Tag Archives: Books

The dance of honesty – being honest with yourself

Developing as a leader, Emotional Intelligence, , ,

In recent days I have been writing about honesty and its opposite – lying, deception, call it what you will.  I recognise in this subject a double bind:  it’s hard work to maintain a lie, it’s hard work to be honest.

Today, I thought I’d say a few words about what it takes to be honest with ourselves.  What immediately springs up for me is compassion.  The more we judge ourselves, the more likely we are to be dishonest with ourselves.  You think you have to be a fully formed Director from the minute you step into the role?  It’s going to be hard for you to be honest about areas in which you don’t yet have the skills you need.  You think you have to be good at managing people?  You may find it hard to own how hopeless you feel when you try to address performance problems in your team – the easy way out is to blame your under-performers.  You think the delays in progress towards your targets are unacceptable?  You could end up blaming all the external factors that have a bearing on results and lose sight of any power you have to make a difference.

At the same time, compassion does not equate to zero accountability – paradoxically, I’ve often found the opposite is true.  If we can show ourselves a level of self-acceptance and compassion, we are often better able to take action.  To take an example from above, if you know you are new to the role of Director and you accept that you will have some learning to do, you will find it better to take action to identify those areas in which you need to learn and to seek out your learning.

One of the most powerful forms of self honesty is the kind of honesty that comes when we attend to our own actions and inner dialogue.  Roger Schwarz, author of The Skilled Facilitator, calls this your “left hand column”.  Here’s an example from one leader from a meeting in which he is practising for the first time attending to his left hand column:

“John puts forward his ideas and I immediately hear judgements in my head.  ‘Here we go again… we’ve been through this a million times and John still doesn’t get it!’  I can feel my temperature rising and my face is getting more red.  I notice that John  has said several things that I haven’t heard because I’m already thinking about how I want to respond.  For the first time, I take a pause before responding – letting him finish.  I feel something new – something I haven’t felt before – humble or embarrassed or something… because for the first time I recognise that I’m not listening.  I always thought the problem was with John and now I realise that I am part of the problem…”

Are you ready for this kind of self-honesty?  Are you ready to be the observer of your own inner dialogue?  Here’s an exercise for you in case you are:

  • Take time alone – thirty minutes or so – with a pen and paper or your notebook or computer;
  • Take a moment to identify a time when you were in your flow – a time when things were going well for you and you were at your best.  Spend ten minutes making notes on your inner dialogue during that time.  Try to capture as much information as you can – about your thoughts, your feelings.  One way to do this is to have separate columns on your piece of paper (a) for what you said and did, (b) for any actions by others, and (c) for your inner dialogue;
  • After ten minutes stop and take a two minute break.  After your break, do the same thing again but this time for a time when things weren’t working for you.  Go through the same process, noting everything you can remember about the event.  Stop writing after ten minutes and take a two minute break;
  • In the remaining six minutes, make notes about your inner dialogue.  Notice what parts of your inner dialogue contributed to your success.  Notice what parts of your inner dialogue contributed to any problems you experienced.  Notice any inner dialogue you have in response to your new insights;
  • Before you finish, take a moment to acknowledge yourself for the work you’ve done and for your self-honesty in the process.

  

The dance of honesty

Emotional Intelligence,

Harriet Goldhor Lerner wrote a number of books whose titles begin with the phrase “The Dance” – The Dance of Intimacy, The Dance of Anger, The Dance of Deception…  I haven’t read them all though I did recently read The Dance of Deception as one of a number of books about lying and deception.  Daniel Goleman’s Vital Lies, Simple Truths is another and so is Dorothy Rowe’s Why We Lie:  The Source of our Disasters.

Each book is quite different.  Goleman talks of the science of lying – how it works in the brain.  Lerner writes specifically for women (her book is subtitled Pretending and Truth-telling in Women’s Lives).  Rowe draws on an extraordinary array of contemporary examples to illustrate her thesis.  After I read her book, for example, I was moved to read about the children of prominent Nazis in Stephan Lebert’s book on the subject, My Father’s Keeper and then The Himmler Brothers by Heinrich Himmler’s great niece Katrin Himmler.  Rowe dedicates a whole chapter to Lying for Your Government in which she suggests that whilst the CIA, for example, exists to tell the truth to American presidents, CIA chiefs soon learn that it’s not in their interest to tell the president what he doesn’t want to hear.

Reflected in these books are a number of truths about honesty and lying.  We all lie, for example, and we all lie about lying.  We all lie with good intentions, and we often lie to ourselves about what those good intentions are.  (If you doubt me on this one, just think about a time when you’ve told what often gets called a “white lie” in order “to save someone’s feelings” and try on for size the idea of going ahead and telling the truth.  You’ll mostly find that you were saving yourself from a difficult experience at the same time).

The truth is also that telling the truth can be hard work at times which is why, today, I am appropriating Lerner’s use of the phrase “the dance” and applying it to honesty.  Telling the truth involves a commitment to honesty, a willingness to hear how others respond and – in the longer term – a readiness to live with the unpredictable consequences.

This subject is so vast that I wonder where to start and feel sure I shall return to it.  Perhaps a good place to start is by sending out an invitation to you.  My invitation to you is this:

  • Ask yourself how committed you are to honesty and to telling the truth – a mark out of ten is one way of answering this question;
  • Commit to noticing for a week how honest you are in practice, especially at times when honesty is challenging for you.  Notice the times when you decided to be honest even though you were putting something at risk. Notice the times when you chose to avoid honesty in some way – be it with yourself or with some other person;
  • After a week, return to your mark out of ten and check how accurate it was.
Do let me know how you get on…

Being at choice

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The kitchen is finally moving towards completion.  Gary has put together his “Schindler” of all the things that need to be done before we can say it’s finished.  I am looking forward to populating the cupboards which need to be painted inside before I can finally move in (meantime, Gary and Wills have been making liberal use of them for tools and other items of their trade).

Wills was full of cold at the beginning of last week and I, too, succumbed so that on Friday I caught myself reflecting on all the reasons why I might have caught the cold – catching it from Wills, the impact of the long hard slog of accommodating work in the kitchen, the cold weather…

…and then I caught myself in the act of thinking that somehow the cold had “happened to me”.  To a degree it had of course.  Henry Dreher, in his book The Immune Power Personality (which I’ve mentioned before on this blog), talks of breakthroughs in 19th century science, when “the researches of German physician Robert Koch and French physician Louis Pasteur led to the theory of specific etiology – the idea that diseases were caused by a single microorganism and could be eradicated by a single strategy for destroying the invader”.

Dreher also talks, though, of the work of Claude Bernard, the mid-19th-century French physiologist.  To quote briefly from Dreher’s already much abbreviated description of Bernard’s work, “Health was predicated on balance, and disease was a by-product of imbalance in the interior environment”.  Germs were not so much omnipotent as ready to to take root when the conditions were right.  Reflecting on my own health at this time brought home the tiny deteriorations in my normal health regimes in recent months – drinking far less of my usual “Supergreens“, overlooking my usual vitamin supplements, a diet that isn’t quite up to par, less walking… I knew I was reaping the results of small changes I was already aware of.  I have been telling myself that I’ll get back on track when the kitchen is done.  This is true – and still, the accumulation of small changes is also the sum of my own decisions in recent weeks.

At one level, I’m talking about a common cold.  At another level, I’m also talking about the wider question of what mindset we bring to our lives.  When something goes wrong, do you focus on what has happened to you?  Perhaps wish things were different that are beyond your control?  Or do you focus on your own contribution – what you have done that has made a contribution and what you can do to move forward?

There is a phrase used by some coaches (and no doubt others, too) – “being at choice”.  We are at choice when we focus on our own choices rather than seeing ourselves as the helpless victim of circumstance.  Others use the term “in your own power”.  Over the years I have seen how successful leaders have mastered the art of being at choice.  These are the leaders who use their power of choice to achieve outcomes they desire.  They are often optimistic and resilient in the most difficult of circumstances.  Rather than expend energy in wishing (fruitlessly) that things were different, they harness their creativity to the question “what can I do?”

And lest you are beating yourself up right now or yearning to do things differently and not knowing how, I hasten to add that this isn’t an “either/or” scenario.  Most of us have moments when we are at choice (standing in our power) and others when we are not.  Moving to a more powerful position is something we do one step at a time.  For me, in recent days, just noticing that I am not at choice has opened up possibilities to make different choices.  

How Iceland bounced back

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Recently I discovered PopTech and via PopTech a talk by Iceland’s current President, Olafur Grimsson, about how Iceland bounced back following the stark economic crisis of 2008.

Iceland’s experiences illustrate some general principles of the modern world.  The first of these is this:  that we – whether “we” equals country, company, society or some other entity, are subject to the effects of events beyond our control.  In Iceland’s case, even before it fell prey to the effects of a global economic crisis its economy was severely affected by the eruptions of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano.  As leaders we are naive if we fail to understand that our plans will be affected by events outside our sphere of influence.

Grimsson’s talk suggests, for me, a second important principle:  that our success as leaders lies as much in how we respond to events as it does in the events themselves.  Watching Grimsson’s 20-minute speech I am particularly struck by the way he interrogates the events that affected his country in order to identify the key questions that needed to be answered in a time of major upheaval.

In case you missed the link to Grimsson’s talk, click here.  And if you’ve been following my recent series of postings on developing your ability to think strategically, add this one to your list – it’s a neat example of stepping back to see the big picture.

I welcome your comments and responses:  what comes up for you when you watch Grimsson’s speech?

Kitchen confessions

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I know, I know… it’s time I gave an update on the progress of my kitchen.  Is it finished yet?  In fact, Jeannie Morrison, my friend and fellow member of the London Symphony Chorus, was kind enough to e-mail before Christmas and to express her hope that I would be enjoying my brand new kitchen at Christmas.  Sorry, Jeannie,  I’m not there yet.

An old Chinese cupboard before its kitchen transformation

The amount of preparation has been prodigious.  The walls have been stripped.  The chimney breast has also been stripped back to the brick work along with a section alongside it.  And because the bricks were in such a poor state, Wills rebuilt part of the chimney breast.  The old sink has been moved round so that the window at the end of the room can be taken out to make way for a door.  And now the new door is in, Wills has started the process of converting the old doorway to a window.  I could carry on – but you get the idea.

You may spot part of the old cupboard as well as
getting a rough idea of the design of the new kitchen

Gary, who spotted a 19th Century Chinese cupboard (rather worse for wear) and saw its potential, has been working miracles with it in the kitchen, creating a cupboard as planned with the central section of the original piece and another wall-to-ceiling cupboard to house the boiler.  If only he’d consent to having his picture taken I might have caught his boyish delight this morning when we discussed just what a success this is proving to be.  And yes, the picture above also gives you some idea of the state of my kitchen at Christmas.  Fortunately, my nephew Edward, who lives with me, was away and – when I was not with friends and family – it was just me at home.  Oh!  Me and the mouse that is!  Seen once but not since.

New appliances are multiplying in the lounge   

Over time, various appliances have been delivered and some of them are biding their time in the lounge.  The new sink has been with me for a while, and now the dishwasher, a new radiator and (I confess) the first proper kitchen bin I have ever owned, are all ready and waiting.  It feels so grown up!

I’m smiling as I write, recognising that I, too, share a good deal of Gary’s childlike glee.  I’m also smiling because I recognise just how many of my friends see this kind of experience as the ultimate nightmare.  I think of Roger Hamilton’s book Your Life, Your Legacy:  An Entrepreneur Guide to Finding Your Flow which I’ve mentioned before on this blog.  Hamilton highlights different ways in which entrepreneurs generate wealth and I know that my own signature approach to generating wealth is primarily creative.  I am loving the creative process of designing the new kitchen.  Even in our private lives our key strengths and preferences show up.  

After a racist thought, what do we do next?

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Well!  Diane Abbott does seem to have put her foot in it!  A quick Google search threw up an article by The Telegraph which highlighted reports that forty people complained about her comments to the Metropolitan Police, which is probably the least of her troubles.  All in all, we’ve all had a field day discussing this particular gaff.

As it happens, I had a curious experience over the weekend.  By way of background, I have a neighbour – a few doors down – who likes to play his music very loud and often late at night.  At times I’ve knocked on the door to ask him to turn it down – usually unheard above the music.  At times I’ve asked for help from the “noise patrol” of the local council.  At times I’ve resorted to using the earplugs that are supplied occasionally when I’m seated by the organ speakers at a concert when I sing.  I have managed to speak with my neighbour a couple of times and, most recently, agreed that next time it happened I would send him a request, by text, that he turn the volume down.

So it was that at about 1.30am on Saturday morning I texted him with said request when his music woke me up.  I was half asleep and eager not to wake up any more fully than necessary.  I sent the text, turned off my phone and was successful in going back to sleep.  In the morning I woke up to a couple of text messages.  The first let me know he’d got my text and had turned his music down as well as wishing me a Happy New Year.  The second was a response to my lack of response and included the following:

….given the fact that u find it difficult 2 reciprocate a simple happy new year has made me realise ur colonial mindset which ur apparently unwittingly a victim of n probz dont even realise it to the point of even feeling justified.

I am so unused to being spoken of in this way that I chewed it over in the morning with Edward, my nephew and Gary, who is working in my kitchen at present.  Of course, it would be easy to go to precisely the place my neighbour describes – the place of feeling justified.  It seems so obvious to me that my neighbours don’t want to hear too much noise that I feel some anxiety when I listen to Radio 4 in the summer whilst gardening – how does my neighbour not understand this, too?

Maybe one of the reasons – the reason, even – that Diane Abbott’s Tweet stimulated so much discussion is precisely because it offered an opportunity to accuse the accuser.  No matter what atrocities our ancestors may have committed or we may commit now, we don’t like to be seen as racist.  Ms. Abbott’s misfortune was to show her own biases even whilst being known for campaigning against the biases of others.  And perhaps at a deeper level her misfortune was this, to have imagined that racism is the sole domain of any particular racial group.

Coming as this does in the aftermath of the trial and conviction of Gary Dobson and David Norris for the murder of Stephen Lawrence I tread with care, recognising just how much people can – in the words of my neighbour – feel justified in carrying out the most awful acts of violence.  The murder of Stephen Lawrence has been a bitter reminder of this fact throughout the last eighteen years.  At the same time, it seems to me that we need to show ourselves – and each other – enough compassion to recognise that we are all, more or less, racist:  to see the differences in the “other” is the natural response of one who fears.  For me, the important question is this:  having had a racist thought, what do I do next?  And equally, how do I respond to the racist thoughts of another?

I responded to my neighbour’s text as best I could and with the intention of keeping the door open to communication and understanding.  This was not because I have an intrinsic need to be on good terms with this particular neighbour or even because I’d like to be able to talk to him about the noise he makes.  Rather, I recognise that his comments may well be a sign of how tender issues of race are for him and, whatever my own perspective, I want to see beyond my own response to understand a fellow human being.  

Asking the right questions as the year draws to a close

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This was my last posting of the year for Discuss HR and also published on the HRUK group on LinkedIn.  As the year draws to a close I thought you might enjoy it here, too:


Recently I came across a talk by Icelandic President Olafur Grimsson, describing how Iceland bounced back after firstly the world financial meltdown of 2008 and then the Eyjafjallajokull volcano sent Iceland high-speed into economic meltdown.


It’s easy to forget the drama of Iceland’s experiences (unless, of course, you had money invested in Iceland’s apparently safe and secure economy) in the light of the wider events of 2011 – the deaths of Osama bin Laden and Colonel Gaddafi, dramatic events in a number of Middle Eastern countries, freak weather events in Japan, Thailand, Australia… to name but a few.  More locally, Berlusconi finally stood down as Italy’s long-standing Prime Minister and, in the UK, London saw anti-cuts protests, protests against plans to raise tuition fees and protests – together with people in countries around the world – against capitalism and its effects.  In the summer riots shocked the nation – one of them right outside my front door.  As I write, the fate of the Eurozone is still in the balance.

UPDATES: Riots in Lewisham


Outside my front door, Monday 8th August, 2011



Some alternative thinkers see these and many other events as part of a significant transition to a new epoch.  A number of authors have written about the Mayan prophecies for 2012 and one of them, Diana Cooper (in her book Transition to the Golden Age in 2032:  Worldwide Forecasts for the Economy, Climate, Politics and Spirituality), points to a twenty-year period of transition before we enter a new, “golden” era in 2032.


All this probably seems more or less remote from our day to day world of work:  what, you may ask, does any of this have to do with HR?  As the year comes to a close, I come back to the talk I mentioned at the top of this article.  Watching it, one of the things that strikes me is how, in responding to the events that befell Iceland in 2008, Grimsson – as new President – identified and responded to some of the key questions that were raised by those events.  Grimsson highlighted the social unrest that followed the world economic events in a country that had a lasting history of peaceful democracy and which threatened that democracy:  Iceland’s response – to initiate and execute comprehensive political, judicial and social reform – was borne out of the conviction that the issues of the day required an appropriate response and that anything less would not be sufficient.


Writing the last pre-Christmas posting for Discuss HR, I find myself wondering what are the key questions for you as 2011 draws to a close – what are the issues you face and what would be a sufficient response?  Some of these questions will be key for you as an individual.  Some of them may be key questions for you as an HR Practitioner and even for HR as a whole.  I hope you’ll share some of those questions as comments (and perhaps your answers) below.


For my part, I wonder if the key questions that face us all are the questions that connect us both with our heads and our hearts.  These are questions which, whilst stimulating thought and reflection, remind us of what really matters to us in our work and our play.  For this reason, my own key questions at the end of the year are these:

  •  As the year draws to a close, what has been most significant for me about 2011?
  •  What do I celebrate about this year – what needs of mine have been met?  What do I mourn – what are the needs I really want to meet that have yet to be fulfilled?
  • Looking forward, what’s it time for – in my life, in the life of my business?  What are the outcomes I most desire in 2012?
  • What are the implications of my desires and aspirations in terms of where I invest (my time, money, energy and other resources) in 2012?
  •  What factors in the world around me are most significant for me in 2012?  What challenges will I need to overcome in order to make progress towards my desired outcomes?
  • What resources do I have that will help me to meet those challenges and to make progress towards my desired outcomes? 

Locked in conflict?

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If you’re locked in conflict and don’t know which way to go, take a moment to watch this short clip on YouTube.  I offer it because it may help you to reconnect with your sense of humour (it’s funny!) and also because it offers a key insight into conflict and why it persists.

A number of thinkers in the fields of negotiation, mediation, communication and conflict highlight the need to let go of positions and focus on interests.  Maintaining a position involves taking the view that only one course of action – often requiring a particular response from another – will work and seeking to persuade that other to follow your path.

When you can understand what needs will be met by your preferred course of action you can find alternative ways of meeting those needs.  Equally, if you’re willing on both sides to understand each other’s needs, you can explore ways in which both people’s needs can be met.  Strangely, when you identify actions you can take to reach your desired outcomes and which do not depend on a particular response from another, the conflict tends to go away.  In case you need it, remember the mantra “you can’t change the others, you can only change yourself”.

Marriages can be saved, business deals can be struck, countries can avoid war by letting go of positions and connecting with underlying interests.

Developing your strategic thinking: sharing your strategy with others

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In recent days I’ve been writing about developing your strategic thinking and in this posting I come to the question of how to share your strategy with others.

This question implies that you do have a strategy.  It’s been interesting to me in recent days, reading Richard Rumelt’s recently published book Good Strategy, Bad Strategy, to notice how he differentiates between having a strategy and communicating it.  The bottom line?  It’s not enough to be charismatic and engaging – you need to engage people in a strategy that is more than just “fluff”.

In case you want to develop your skills in communicating strategy and getting people on board, I offer a number of suggestions below:

  • Observe how others communicate and engage others:  Any number of historical figures have had to communicate a vision to and engage others, including Churchill, Gandhi, Martin Luther King and more recently, Barack Obama.  Even as I write, my list gets longer, and I am especially thinking of people who were successful in engaging others in a vision for the future that was subsequently realised.  Desmond Tutu, for example, is widely associated with South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission which played an important role in a successful transition to post-apartheid South Africa.  In the UK Aneurin (“Nye”) Bevan is recognised as championing what has become known as the National Health Service – free health care for all Britons.  Not all such leaders have been popular or have championed causes which win modern day support – any number of political or rebel leaders nonetheless successfully championed a cause.  The more you engage with their story the more you develop your understanding of the many different ways in which leaders engage others in a vision and strategy for the future;    
  • Get behind the examples to understand the theory:  My old favourite, Goleman’s book The New Leaders, outlines research which identifies different leadership styles and how they work in practice.  It’s a great place to start if you want to understand the impact of communicating a vision and how you can cultivate this style as one of a number of styles you need to lead effectively.  For an example of what different leadership styles look like in practice, you can do worse than hunker down with the grainy old war film, Twelve O’Clock High.  This film shows two different leaders leading the same group of men in different ways and with dramatically different outcomes.  If you can get past the subject and the age of the film it is the perfect companion to Goleman’s book;
  • Develop your communication and speaking skills:  If it’s speaking that’s holding you back, there are many ways to develop your skills.  Toastmasters has often been used by leaders to develop skills in speaking publicly.  Others have trained in neuro-linguistic programming (or NLP), nonviolent communication (NVC), Roger Schwarz’s Skilled Facilitator Approach and other approaches in order to develop a wider range of communication skills.  Of course, you don’t need to go through training to develop your skills in communication.  As an alternative you might want to seek out opportunities both inside and outside work to practice and develop your skills.  These may range from sitting down with your team to talk about the future to speaking at conferences or facilitating discussions.  A good coach can support you in identifying steps you can take which provide growth as well as supporting you in re-framing old fears about speaking.

This is my last posting – for now – on how to develop your skills in thinking strategically.  It’s been quite a series – and at the same time, I recognise the limitations of these suggestions:  if you want to develop your abilities in this area, you need first to identify what specifically you need to develop in order to move forward.  “Strategic thinking” involves quite a bucket-load of skills.

If you have questions that you’d like me to grapple with, please share them using the comments box below.  Many of my postings are inspired by and reflect my work with people in leadership roles.  Equally, if you have other comments or suggestions that could help readers to develop their ability to think strategically, please share them.
 

Developing your strategic thinking: shaping a compelling strategy

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In recent days I have been writing about how to develop strategic thinking, recognising the importance as a leader of the ability to see the big picture, to shape a compelling strategy and to communicate in ways which engage.  So what does it take to shape a compelling strategy?  I offer a few ideas and suggestions to get you started:

Firstly, you might like to carry out some research:

  • Get curious about successful strategies:  There are many ways to come at the question of shaping a compelling strategy and all of them have something to offer.  One place to start is to think of the businesses that have been highly successful and to get curious about why:  what is their strategy?  I think instantly of organisations that have consumer appeal (my own favourites include First Direct banking, Ikea and Pret a Manger).  One example that has become an internationally recognised case study is the Seattle Pike Place Fish Market.  One downside of its fame is that the DVD (for which, follow this link) is priced at corporate prices, though the book (When Fish Fly:  Lessons for Creating a Vital and Energised Workplace from the World Famous Pike Place Fish Market) is easily available.  Another favourite of mine is Clive Woodward’s autobiography Winning! because it highlights what it took to turn aspiration into practical strategies which in turn led to the England Rugby team’s World Cup win in 2003.  Remember, too, to look close to home – to parts of your organisation that have been highly successful or to organisations you have worked for yourself;
  • Get curious about unsuccessful strategies:  Famously, Gerald Ratner’s strategy for his jewellery business was a winner until, in 1991, he shared it publicly.  He talks about this on YouTube in a plug for his book.  Look around you to find examples of strategies that haven’t worked.  Some of them may well be inside your own organisation.  Many of them will be out in the wider world:  what was Lehman Brothers’ strategy before it went bust in 2008, for example?  And what was the ailing Apple’s strategy prior to Steve Job’s return in 1997 as CEO of the company he had co-founded?  In truth, one of the easiest ways to access examples of bad strategies is by reading what some of the academics have to say about bad strategy, which leads me to my third suggestion…
  • Read what thinkers about strategy say:  Currently I am reading the recently published book Good Strategy, Bad Strategy by Richard Rumelt – it’s a goldmine of examples of both good and bad strategy and it also includes thought-provoking ideas from the author on what differentiates the two.  An enduring favourite is Jim Collin’s Good to Great which reflects the findings of detailed studies of what differentiates organisations which have been successful over time from those that have not.  Equally, Sydney Finkelstein’s book Why Smart Executives Fail and What You Can Learn From Their Mistakes includes insights into the errors that smart executives make in shaping and executing a compelling strategy.

When you’ve carried out your research, you might like to distil your learning in two areas in particular:

  • Distil your learning into key measures of a successful strategy:  Rumelt’s Good Strategy, Bad Strategy highlights the risk in shaping a compelling strategy which fails to address key challenges or which fails to translate grand aspirations into a concrete plan.  Before you shape your own strategy, I suggest you identify key hallmarks of a successful strategy – these are the measures against which you will test your own strategy before you start to think about how best to communicate it to a wider audience;
  • Shape your approach to creating a successful strategy:  Once you know what your key measures of success for creating a successful strategy are, you are in a position to shape your approach to shaping your strategy for your own business or part of the business.  Your approach may vary depending on the needs of the business – from sitting down with a blank sheet of paper, through consulting with those you lead to engaging the support of specialist consultants.  

 Once you’ve distilled your learning and designed your approach, you’re ready to…

  • Shape your strategy:  It’s tempting to offer key pointers for your strategy and – at the same time – this topic seems too important to summarise in just one bullet.  By now, though, if you’ve taken time to broaden your view (follow this link to read about this subject), to do some research into what differentiates successful strategy, to distil your learning into key measures of a successful strategy and to shape your approach you’re ready to execute your approach in order to shape a successful and compelling strategy.

I wonder, do you have experiences you can offer here to help other readers?  What have you found most helpful?  Equally, what questions would you like me to address in future postings?