#Strategy: How to Cope with a Disorganized Boss…You Can Protect your #Career,& your Team, even IF your #Manager is Constantly Dropping Balls

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An ineffective boss might get fired. So might a bullying boss. A disorganized boss, however, can linger in an organization causing trouble for years. He can be perfectly nice, so no obvious alarm bells go off. The work gets done, but only because everyone reporting to him works around the clock before deadlines. “Having to deal with conflicting priorities can be extremely stressful,” says Richard Wellins, senior vice president of Development Dimensions International and coauthor of the new book Your First Leadership Job.

Messy Desk

Unfortunately, the modern workplace isn’t exactly helping managers on the organization front. Copious emails and changing conditions mean that “it’s much easier to become disorganized even if you’re not a disorganized person,” says Wellins. If you’re laboring under a disorganized boss, here’s how to make life better for yourself and your team.

OFFER TO HELP

Some disorganized bosses simply have too much on their plate, and haven’t yet mastered the skill of delegation. So ask to be delegated to. Wellins suggests saying, “I’d like to help you be successful. I see that as one of my roles. Are there things I can help you with, where I can add value to what you need to get done?”

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SCHEDULE REGULAR MEETINGS

In high-functioning situations, no one needs a meeting to report that she’s still doing her job. If you have a disorganized boss, though, “regular meetings can minimize chaos in the workplace,” says Wellins.

Michael Lee Stallard, a consultant, speaker, and author of the new book Connection Culture, suggests making these “W3” meetings: figuring out what, who, when. Take notes on these answers. “I’m a big believer in getting them in writing,” he says. “That brings clarity.”

ASK FOR EXACTLY WHAT YOU NEED

If your boss is a bottleneck to your team achieving its goals on time, then don’t wait for information or approval to come to you. Go in with a list of exactly what you need. Try not to leave without getting it.

EMBRACE THE DIGEST FORMAT

One reason bosses get disorganized is that they have five teams cc-ing them on every email. Propose sending one daily email with the highlights. Even better? Reach an agreement with your boss’s other direct reports to do the same.

BE AN EXAMPLE OF ORGANIZATION

If your boss’s disorganization stems from stress, then “trying to step in and be a supportive confidant, as much as your boss will let you, will really help,” says Stallard. Your boss is probably not trying to drop balls, so being the ball that never gets dropped will help you become a trusted colleague. People also tend to reflect those around them, so being extremely organized yourself can set the tone.

HAVE BACKUP PLANS

In the workplace, as in chess, the masters think a few moves ahead. Your boss has given you a deadline. What would you do if he moved it? If you need some vital piece of information and your boss doesn’t come through, how else will you get it? “Sometimes you can work around the boss in ways that will help the boss,” says Stallard. It isn’t fair, but you can keep performing even without the support you want. Finding other trusted mentors in your organization is a wise move in general. A broad network gives you options.

CONSIDER DIRECT FEEDBACK

We all have weak spots, and your disorganized boss might be trying to improve. If you sense that this is the case, you can bring up what specifically would help you. If the situation seems hopeless, though, you may eventually need to enlist help from higher up. Company leaders generally do want to know when there’s a problem somewhere down the line. “If team members don’t communicate, there goes the company,” says Jenny Ta, CEO of Sqeeqee, a social commerce platform. So “don’t be afraid to knock on my door. If you’re afraid to knock on my door, write it on a slip of paper and slip it under my door.” That’s preferable to whole teams walking out the door because they can’t stand the stress.

Fastcompany.com | May 6, 2015 | 

Laura Vanderkam is the author of several time management and productivity books, including I Know How She Does It: How Successful Women Make the Most of Their Time (Portfolio, June 9, 2015), What the …

#Strategy: The Best Way to Get the Truth Out of a Job Candidate…The Single Most Important Thing you Could Do as an Organization is #Hire the Right People.

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Last week hedge fund manager Jason H. Karp explained during the Milken Institute’s Global Conference that his company’s personality assessment helps reveal positive and negative attributes in job candidates. He went on to say that the personality traits he looks for the most in traders and analysts are openness to change and grit (or resilience).

Man in suit sitting in dark room illuminated only by light from a lamp and looking in camera

“I would argue that the single most important thing you could do as an organization is hire the right people,” Frederick Morgeson, an organizational psychology expert and professor of management at Michigan State University, tells Business Insider. And a key way to do that, he argues, is by investing time, energy, and money into properly conducting personality assessments.

Morgeson says what’s truly unique and commendable about Karp’s tactic is his clear understanding of what he needs for the job and the company. This is the crucial first step to conducting personality assessments the right way.

Why do personality assessments matter?

The point of personality assessments, Morgeson says, is to get an idea of what traits someone possesses and what types of behaviors they engage in so you can assess how well they match up to the traits you believe are really important for success in the job and in the organization.

Questions like, “To what extent do you like trying new or different things?” and, “Tell me about a time when you had to try something new,” for example, would indicate a job candidate’s level of openness to new experiences and change.

job interview

Morgeson points out that if a company hires someone who makes between $50,000 and $60,000 a year, over the course of a 20-year career, that’s at least a million-dollar investment in that person.

According to Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, a professor of business psychology at University College London and Columbia University and CEO of personality profiling company Hogan Assessment Systems, when tests are scientifically validated, they are better at predicting future performance than interviews, references, and résumés.

Here are the steps you need to take to get the most out of your own company’s personality assessments:

1. Understand your needs.

The first step to personality assessments is figuring out your company’s values, missions, and the needs for the job.

“If you don’t do the work as an organization to make sure that those traits that you’re trying to find in your candidates are in fact the right traits for your organization and for the jobs they’re doing, you’re going to have problems,” Morgeson says.

Businesses need to ask:

  1. What is is going to take to be successful in the job?
  2. What is it going to take to be successful in the organization?

Only once these ideal traits are clear can a business proceed to the next step of assessing candidates’ personalities and their fit.

 

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2. Pick an assessment.

There are thousands of different personality assessments available on the market today. One most people have heard of is the controversial Myers-Briggs Type Indicator test.

Karp said his company looks for openness to change, which is one of the “Big Five” personality traits, another common model for assessing potential new hires.

Collectively, these traits are often referred to with the acronym OCEAN, which stands for openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. Even though Karp said that neuroticism could lead to what he calls a “nuisance hire” — someone that has potential, but could be a drain on the company — he admitted that he himself exhibits this trait.

Often people will exhibit a mixture of some of these personality traits, Morgeson says, but there are usually a few that stand out to assessors more than others.

interview

3. Beware of common mistakes.

Where companies often trip up, Morgeson explains, is not assessing these personality traits the right way.

“One of the things that the field [fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][of organizational psychology] has struggled with is, we know these personality traits matter for how people perform, but how do we get at them, how do we measure them, how do we effectively assess them?”

Assessors could potentially ask the wrong kinds of questions to discern a personality trait.

“Even though they have an idea of what they want, they’re not engaging in a process that will really help them understand the candidates’ or the applicants’ standing on those characteristics,” he says.

Critics of personality assessments also claim it’s too easy to game these tests. John Rust, director of Cambridge University’s Psychometrics Centre, told the economist that because the expected answers to these assessments are often clear, companies wind up “selecting the people who know what the right answers are.”

Morgeson admits this is especially problematic when using these assessments for hiring, since job applicants are more motivated to lie and tell interviewers what they want to hear. But good personality assessors have ways to know when someone’s lying, he says:

  1. They build a lie/cheat scale into the assessment. One way to do this is to ask a candidate if they endorse something that doesn’t exist. If they answer in the affirmative, this raises the question, what else are they lying about?
  2. When a potential hire’s answers seem too good to be true, they follow up with them about it in some kind of interview process.
  3. They reach out to the candidate’s references and ask them to answer the same question about the job candidate and see if the responses line up.

“The whole point of the hiring process is you’re trying to learn the most you can about an applicant in as many different ways as possible,” Morgeson says.

Businessinsider.com | May 5, 2015 | RACHEL GILLETT

http://www.businessinsider.com/best-way-to-get-the-truth-out-of-potential-hires-2015-5#ixzz3ZIMTjJ5F[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]

#Leadership: 4 Ways To Drive Opportunities To Your Company With #Executive Branding…Understanding Executive #Branding is Like Unlocking the Secret to Getting Picked 1st in Middle School Dodgeball. It Centers on 2 Things: Being Good & Being Liked

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Understanding executive branding is like unlocking the secret to getting picked first in middle school dodgeball. It centers on two things: being good and being liked. Similarly, executive branding verifies your value in the field and creates familiarity that enhances trust between you and potential customers.

shutterstock_142999720

As Bryan Kramer puts it, people want a natural human-to-human connection with brands. Unfortunately, companies now have less time to form that bond. In fact, most B2B buyers don’t talk to a sales rep until they’re 57 percent of the way through their purchasing decision.

With executive branding, however, the audience feels connected to the individuals behind the company long before the first point of contact. You can spark conversations with prospects and influence their decisions before they’re ready to reach out to you.

Forging a Connection Through Executive Branding

Thought leadership has been a core part of Influence & Co.’s success; we’ve consistently shared this information in whitepapers like this one. From the start, we’ve positioned our leaders as subject-matter experts. And we’ve seen firsthand how executive branding can build the company brand, dissolve trust barriers, attract and nurture leads throughout the marketing funnel, and keep us top of mind when prospects and customers are ready to buy or provide a referral.

We recently had a large account sign up for our services because its leader read one of my articles, “Be A Leader In Your Industry: Help Others.” It was a simple yet transparent view of what I had done to help grow the company by helping people.

I received several emails from readers who have attracted more opportunities since adopting this mentality. But it also begs the question: Would people have related in the same way if the “help others” message had come from my company?

Looking at it from the other extreme, a company that blasts out a PR blitz to confess its wrongdoings won’t have the same effect. By openly discussing Target’s struggles, Jeff Jones has helped humanize the brand because the audience can sympathize with him in a way that doesn’t translate with brand-sponsored messaging. I use this example a lot because there just aren’t other brands that will take the leap like this, so there aren’t a lot of examples out there.

 

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Hone Your Executive Branding With These 4 Strategies

Executive branding doesn’t just draw you closer to your audience; it also positions your company as an authority in its industry. Some companies do this through product development, but when a company can monetize key employees’ expertise through content creation and speaking engagements, the brand-building effects are astounding.

Beth Comstock and Dave Kerpen are two illustrative examples of executive branding done right. Dave has combined consistent publishing, paid speaking engagements, and book writing to fuel both his Likeable Media brand and his growing startup, Likeable Local. Beth has also positioned herself as a prominent figure in the marketing world by offering valuable content online and makingmemorable speeches.

As a result, both have become revered industry leaders and have driven continuous opportunities back to their companies. There’s a huge size difference between Likable Media and General Electric, but the results are the same. Having leaders who authentically engage with your target audience makes a big difference.

You, too, can reap the benefits of a comprehensive executive branding strategy by promoting your key employees through these four strategies:

1. Create thought leadership content. Publishing guest-contributed content is the core initiative that nurtures every other executive branding opportunity. If you’re consistently building a web of content that keeps you top of mind, it will be a catalyst to more speaking, networking, and publishing opportunities.

2. Secure speaking engagements. Speaking is one of the best ways to authentically engage your audience. From the moment you walk into a conference or event, others perceive you as an authoritative figure. If you tailor your speech to the right audience and have the content to back it up, your audience will walk away with a renewed level of trust in you that will drive valuable opportunities your way.

3. Network. Every leader can verify the brand-building ripple effect of strategic networking. The more connected you stay within your industry, the more your brand will shine. The cornerstone of any effective networking strategy is treating people well, helping them achieve their goals, and connecting them with other valuable people.

4. Publish books. The notoriety that comes with authoring a book can feel tempting, but this strategy should be last on your executive branding list. Until you tackle thought leadership content, speaking engagements, and networking, don’t try to justify the time it takes to write a valuable book. However, when you’re ready, there are some unique opportunities that come from publishing a book.

The objective of any branding strategy boils down to establishing a human-to-human connection. People don’t want to have a conversation, eat dinner, or share secrets with a company; they

want to do those things with real people. Executive branding is the secret ingredient that will position you as a likeable industry figure and encourage prospects to always choose you first.

John Hall is the CEO of Influence & Co., a company that specializes in expertise extraction and knowledge management that are used to fuel marketing efforts.

Forbes.com | May 3, 2015 | John Hall

#Strategy: What I Learned About Life After Interviewing 80 Highly Successful People…I Don’t Think I Spoke to a Single Person who Believed in Setting Personal Goals. But 100% of the People I Spoke to Wanted to Solve a Problem for the Many

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“You interrupt too much,” people email me. “Let your guests finish talking.” But I can’t help it. I get curious. I want to know! Now!  Over the past year I interviewed about 80 guests for my podcast. My only criteria: I was fascinated by some aspect of each person.

Peter Thiel

Peter Thiel

I didn’t limit myself by saying “each one had to be an entrepreneur” or “had to be a success.”

I just wanted to talk to anyone who made me curious about their lives. I spoke to entrepreneurs, comedians, artists, producers, astronauts, writers, rappers, and even this country’s largest beer brewer.

Will I do it for the next year? Maybe. It’s hard.

Sometimes I would pursue a guest for six months with no reply and then they would call and say, “Can you do right now?” and I’d change all plans with kids, Claudia, business.

I had no favorites. They were all great. I interviewed Peter Thiel, Coolio, Mark Cuban, Arianna Huffington, Amanda Palmer, Tony Robbins, and many more. I’m really grateful they all wanted to talk to me.

Podcasting, to be honest, was just an excuse for me to call up whoever I wanted to call and ask them all sorts of personal questions about their lives. If I wanted to talk about “Star Wars,” I called the author of a dozen Star Wars novels.

If I wanted to talk about Twisted Sister, I called up the founder of the band. If I wanted to talk sex I called the women who ran the “Ask Women” podcast.

I wanted to know at what point were they at their worst. And how they got better. Each person created a unique life. I wanted to know how they did it. I was insanely curious.

As Coolio told me, “You got me to reveal some deep stuff I didn’t want to reveal. Kudos.” Tony Robbins had to literally shake himself at one point and say, “Wait, how did we end up talking about this?” I can’t help it. I want to know.

Here are the most important things I learned. I can’t specify which person I learned what from. It hurts my head when I think about it because many of the 80 said the exact same thing about how they ended up where they were.

Here is some of what they said:

A) A life is measured in decades.

Too many people want happiness, love, money, connections, everything yesterday. Me too. I call it “the disease.” I feel often I can paint over a certain emptiness inside if only…if only…I have X.

But a good life is like the flame of a bonfire. It builds slowly, and because it’s slow and warm it caresses the heart instead of destroys it.

 

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B) A life is measured by what you did TODAY, even this moment.

This is the opposite of “A” but the same. You get success in decades by having success now.

That doesn’t mean money now. It means, “Are you doing your best today?”

Everyone worked at physical health, improving their friendships and connections with others, being creative, being grateful. Every day.

For those who didn’t, they quickly got sick, depressed, anxious, fearful. They had to change their lives. When they made that change, universally they all said to me, “that’s when it all started.”

C) Focus is not important, but Push is (reinvention).

Very few people have just one career. And for every career, it’s never straight up.

When you have focus, it’s like saying, “I’m just going to learn about only one thing forever.” But “the push” is the ability to get up every day, open up the shades, and push through all the things that make you want to go back to sleep.

Even if it means changing careers 10 times. Or changing your life completely. Just pushing forward to create a little more life inside yourself.

Compound life is much more powerful than compound interest.

D) Give without thinking of what you will receive.

I don’t think I spoke to a single person who believed in setting personal goals. But 100% of the people I spoke to wanted to solve a problem for the many.

It doesn’t matter how you give each day. It doesn’t even matter how much. But everyone wanted to give and eventually they were given back.

E) Solving hard problems is more important than overcoming failure.

The outside world is a mirror of what you have on the inside. If Thomas Edison viewed his 999 attempts at creating a lightbulb a failure then he would’ve given up. His inside was curious. His inside viewed his “attempts” as experiments. Then he did #1000. Now we can see in the dark.

Dan Ariely was burned all over his body and used that experience to research the psychology of pain and ultimately the psychology of behavior and how we can make better decisions.

Tony Robbins lost everything when his marriage ended, but he came back by coaching thousands of people.

It’s how you view the life inside you that creates the life outside of you. Every day.

tony robbinsCourtesy of Tony RobbinsTony Robbins.

F) Art and success and love is about connecting all the dots.

Here are some dots: The very personal sadness sitting inside of you. The things you learn. The things you read about. The things you love. Connect the dots. Give it to someone.

Now you just gave birth to a legacy that will continue beyond you.

G) It’s not business, it’s personal.

Nobody succeeded with a great idea.

Everyone succeeded because they built networks within networks of connections, friends, colleagues all striving towards their own personal goals, all trusting each other, and working together to help each other succeed.

This is what happens only over time. This is why giving creates a bigger world because you can never predict what will happen years later.

Biz Markie described to me how he helped a 7-year-old kid named Jay-Z with his lyrics.

Peter Thiel’s ex employees created tens of billions of dollars worth of companies.

Marcus Lemonis saves businesses every week on his show “The Profit.” It doesn’t come by fixing their accounting. It comes from fixing the relationships with the partners and the customers and the investors.

The best way to create a great business over time: Every day send one thank you letter to someone from your past. People (me) often say you can’t look back at the past. But this is the one way you can. You create the future by thanking the past.

H) You can’t predict the outcome, you can only do your best.

Hugh Howey thought he would write novels that only his family would read. So he wrote ten of them. Then he wrote “Wool,” which he self-published and has sold millions of copies and Ridley Scott is making the movie.

Clayton Anderson applied to be an astronaut for 15 years in a row and was rejected each time until the 16th.

cookin with cooliowww.amazon.comCoolio.

Coolio wrote lyrics down every day for 17 years before having a hit. Noah Kagan was fired from Facebook and Mint without making a dime before starting his own business. Wayne Dyer quit his secure job as a tenured professor, put a bunch of his books in car and drove across the country selling them in every bookstore. Now he’s sold over 100,000,000 books.

Sometimes when I have conversations with these people they want to jump right to the successful parts but I stop them. I want to know the low points. The points where they had to start doing their best. What got them to that point.

I) The same philosophy of life should work for an emperor and a slave.

Ryan Holiday told me that both Marcus Aurelius, an emperor, and Epictetus, a slave, both subscribed to the idea of stoicism. You can’t predict pleasure or pain. You can only strive for knowledge and giving and fairness and health each day.

Many people write me it’s easy for so-and-so to say that now that he’s rich. Every single person I spoke to started off in a gutter or worse. (Well, most of them.)

Luck is certainly a component, but in chess there’s a saying (and this applies to anything) “it’s funny how always the best players seem to be lucky.”

J) The only correct path is the path correct for you.

Scott Adams tried about 20 different careers before he settled on drawing Dilbert. Now, he’s in 2000 papers, has written Dilbert books, Dilbert shows, Dilbert everything. Everyone was shocked when Judy Joo gave up a Wall St. career to go back to cooking school. Now she’s on the Food Channel as an “iron chef.”

Don’t let other people choose your careers. Don’t get locked in other people’s prisons they’ve set up just for you. Personal freedom starts from the inside but ultimately turns you into a giant, freeing you from the chains the little people spent years tying around you.

K) Many moments of small, positive, personal interactions build an extraordinary career.

Often people think that you have to fight your way to the top. But for everyone I spoke to it was small kindnesses over a long period of time that built the ladder to success. I think I’m starting to sound like a cliche on this. But it’s only a cliche because it’s true.

L) Taking care of yourself comes first.

Kamal Ravikant picked himself off a suicidal bottom by constantly repeating “I love you” to himself. Charlie Hoehn cured his anxiety by using every moment he could to play.

I’ve written before: The average kid laughs 300 times a day. The average adult…5.

Something knifed our ability to smile. Do everything you can to laugh, to create laughter for others, and then what can possibly be bad about today? I think that’s why I try to interview so many comedians are comedy writers. They make me laugh. It’s totally selfish.

M) The final answer: People do end up loving what they succeed at, or they succeed at what they love.

mark cuban shark tank ABC/Michael DesmondMark Cuban.

Mark Cuban said, “My passion was to get rich!” But I don’t really believe him. He loved computers so he created a software company. Then he wanted to watch Ohio basketball in Pittsburgh so he created Broadcast.com. I worked with Broadcast.com a little bit back in 1997. They were crusaders about bringing video to the Internet.

Sure, he wanted to use that to get rich. Because he knew better than anyone then how to let a good idea lead him to success.

But deep down he was a little kid who wanted to watch his favorite basketball. And now what does he do? He owns a basketball team.

N) Anybody, at any age

The ages of the people I spoke to ranged from 20 to 75. Each is still participating every day in the worldwide conversation. I asked Dick Yuengling from Yuengling beer why he even bothered to talk to me. He’s 75 and runs the biggest American-owned brewery worth about $2 billion. He laughed and said, “Well, you asked me.”

I just realized this list can go on for another 100 items.

The specifics of success. How to overcome hardships. How any one person can move society forward.

Down to even what are the most productive hours of the day, what’s the one word most important for success, and what we can look forward to over the next century and maybe 100 other things.

Then I learned many things about myself.

Most of the people I asked to come on my podcast said, “NO!” I told Claudia the other day I haven’t been rejected this much since freshman year of high school. I had to re-learn how to deal with so much rejection.

I’ve always been a big reader but never as much as this year. I read everything by all the guests.

Some weeks I felt like I was spending 10 hours a day preparing for podcasts. I learned to interview, to listen, to prepare, to pursue, to entertain, to educate.

Podcasting seems like it’s becoming an industry, or a business idea, or something worth looking at by entrepreneurs or investors. I have no clue about that.

For me, podcasting this year was just about calling anyone I wanted to call and talking to them. I felt like a little boy interviewing his heroes.

I highly recommend finding ways to call people for almost no reason. I learned a huge amount.

But it was hard.

It’s one of those things where I can say, “I don’t know if I can ever do that again.” But I also know I’m probably going to say the same thing next year.

This article originally appeared at The Altucher Confidential. Copyright 2014.

 

Businessinsider.com | December 29, 2014 |  James Altucher

http://www.businessinsider.com/life-lessons-from-highly-successful-people-2014-12#ixzz3ZCbN8PyZ

#Strategy: 14 Lies we Tell Ourselves that Keep Us from Success…The Mind is a Wonderful Thing. It’s also a Complete Liar that Constantly Tries to Convince us Not to Take Actions we Know are Good for Us, & Stops Many Great Changes in our Lives

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The mind is a wonderful thing. It’s also a complete liar that constantly tries to convince us not to take actions we know are good for us, and stops many great changes in our lives. Scumbag mind.

Change

I’ve had to learn to watch these rationalizations and excuses very carefully, in order to make the changes I’ve made in my life: a healthier diet, regular exercise, meditation, minimalism, writing daily, getting out of debt, quitting smoking, and so on.  If I hadn’t learned these excuses, and how to counter them, I would never have stuck to these changes. In fact, I failed many times before 2005 (when I started changing my life), because these excuses had complete power over me.

Let’s expose the cowardly mind’s excuses and rationalizations once and for all.

First, the main principle: the mind wants comfort, and is afraid of discomfort and change. The mind is used to its comfort cocoon, and anytime we try to push beyond that comfort zone very far or for very long, the mind tries desperately to get back into the cocoon. At any cost, including our long-term health and happiness.

OK, with that in mind, let’s go into the excuses:

1. I can’t do it

It seems too hard, so we think we can’t stick to the change. We don’t believe in ourselves. This can be countered from the fact that many other people no more capable than us have done it.

For example, Oprah ran a marathon a little before I started training for my first marathon, and so I told myself, “If Oprah can do it, so can I!” I was right.

 

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2. He/she can do it, but that doesn’t apply to me

Just because someone else can do it, doesn’t mean we can, right? We look for reasons they can do it but we can’t — maybe he can be a minimalist because he has no kids, or is a freelancer rather than someone with a real job.

Maybe she’s way, way fitter than I am, so she can run a marathon. Maybe she doesn’t have all the obligations I have, or has a supportive spouse, or doesn’t have a crippling health condition. OK, fine, it’s easy to find excuses: but look at all the other people who have worse obstacles than you who’ve done it.

I have 6 kids and still managed to change a lot of things in my life. Stories abound of people with disabilities or illnesses who overcame their obstacles to achieve amazing things. Your obstacles can be overcome.

3. I need my ___

Fill in the blank: I need my coffee, my cheese, my soda, my TV shows, my car, my shoe collection … these are things we convince ourselves we can’t live without, so we can’t make a change like becoming vegan or eating healthier or unschooling our kids or simplifying our lives or going car-free.

And I’ve made these excuses myself, but they all turned out to be lies. I didn’t need any of that. The only things you really need are basic food, water, clothing, shelter, and other people for social needs. Everything else is not a real need.

4. Life is meant to be enjoyed

Sure, I agree with this statement (as many of us would) but the problem is this is used to justify all kinds of crappy behavior. Might as well scarf down those Doritos and Twinkies, because hey, life is meant to be enjoyed, right? No.

You can do without junk food and still enjoy life. You can exercise and enjoy it. You can give up pretty much anything and still enjoy life, if you learn to see almost any activity as enjoyable.smartphone sleepBGR

5. I need comfort

This might also be true, but we can push ourselves into more discomfort than we let ourselves believe. We can be a bit cold, instead of needing to be at the perfect comfortable temperature. We can do hard exercise, instead of needing to lay around on the couch.

We can write that thing we’ve been procrastinating on — it might be hard, but we can push through that. When our minds seek comfort, don’t let them run — push a little bit outside the comfort zone, and begin to be OK with a bit of discomfort.

6. I don’t know how

This is also true, but you can learn. Start with a little at a time, and learn how to deal with this new change. Do some research online. Watch some videos. Ask people online how they dealt with it. This is easily overcome with a little effort and practice. In fact, if you do it now, and learn a little at a time, then you’ll be able to do away with this pesky excuse.

7. I can do it later

Sure, you can always do it later … but your later self will also feel the same way. Why should the later self be more disciplined than your current self? In fact, because you’re allowing yourself to slide now, you’re building a habit of procrastination and actually making is less likely that your future self will be more disciplined.

Instead, do it now, unless there’s something more important that you need to do … don’t let yourself slide just because you don’t feel like it.

8. One time won’t hurt

This is so tempting, because it’s kind of true — one time won’t hurt. Assuming, that is, that it’s only one time. One bite of chocolate cake, one missed workout, one time procrastinating instead of writing. Unfortunately, it’s never actually just one time. One time means your brain now knows it can get away with this excuse, and the next “one time” leads to another, until you’re not actually sticking to something.

Make a rule: never ever believe the “one time” excuse. I did this with smoking (“Not One Puff Ever”) and it worked. If you’re going to allow yourself a bite or two of chocolate cake, decide beforehand and build it into your plan (“I will allow myself a fist-sized serving of sweets once every weekend”) and stick to that plan, rather than deciding on the fly, when your resistance is weak.lying down gymFlickr / istolethetv

9. I don’t feel like it

Well, true. You don’t feel like working hard. Who does? Letting the rule of “I’ll do it when feel like it” dictate your life means you’ll never write that book, never build that business, never create anything great, never have healthy habits. Create a plan that’s doable, and execute it.

When the rationalizations like this come up, don’t believe them. Everyone is capable of doing a hard workout even when they’re not in the mood. Everyone can overcome their internal resistance.

10. I’m tired

Yep, me too. I still did my heavy squat workout today. There is truth to needing rest, and resting when you need it (listen to your body), but this is usually the mind trying to weasel out of something uncomfortable. There’s a difference between being exhausted and needing some rest, and being the little tired we all feel every afternoon. Push through the latter.

11. I deserve a reward/break

We all deserve that tasty treat, or a day off. I’m not saying you shouldn’t give yourself a reward or break. But if you make this rationalization your rule, you’ll always be on a break. You’ll always be giving yourself rewards, and never sticking to the original plan.

Here’s what I do instead: I see sticking to my plan as the reward itself. Going on a run isn’t the thing I have to get through to get a reward — the run is the reward.

12. Wouldn’t it be nice to stop?

This again is our mind wanting to run from discomfort, and of course it’s true — it would be nice to stop if you’re pushing into a discomfort zone for too long. The thing is, the implication is that it would be better to stop, because it would be nice … but that’s a lie.

It would be easier to stop, but often it’s better to continue pushing. This excuse almost beat me when I tried to run my 50-mile ultramarathon last December, because honestly it would have been much nicer to stop and not finish the race, especially in the last 10 miles or so. I pushed through, and found out I was tougher than I thought.Marathon RuningReuters

13. The result you’re going for isn’t important

If you’re trying to run a marathon, this is phrased like, “It’s not that important that I finish this”. I’ve used this excuse for learning languages (it doesn’t matter if I learn this) or programming or any number of things I wanted to learn. I’ve used it for writing and exercise and eating healthy food. And while the result might not be that important, the truth is that the process is very important.

If you stick with a process that will be better for you in the long run, then you will be better off. But if you let yourself go just because you are uncomfortable and at this moment care more for your comfort than the goal you set out for, you’ll have lots of problems. The goal isn’t important, but learning to stick to things when you’re uncomfortable is extremely important.

14. I’m afraid

Now, this is the most honest excuse there is — most of us don’t want to admit we’re afraid to pursue something difficult. But it’s also a weaselly way out of discomfort — just because you’re afraid doesn’t mean you can’t do something. You can.

I’ve done tons of things I’m afraid of — mostly creating things that I was worried I’d fail at. And while the fear sometimes came true — I didn’t do too well sometimes — the act of pushing through the fear was incredibly important and I learned a lot each time.

I’ve used all of these excuses hundreds of times each, so don’t think I’ve overcome them all. And you can use them in the future too. There’s nothing wrong with giving in sometimes.

The key is to learn whether they’re true, and see your pattern. Here’s what I’ve done:

  1. Notice the excuse. It has way more power if it works on you in the background.
  2. Try to have an answer for the excuse beforehand — anticipate it.
  3. If you give in, that’s OK, but recognize that you’re giving in to a lame excuse. Be aware of what you’re doing.
  4. After giving in, see what the results are. Are you happier? Is your life better? Was it worth it giving in to discomfort?
  5. Learn from those results. If you pushed through and are happy about it, remember that. If you gave in to excuses, and didn’t like the result, remember that.

If you consciously practice this process, you’ll get better at recognizing and not believing these lies. And then, bam, you’ve got your mind working for you instead of against you.

This article originally appeared at Zen Habits. Copyright 2015. Follow Zen Habits on Twitter.

Businessinsider.com | May 2, 2015 | LEO BABAUTA, ZEN HABITS

http://zenhabits.net/bs/#ixzz3ZBi2Cv4w

#Leadership: How the Wrong People Get Promoted & How to Change It…Research Revels that Companies Consistently Choose the Wrong People for #Management Roles. Here’s what you Can Do to Avoid the Same Mistake

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Have you ever quit a job just to get away from a bad boss? If you have, it turns out you’re in sizable company. According to a April 2015 Gallup study, one in two U.S. workers have at some point in their career felt compelled to make that same difficult choice.

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Have you ever seen the movie Office Space? Don't be that guy.

Have you ever seen the movie Office Space? Don’t be that guy.

That the business world may be filled with managers who unwittingly drive their people away is at the heart of Gallup’s 50-plus page report “State Of The American Manager: Analytics And Advice For Leaders”. What the research reveals is that organizations consistently choose the wrong people for management roles, and pay dearly for it through poor engagement and costly turnover—and the inevitable decline in overall performance.

But Gallup also discovered what distinguishes the very best managers—new and truly groundbreaking insight into the talents, motivations, and practices of bosses who make workers want to stay.

Here are five of the most significant findings of the report:

1. THE MAJORITY OF MANAGERS ARE WRONG FOR THEIR ROLES

Perhaps the most important—and disruptive—conclusion from the study is that too many companies have a flawed methodology for selecting people into management.

How? They base hiring and promotion decisions on an employee’s past experience, and then reward them by giving them an entirely different role. According to the research, at least 80% of the time this methodology backfires.

“It is the rite of passage in most organizations that if you are very good at your job—whether it be in sales, or accounting, or any number of specialties—and stay around a long time, the next step in your progression is to be promoted to manager,” says Jim Harter, Gallup’s chief scientist. “But the talents that make a person successful in a previous, non-management role are almost never the same ones that will make them excel as a manager.”

The Gallup study states pay structures at most companies reinforce this career progression, and must be redesigned to ensure employees are given more than one path to earning higher compensation and prestige. According to the report, organizations back themselves into a corner when they tie pay to managerial status creating an environment in which employees compete for roles to which they’re not a fit.

 

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2. GREAT MANAGERS POSSESS A RARE COMBINATION OF FIVE TALENTS

Gallup studied individual managers at numerous organizations, and discovered those managers who most consistently drove high engagement, loyalty, productivity, profit, and service levels all shared five uncommon talents:

  • They motivate their employees.
  • They assert themselves to overcome obstacles.
  • They create a culture of accountability.
  • They build trusting relationships.
  • They make informed, unbiased decisions for the good of their team and organization.

Gallup confirmed this combination of innate talent is so rare that it exists in about only one out of 10 people. They also believe another two out of 10 people have some of these five talents, and can become great managers with the right coaching and development.

Ironically, Harter is convinced that the most highly talented manager prospects are hiding in plain sight within organizations, and the use of some predictive analytics tool can help them make more informed hiring decisions. The rewards for doing so are impressive. Companies already employing these disciplines have realized a 48% increase in profitability, a 22% increase in productivity, and 30% jump in engagement scores, the Gallup report notes.

3. MANAGERS HAVE THE GREATEST IMPACT ON ENGAGEMENT

Hiring the right people for manager roles represents the single greatest opportunity facing organizations today simply because of the upside it signifies. According to the study, managers account for 70% of the variance in employee engagement scores. When a company raises employee engagement levels consistently across every business unit, everything that matters to an organization’s long-term viability gets better.

Gallup has studied engagement since the 1990s, and has repeatedly found that companies with happy and committed employees outperform all others in terms of business outcomes including absenteeism, turnover, innovation, and productivity. Getting the decision right in who you name manager and how you develop them is the most important decision any organizational leader can make, the report stresses. The best strategies in the world will likely fail in execution without the highly talented managers in place.

4. FEMALE MANAGERS ARE MUCH MORE EFFECTIVE AT DRIVING ENGAGEMENT

Another stunning finding is that employees of female managers on average are at least 6 percentage points more engaged than those who work for a male manager. In fact, out of the 12 different questions Gallup uses to diagnose a person’s engagement, employees of female managers outscore male managers on 11 of those items.

Only one out of three workers has a female boss today, yet women leaders eclipse their male counterparts in many of the ways known to inspire high levels of commitment, initiative, and loyalty in 21st-century workers. They more consistently cultivate the potential in their people by creating challenging assignments. They praise and value people for their efforts and contributions. They take steps to foster a positive and cooperative work environment.

In their 2013 book, The Athena Doctrine: How Women And The Men Who Think Like Them Will Rule The Future, authors Michael D’Antonio and John Gerzema note the skills required to thrive in today’s world—such as honesty, empathy, communication, appreciation, and collaboration—are widely regarded as being on the feminine side of human nature.

Gallup’s data suggests many of these same qualities have a significant and meaningful impact on driving engagement.

5. HIGH TALENT MANAGERS FOCUS ON STRENGTHS, NOT WEAKNESSES

Accentuating the positive behaviors and traits in people proves to be a wildly more successful approach to driving engagement than a well-intended focus on mitigating weakness, Gallup says.

In a study of more than 1,000 random U.S. workers, nearly two-thirds, or 61%, of employees who felt they had a manager who honored and intentionally amplified their positive characteristics were engaged –- twice the national average.

Overall, Gallup has discovered that the managers—male or female—who routinely motivate the greatest employee engagement have an instinct for investing emotionally in their people. Workers describe them as being more human and relatable—someone who cares about them personally and with whom they can discuss non-work related issues.

These same high-talent managers also make communication a priority. They hold regular meetings and interact with each employee in some way every single day. Simply put, they make their people feel valued and connected which has the direct effect of sending engagement soaring.

THE REWARDS OF A CARING MANAGER

With 70% of the working population admittedly disengaged in their jobs today, we’ve reached a crisis that’s not just harming organizational performance; it’s profoundly undermining human potential.

But we now realize there is a cure. If we accept the idea that every person working today deserves to have a supportive, caring, and effective manager—and we make that happen—the rewards will be simply inestimable.

 

Fastcompany.com | May 2015 | Mark C. Crowley 

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Your #Career: 7 Steps To Obtain A Promotion….Obtaining a Promotion Isn’t always Easy, But if you’re Willing to Do some Analysis, Conduct some Research & Create a Career Development Plan, Then you’ll make Getting that Much-Coveted Promotion a Lot Easier

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Reader’s Question: How can I position myself now, for a promotion in 18 to 24 months?  Lisa’s Answer: First of all, congratulations on thinking ahead and allowing yourself enough time to create a game plan to get you from where you are today, to where you’d like to be in the future!

0628_moving-up_416x416

Obtaining a promotion isn’t always easy, but if you’re willing to do some analysis, conduct some research and create a career development plan – then you’ll make getting that much-coveted promotion a lot easier. Here are the seven steps you’ll need to go through:

Step 1: Analyze your current performance. Doing so-so work won’t get you promoted. You’ll need to do outstanding work that will get you noticed by management. First, take a look at the results you’re achieving in your current job and make sure you’re meeting or exceeding all of your manager’s performance expectations. Then, look for ways you can go above and beyond the daily requirements to demonstrate how you add value to the organization.

 

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Step 2: Seek to understand your manager’s goals. Find out what keeps your boss up at night. In other words, seek to understand your manager’s key objectives and priorities. Then, determine ways you can help him or her achieve these department goals.

Step 3: Conduct research. Find the job description of the job you want (your promotion). If the job isn’t currently posted, you can ask your HR representative for the existing job description or even look online to find job postings of that job or similar jobs at other companies.

Step 4: Evaluate the job requirements. Look through the job description and postings at the job requirements that are listed (for the promotion you want). Conduct a gap analysis by going through each requirement and comparing it to your own skills, knowledge, experience, education and certifications. Figure out all the gaps – the areas where you don’t meet the minimum requirements – and write them down.

Step 5: Create your career development plan. For every gap you identified, determine your plan of action on how you’ll overcome it. For example, if you don’t meet the minimum education requirement, could you go back to school in the evenings to finish your college degree? If you don’t have enough years of people management experience, could you volunteer to lead project teams to gain more experience and prove your leadership skills?

Step 6: Obtain feedback. Seek out others who are successful in the job you want and ask them to a coffee chat. Let the person know you’re interested in a similar job in the future and would like their feedback. Walk them through where you are today, the job you want, your gap analysis and your career development plan. Then obtain their advice. Does your plan include everything they think you’ll need to be successful in a job like theirs? Are there any other attributes they feel were necessary for them to be successful in their job?

Step 7: Meet with your boss. After you’ve completed the previous steps, schedule time to meet with your manager to discuss your career aspirations. Share your career development plan and ask for feedback on any other actions you can take to better position yourself for that future promotion. Ask for his or her support in your quest to continue learning and developing in your career.

As you work through these seven steps and then implement your career development plan, read my blog on the 20 Things That Could Be Ruining Your Promotion Opportunities – and be sure you aren’t exhibiting any of these behaviors.

Lisa Quast, author of the book, Secrets of a Hiring Manager Turned Career Coach: A Foolproof Guide to Getting the Job You Want. Every Time. Join me on Twitter @careerwomaninc

Forbes.com | May 4, 2015 | Lisa Quast

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#Leadership: How To Build A Mentally Strong Dream #Team…A Mentally Strong Team Starts with a Mentally Strong #Leader. Role Model, Healthy Habits, & Refuse to Participate in the Things that Could Sabotage the Team’s Best Efforts.

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Mentally strong team TISI +0.23% members cooperate, build on one another’s strengths, and openly learn from their mistakes. When you teach individuals how to be mentally strong – and how to work together to form a strong team – they can accomplish incredible feats.  Yet, most teams struggle to reach their greatest potential because issues of resentment, fear, and entitlement lurk beneath the pleasant conversation. When left unaddressed, these issues can lead to hidden agendas, communication breakdowns, and reduced productivity.

How to Build a Mentally Strong Team

Fotolia.com

A mentally strong leader who is knowledgeable about group dynamics can influence the way team members work. Here are three ways to build a mentally strong dream team:

1. Create a Culture of Strength

 Teams create their own subculture, which may be very different from the rest of the organization’s culture. Team members who remain silent about upcoming policy changes in large company meetings may express their fears during smaller team meetings. Or employees who outwardly congratulate another team’s success, may express resentment toward those team members when behind closed doors.

 A team’s subculture will either help or hinder their performance. Members will either engage in tasks that help the team become better, or they’ll get caught up in counterproductive habits that will prevent them from moving forward.
Mental strength is about learning to think realistically, manage emotions effectively, and behave productively despite the circumstances. Building a culture of strength means establishing social norms that will help people perform at their best, while also helping them avoid bad habits that could hold them back.
2. Facilitate Productive Behavior

Emotions and irrational thinking can be contagious. Whether you’ve got an employee who thinks the company is going bankrupt, or you’re dealing with a team member who insists on being a people-pleaser, these issues can create a toxic environment if left unaddressed.

Encourage team members to confront issues and provide feedback respectfully. Show employees that conflict can be healthy – as long as everyone is uses direct communication and works together to address issues as they arise. You won’t get maximum results from all your members unless everyone feels safe and respected when they share their opinions.

Turn negative thinking and distraught emotions into productive behavior. If employees want to turn a weekly meeting into a pity party, turn their concerns into active problem-solving. Or, if the team tries to blame their problems on the company’s new policy, help them focus on things that are within their control.

If you allow the team to engage in bad habits, it’ll undermine their strength. Be vigilant in facilitating productive behavior that will advance the team’s efforts.

 

3. Train Employees on Mental Strength

Skill will only take your team so far. A productive team also needs to be able to work together successfully. If certain individuals – or the team as a whole – lacks mental strength, they’ll struggle with certain tasks no matter how much talent they possess.

Teach employees how to become mentally strong on an individual and team level. Show them how seemingly minor bad habits – like spending just five minutes complaining during each meeting – adds up over time. Don’t be afraid to talk about issues like mental health, personal development and resilience in the workplace.

 

Assess team dynamics from time to time. Proactively address problems as they arise and be willing to confront members who are undermining the team’s strength.  A mentally strong team starts with a mentally strong leader. Role model healthy habits and refuse to participate in the things that could sabotage the team’s best efforts.

Amy Morin is a psychotherapist and the author of 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do, a bestselling book that is being translated into more than 20 languages.

 

Forbes.com | May 3, 2015 | Amy Morin

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#Leadership: Do You Have A Zombie Boss?…What are the haracteristics of a Zombie boss? Let’s Put some Flesh on these Managerial Bones. Recent Survey Indicating that 51% of Managers have “Checked Out” & Care Little about their Jobs.

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I’ve been reading some pretty scary studies about managementlately.  Studies showing that nationally around 70% of employees are disengaged, with resulting lost annual productivity of more than $450 billion.  Studies showing a frightening amount of disinterest – even in the managerial ranks – with one recent survey indicating that 51% of managers have “checked out” and care little about their jobs.  Against this backdrop of widespread apathy, one begins to wonder about the overall vitality of management.  I just feel I have to ask the question: Might you have a Zombie boss?

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Some bosses inspire to be your best self, both professionally and in your everyday life. Others make every day seem tense, dreary and frustrating. Learning how to deal with a bad boss is an important step to career happiness. (image credit: William (Tactum Macula) Walsh on Flickr)

(image credit: William (Tactum Macula) Walsh on Flickr)

What are the characteristics of a Zombie boss?  Let’s put some flesh on these managerial bones.

No verbal communication – Speaking with employees, communicating, understanding what employees want and need… none of these are high on their list of priorities.  Their natural state is silence.  You often wonder what thoughts, if any, are coursing through their brains.

Robotic in their responses – To the extent there’s any actual two-way communication, it feels robotic, mechanical, almost lifeless.  New ideas are routinely snuffed out with a barely audible, “This is the way we’ve always done it here…”

Control by fear and menace – Minimal leadership is demonstrated, and equally little organizing or planning. To the extent they have interest in any of the classic managerial functions, it’s control – and control accomplished by a sense of fear and menace. Their employees aren’t motivated by enthusiasm for the job or company but by an acute sense of dread when projects go awry. It’s management by fear, a practice sometimes effective in the short term but not sustainable for the long term.

Impossible to do away with – And speaking of the long term… Zombie managers are distinguished by their longevity. Even if their age is hard to judge, they’ve been with the company seemingly forever. They’re impossible to do away with. Undeterred by previous disasters, they remain in the role. Employees hopeful for a change in management don’t know how they do it. You’d think they’d have been long gone long ago, but somehow they survive. Against all odds, they keep coming back.

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#Leadership: Biggest Doesn’t Mean Best: How Leading Companies Get To The Top…Recent Bain & Company Analysis of 320 Companies Across 45 Markets Worldwide Demonstrates that Scale Alone is often Not Enough to Confer Real Economic Leadership

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Bigger is not always better when it comes to succeeding in business. Who, for example, makes the most money producing tires? It’s not Bridgestone, the industry’s global scale leader. Germany’s Continental AG takes home three times more profit than Bridgestone and is far and away the tire industry’s economic leader. How? What the smaller company lacks in scale it makes up for with lower manufacturing costs and a more lucrative customer mix.

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"The Art of War" contains more than military strategy. It's also a guide for getting ahead at work.

“The Art of War” contains more than Military Strategy. Remember, Sun-Tzu. defeated Armies 5 times the Size of his.

A lot of corporate strategy revolves around building scale, and for good reason. The largest companies enjoy huge advantages: They can spread costs over the widest base, wield the most market influence and benefit from the most accumulated experience.

But a recent Bain & Company analysis of 320 companies across 45 markets worldwide demonstrates that scale alone is often not enough to confer real economic leadership. In fact, 36% of the scale leaders in our study didn’t even manage to generate a positive return on capital. And 40% of the economic leaders, like Continental, weren’t the largest companies in their industries.

Related: The Journey North

None of this argues that scale isn’t a powerful competitive advantage: the scale leader in our study was also the economic leader in its industry 60% of the time. But companies like Continental demonstrate that the classic strategic imperative for challengers—build scale or get out—is only one of several options. Our study also suggests that most scale leaders need to step up to the next level of performance if they want to keep challengers from eating into their profits.

The best performing companies in our study share four critical attributes: Valuable assets, superior capabilities, the most attractive customers and the benefits of scope. They achieve economic leadership by linking these elements together to develop an ambitious strategy that explicitly targets higher performance. That’s how Continental outperforms scale leader Bridgestone by such a wide margin. Its manufacturing plants in low-cost countries deliver operating margins that its competitors can’t match. It has developed a world-class set of capabilities for running those plants, standardized across all its facilities. Through strong relationships with the leading German auto manufacturers, it has adapted its product mix for the most lucrative customers. And by expanding its scope selectively to provide other automotive systems and components, Continental can bundle products and create distinctive partnerships with its manufacturing customers.
Among the patterns that emerged from our study, the most powerful challengers tend to take advantage of three broad strategies:

  • The hitchhike strategy — Although large incumbents have scale advantages, they are also married to the rules they set. Challengers can hitch onto an existing market and win by using differentiated capabilities. In smart phones, for instance, Samsung hitchhiked on Apple’s iPhone strategy and pricing. But it used strong network relationships and go-to-market capabilities to carve out a place as the industry’s scale leader and low-cost producer.
  • The hijack strategy — Hitchhiking may be the easiest strategy if the scale leader lets you get away with it. But aggressive challengers can also hijack the industry profit pool by winning over the best customers. BMW, for instance, pulled off this strategy in the global automotive market by developing a premium brand and gradually extending it into every corner of the car business, from city cars to SUVs and super cars.
  • Disruption — The ultimate judo move is to change the rules of the game entirely, as Amazon did when it wreaked havoc on big-box retailers with its ubiquitous Internet retailing engine. Southwest showed how to make money in air travel with its low-cost, no-frills service strategy. Digitalization continues to open opportunities for disruption in almost every industry. Witness Netflix: First it disrupted the Blockbuster brick-and-mortar model. Then it disrupted that disruption when it moved from mailing DVDs to streaming.

All of these strategies have one thing in common: They take direct aim at the weakness that so often accompanies scale. The paradox of leadership is that the largest companies often fail to take full advantage of leadership economics. The top performers in our research returned an average of nearly two times their weighed average cost of capital. But among the scale leaders in each market, only 26% hit or surpassed that target and, as we noted, a full 36% of the scale leaders didn’t even manage to generate a positive return on capital.2

 

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Very often, an industry leader has achieved its scale position by virtue of superior assets and capabilities. But then the company settles in to defend its position and becomes complacent. The strongest scale leaders in our study prevent that from happening. They are significantly more focused about what they do with their leadership, amplifying their scale advantage deliberately in other ways. Typically they follow at least one of three paths:

  • Play by the rules — Industry incumbent shave the unique opportunity to extend their economic leadership by sticking to the established rules of the game and executing better than anybody else. While this sounds simple, it is anything but. The company must continuously reduce costs and build quality, learning and investing more, while avoiding the complexity that can crush returns. Intel is a prime example. The semiconductor giant set the rules of the game early on in the chip industry and has not strayed from them. Others have threatened, but Intel has managed to stay ahead by moving rapidly down the learning curve to introduce a more powerful chip every 18 months.
  • Bend the rules – Playing by the rules is fine as far as it goes. But stretching toward full potentialmay require bending the rules a little bit — or a lot. That often means using core strengths to create new opportunities as Starbucks did when it created an international brand and standardized a carefully designed coffee drinking “experience,” allowing it to transform local coffee markets and extract greater pricing from customers.
  • Break the rules – This is clearly the most difficult strategy for a large, incumbent company, since most leaders are heavily invested in winning by the current rules. Sometimes, however, leading companies can use their size and clout to reshape the rules to their advantage. That’s what IBM did when it used its scale, deep customer relationships and technical expertise to move from being a hardware producer to a high-margin provider of software and services.

Scale is immensely valuable, without a doubt. But the companies that achieve the highest levels of leadership economics — two times their cost of capital and above — think and act beyond scale. They make important choices about where to focus their time and investments and work rigorously to develop the key assets and capabilities. That’s a path to sustainable, market-beating returns.

 

Forbes.com | April 30, 2015 | Bain Insight

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