We spend significant time preparing for a crisis and deploying resources when one hits.  People rise to the challenge and exert tremendous effort in these situations.

What if we prepared for the “routine” and approached our work and life with the same purpose and energy.   Creating intensity in our task list counteracts the natural tendency to unconsciously drift.

The point is not to create constant crisis (note: some leaders overplay this card).  Rather, find ways to approach normal work with intentionality.  Plan for how to make the most of each routine meeting, project, and interaction.  Engage in doing routine well!

“It’s not enough to be busy, so are the ants. The question is, what are we busy about?”  Henry David Thoreau

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Could being resource rich be a problem?  Leaders work to build resources to weather storms or take advantage of sudden investment opportunities.  This is wise.  There is a spot, though, where resource abundance can become a disadvantage.  Manager’s mindsets shift subtly.  The greater the buffer, the less careful leaders become managing resources.

Resource scarcity forces us to think more carefully about how we deploy those limited resources.  We get more creative in our solutions.  History shows innovation often emerges from people who turned their limited resources into an advantage.

Build buffer but manage as if your organization is resource poor.

“Beware of little expenses.  A small leak will sink a great ship.”  Benjamin Franklin

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Single points of failure (SPOFs) lurk in unexpected places throughout your organization.  It may be related to people, technology systems, physical hardware, or outside service providers.  Today’s complex, automated, and highly connected systems create greater degrees of SPOFs than in past times.  Seemingly minor issues can trigger SPOFs which can quickly cripple an organization’s ability to provide desired levels of customer care.

How well does your team understand and anticipate SPOFs?  How well do you prioritize resiliency vs efficiency thinking?  It’s a different perspective.  A worthwhile exercise – list as many critical SPOFs as possible then generate ideas for continency plans.

“The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present.”  Abraham Lincoln

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Some things, like lines in a queue, are better shorter than longer.  This includes business communication.  Emails, presentations, memos, and books are often longer than necessary.  It’s easier and faster to over-express in drafting or ad-libbing.  However, lengthier doesn’t correlate to greater impact.  It can also be inconsiderate of others.

Expressing something in an economy of words requires extra time and effort.  It’s work!  Utilizing a good editing process will deliver benefits, though.  The communicator is forced to slow down, tackle one thing, and dig for deeper understanding.  This effort should produce greater clarity, conciseness, and a more impactful message.

“The present letter is a very long one, simply because I had no leisure to make it shorter.”  Blaise Pascal

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We should treat the old adage “great minds think alike…” with some skepticism.  Leaders should cultivate alternatives for significant decisions they consider.  Healthy dissension typically yields better decisions. 

Alfred Sloan, the person responsible for leading General Motors to the top of the global automotive industry in the 1930’s and 1940’s, is said to have set aside decisions for which the executive team too easily agreed.  Peter Drucker says Sloan would postpone some decisions to give his leaders “time to develop disagreement and perhaps gain some understanding of what this decision is about.” 

“Great minds” might periodically offer a different perspective.

“And those who were seen dancing, were thought to be crazy, by those who could not hear the music.”  Friedrich Nietzsche

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Taking care of good talent is imperative for leaders – especially in tight labor markets.

Here are two sure ways to aggravate your top performers:

• Overburden them without consideration of their personal lives.  Sure, sales demand is strong, but know when and how to say no to more revenue.

• Tolerate poor performers so you have a “body in the seat.”  Pruning people out of the organization may seem contradictory, but few things drain top performer’s engagement more quickly than picking up the slack for other employees.

After addressing these two put your energy and resources into strategies for attracting new employees.

“To add value to others, one must first value others.”  John C. Maxwell

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