I look at that brief talk I had with my dad as the most important piece of advice I ever received from him. My wife still tells me that I’m way to serious, but I have always found time for a good belly laugh.

One way to let people know that you really aren’t all that serious is to use your own experiences as an example. As a high school principal, I told this story to my staff during the first day in-service meetings as we were kicking off a new school year. Our family took a summer vacation to the Great Smokey Mountains. I came home from work on Friday afternoon and as we had previously decided, my wife had everything packed and ready to load in the car. All I had to do was load the car, get the kids strapped in, and we could hit the road. We were going to Elizabethtown, Kentucky that first night and we had a room booked at a Days Inn. So, I loaded the car. Every last thing that was sitting there on the floor by the front door was neatly tucked in for the ride south. Barb. my wife, said “did you get everything in.” I said yep, “if you put it by the door, it’s in the car.” She said, “did you get the food bags?” I said, “were they by the door?” She said “yes!” I said, “then they must be in the car because there is nothing left by the door.”

The station wagon was loaded with camping gear, kids, suitcases, and some bags of stuff. We traveled the 350 miles to Elizabethtown and stopped for the night. We checked into our room and got the overnight bags so we could all get our swim suits on and take a dip in the pool. It was August, we were in Kentucky and it was hot. To make matters worse, the AC in our station wagon wasn’t working so good and everyone was a hot mess. 5 hours of riding in a hot car can take a lot out of young kids. So we all change and get off to the pool. After about 15 minutes of splashing and playing, Barb asks me to “go get some of the chips out of one of the food bags, because the kids might like a snack before they go to bed.” I respond with, “I don’t remember seeing any chips in any of the bags I loaded in the car.” Barb replied, “really!” I said, “really!” She said, “how many bags did you put in the car?” I said, “two!” She said, “Really? Didn’t you think that 2 bags of food might not last us for 2 weeks of camping?” I said, “I thought maybe you had some other plan. You said everything was by the door!” She said, “I said by the doors! Didn’t you look by the service door into the garage?” I said, “WHY WOULD I LOOK THERE! WE DON’T EVEN USE THAT GARAGE?”

About this time, I look around the pool and notice that everyone is leaving the pool and our three kids are huddling by the stairs at the far end of the pool. It is now quite obvious that we’ve had a major miscommunication. My wife seems to have also caught on to the the fact that we’ve just scared everyone out of the pool, and says in a voice about 300 decibels lower than her last statement, “I think we should go.” We gather up the kids and head to our room. I grab one of the bags from the car which contains only breakfast cereal. The other bag contains crackers and boxes of macaroni and cheese. I took a deep breath and sighed, “I think I’m going get a little tired of mac and cheese, crackers and cereal. Do you think we better stop to get something else to feed the kids before we set up camp in the Smokies?”

It’s hard to relate how this went over to my staff by writing it down. When I told the story, they were laughing so hard they couldn’t catch their breath. I guess they could related to my story. But it was a great way to introduce the idea of improving communications. In every organization, the one thing that everyone says needs to be improved is communications. And the first assumption is that there’s not enough of it. But experience tells us that it’s not the amount, it’s the quality of the communication that’s important. Going back to my wife and I, our failure resulted from assumptions. I assumed I knew what she meant when she asked me questions and she assumed I knew what she meant when I answered those questions. As comical as the situation turned out to be, we did learn a lesson, to make a check list for our vacations. Our checklists did not keep us from having more fun and exciting experiences, but we never left the food behind again. And, just for the record, when we got home, there were the 6 other bags of can goods, pancake mix, various chips, cookies, and boxes of assorted snacks, sitting right there by the service door from the dining room into the garage.

Dangerous Trees and Talented Tree Removers

Jay Newman, PhD, Founding Partner, Culture By Choice

This morning, as I’m writing this article, I’m watching a crew of tree removers as they take down an old oak tree that is growing at a 75 degree angle next to my sea wall. We have to take it down because if it continues to lean more and more to the east, it will eventually go down and probably take part of the sea wall with it and just might fall on my house. I’ve put this off as long as I can and, as a result of my procrastination, I will be paying more than I would have a few years ago when we first noticed it was leaning.

There are a few lessons I can learn from this event. The first is procrastination rarely works out in our favor. But, more important, we can learn a great deal from how these men prepared for doing this job. To the south of the tree is the lake. To the north is my house. To the east sits an apple tree, a swing set, our boat lift, and my neighbor’s yard which is separated from my yard by a row of hedges. These tree removers have to take this tree down in sections and make sure nothing falls on any of those things I just mentioned. Before they started they took numerous safety precautions and then one of them started climbing the tree.

To do this job requires the use of a chainsaw. The climber must climb the tree with that chainsaw and then strap himself to the tree so he can cut limbs of the tree off as he climbs and make sure he doesn’t fall. Watching this gave me a serious case of acrophobia, fear of heights, and I was in my house looking out my window. I’m taking plenty of video so my grand children, who are all in school, can witness what went on. Next weekend when they all come to the lake house, we’ll replay the event so they too can appreciate the work these people do.

I’m writing this blog post because this process took amazing teamwork. Each person had a job that appeared to be separate from the other jobs but were actually quite dependent upon one another. The tree climber needed the person on the ground to move ropes and to hold those ropes in a specific way so that as limbs were cut, they would fall in a predesignated location. This person on the ground also cut the limbs up so that brush could go into the chipper and the larger pieces could be cut for firewood. There was a third person who operated a small tractor with a grabber attachment which was used to move the brush to the chipper and the larger pieces into piles that we can split at a later time. Each person depends on one another because the chipper needs to get the brush out of the way so that the person cutting the branches apart can get at the huge limbs. Those limbs have to be moved so the person in the tree can cut more of the tree down. And so it goes, piece by piece the tree comes down.

If any member of this team decided to do something different without consulting with the other team members, consequences could be dire. The person in the tree could get tangled in a drop line. The people on the ground could be hit by a falling limb. Huge chunks of tree could hit our house. Communication and cooperation are an absolute must. We can learn from every experience if we’ll just look for the connection and the process. It doesn’t matter what type of job you do, cooperation and communication help.

As I witnessed this event, I was struck by the Culture of the tree removal company. That culture was obvious and could be summed up in just 4 words: consideration, communication, conscientiousness, and commitment. The owner and his workers were considerate of each other and us, the customer. They told us what they were going to do and they did it. They communicated with each other frequently. When they finished with one phase of the work, they very carefully cleaned up and took care of our property. They went above and beyond our expectations. It was obvious by the way each worker did their job that they were committed to their company, to each other, and to achieving customer satisfaction. The owner of the company, George Wolfinger, made sure everyone was on the same page for every part of the operation. Nothing was left to chance.

My wife commented that George was really a nice guy. I agree but it’s more than being nice. George knows that if he is going to have a successful tree removal company, it’s not about how much money he can make removing a tree. It’s about how much value did you provide your customer. Customer’s will pay for valuable experiences and then praise the provider of that experience. If they don’t think they received a service that was of value, customers will let others know about it. George’s team was considerate, they communicated, they were conscientious, and fully committed to our satisfaction. In a place where many would not expect to find a Legacy Leader, I can confidently say, we found one.

Legacy Leadership, Legacy Cultures, and Corporate Profits

Jay Newman, PhD, Founding Partner, Culture By Choice

Whenever we start talking about leadership and culture there are those that say “but our company is only interested in the next quarterly P & L!” How do you argue with the money first mentality when the very existence of any company is directly related to the revenues they generate and the profits they make? And being focused on the next quarterly P & L is the essence of survival and success for every company. But, what if we can show you that there is a better way to increase the probability that your next quarterly P & L will be a favorable one? What if a different focal point is actually better for your financial bottom line?

Here’s what we know from the research being done all over the world. We have learned that opperating based on core values and principles gives a company a real purpose for doing business. And, having a purpose makes everything you do more appealing to those who will buy your goods and services. “What do we mean by purpose? Ernst & Young’s Beacon Institute defines purpose as ‘an aspirational reason for being that is grounded in humanity and inspires action’. According to this definition, companies that behave with purpose can create  more value for their shareholders and society in the long-term than by simply pursuing profits or narrow self-interest.” (Valerie Keller and Diane Verde Nieto, May 24, 2017, Companies are Finding that Being Principled Pays Off, World Economic Forum)

So does this really play out in the real world of business? Here’s a very specific example. The Canadian company, WhiteWater (an amusement park water slide and wave pool manufacturer and installer), believes that principles are everything and they hire and train peple based on their values and principles. WaterWater CEO, Geoff Chutter, puts his values to work on a daily basis and that has gotten him recognized as the 2019 Entrepreneur of the Year. He achieved this by converting his lone water-based theme park in British Columbia in to an international corporation that builds these water parks all over the world. Now a $200 million company, Chutter explains his success like this.

“It’s about getting the right people on the bus, sitting in the right seats, and valuing attitude over skill set. We’re taught to hire for skill set, but first and foremost you should hire for mindset. People that are positive, who have a ‘can-do’ attitude, a great work ethic. You can teach somebody skills, but you can’t teach mindset.”

It’s also important, he says, to be an approachable leader who values employees. “I’ve been accused of being too soft-hearted and loyal to employees, but the people side of things is so important. When you spend even a little bit of time understanding employees’ lives and what many of them have gone through to get where they are, you end up developing a deep sense of respect and loyalty to them.”

At Culture By Choice we have direct experience with Principled Leaders who have made their businesses extremely profitable. Yes they focus on the quarterly P & Ls but their daily efforts focus more on people, integrity, dedication, commitment, and quality of products and services. That is how they’ve become so profitable. One of these companies has grown from a $50 million a year revenue company to a nearly $500 million revenue company in 10 years. This phenomenal growth has been fueled by being more concerned about the quality of their culture than the financial bottom line. The quality of their culture is fueled by their values. Those values are adhered to. Those values impact every decision made, no matter how significant or insignificant that decision appears to be.

So You Have a few Obstacles

Jay Newman, PhD, Founding Partner, Culture By Choice

Life is never linear. There are road blocks, detours, steep hills, and hairpin turns with no guardrails. Become a leader and you add some serious potholes to the mix! It is what you do with these obstacles that can set you apart from the rest of the pack.

Some well meaning advisors will tell you to look at the obstacles as opportunities and you’re thinking, how am I supposed to do that? The only thing you can see is the opportunity to work on your obstacle overcoming skills! Well, that just might be the point. Sometimes, obstacles are just obstacles and you can let them stop your progress or you can figure out how to get around them, over them, under them, or through them. Legacy Leaders don’t give up easily. They have grit, which Angela Duckworth says is a unique combination of passion and perseverance.

One of the hallmark features of every Legacy Leader is GRIT. Using Duckworth’s definition, that combination of passion and perseverance, we begin to get a picture of amazing people who stick to their mission in the face of incredible odds, but this is not a blind pursuit of a goal at all costs. There must be a wise review of options, methods, pathways, available tools, and opportunities to revise, improvise, and create. And finally, there must be a willingness to admit failure and organize a retreat. Every Legacy Leader needs to know when it’s time to cut our losses and live to fight another day.

Perhaps the most difficult job the Legacy Leader has is to decide what battles to fight and which battles are not worth the effort. This is why values and principles are so important. Any one can figure out how to traverse the easy road. The hard job is figuring out how to traverse the pothole strewn, obstacle infested, narrow, winding, steep grade road that leads us to goals that really matter. When we are guided by what we really believe in and we stay true to those beliefs, our experiences gain real meaning and purpose. It’s not the life of freedom from, it’s the life of dedication to. Being a Legacy Leader is not the easy road. It’s not complicated but it’s never easy.

A Request

Dear readers,

I need your help. I would like to profile some Legacy Leaders that are actively building organizations with Legacy Cultures. If you know of someone who you think should be considered to be a Legacy Leader, please send me their contact information so I can arrange to interview them. I believe it will add a great deal to this Blog and it will help to grow the body of knowledge we have about Legacy Leadership. Please send the contact information to jaynewman@culturebychoice.com. Before sending their information to me, please check with the Leader to make sure they do not object. Thank you for your help.

Legacy Leadership and Organizational Strategy

Jay Newman, PhD, Founding Partner, Culture By Choice

If you’re given a choice between having a great culture or having a great strategy, your best choice should always be culture. We have a saying at Culture By Choice that “Culture eats strategy for lunch!” By saying this, we are not saying that strategy is unimportant. We are simply saying that if your culture is not supportive of both the strategy and the people who must deploy that strategy, those people will never engage at the level needed for that strategy to succeed at a level that you want it to.

Strategy is very important. Without a well developed strategy, any organization will flounder. Your job as a Legacy Leader, once you’ve started creating your Legacy Culture, is to engage your team in developing the best strategies you can to achieve your mission as an organization. One of the biggest mistakes that too many leaders make is to develop too many. Research has given great insight into what makes highly successful organizations different from their less successful counterparts. Organizations that focus on one or two strategies at a time are incredibly more successful than are organizations that try to focus on 10 or more, and they are consistently more successful than organizations that try to focus on 4 to 9 strategies. Because of this research, we help our clients develop what we call Big Target Strategies.

A Big Target Strategy is one that the organization believes will have the biggest impact on the organization. When creating these strategies, team members are looking for actions that have a rippling effect. When a small pebble is tossed in a pond, tiny ripples emanate from that pebble and quickly die out. When several pebbles are thrown into a pond simultaneously, the ripples from each of those pebbles move outwards and often clash with each other and create competing ripples. The result is an uncoordinated mess of little ripples that have no recognizable direction or pattern. But, when you throw one large rock into the pond, the ripples are noticeably significant and they emanate outward for a considerable distance effecting the surface for many yards.

When creating a Big Target Strategy, an organization looks for the one strategy that will effect as many aspects of the organization, in the desired way, as possible. As team members look for that One Thing, they try to figure out how big of an impact each considered strategy will have and then select the one that they believe will have the biggest impact. One of our clients recently got its entire team to agree on a single focus for an entire year. Every week, during their leadership team meeting, each leader reported on what they had done during the previous week to help the organization hit its Big Target Goal. Then each leader stated what they were going to do during the next week to move their team further towards the Big Target Goal. Each team supported the Strategy in a different way but the actions of each team never worked against the efforts of any other team. By regularly communicating about what was going to be done over the next week, every team knew what was going on with every other team. The coordinated efforts ended up being like the big ripples from that big rock tossed into the pond. At the end of the year, the impact was extraordinary. During a time when the future was questionable, this organization increased its revenue by more than 10% and the entire team was energized and more devoted to the organization than ever.

We have seen Big Target Strategies work for many organizations and when this process is implemented it supports the culture an organization wants. It keeps internal teams from working in opposition to one another. As every team focuses on that one thing, all efforts begin to coordinate towards that Big Target. As you can guess, there are many other activities that the organization must engage in to make sure that all of the business of the organization is taken care of. But, when teams engage in these activities in the context of a Big Target Strategy, teams have a vested interest in making sure that their execution of those other activities is not done in a way that detracts from the concerted efforts towards the Big Target Goal. We believe that the Big Target Strategy is one of the best ways to help an organization achieve a Legacy Culture. Therefore, we believe that being able to use a Big Target Strategy is a must for every Legacy Leader!