Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Identify the few things that matter, and keep repeating them

Something I’ve noticed from speakers that are termed ‘experts’: They have a few examples, and continuously bring them up and talk about them. You can hear two or three different keynote addresses in which they are providing, recounting the same stories over and over. Given that so many minor details require attention, it’s important that the leaders select the key foundations of their business and continue to repeat it to others (*drive it iin them!). Dell executives (among many others) will look at the same 3 numbers everyday to drive home what they need to focus on (I guess they hope this cascades out). Ability to grab a few foundational aspects and speak a few specific truths about these aspects goes along way in showing employees that you have some control in directing the future path of the business/department/etc.. Therefore, it is extremely important that leaders do not devote their attention to urgent, but not important, things (Bennis, 1997). In fact, devoting your time to non-urgent, but important things is actually the prime area to develop your leadership skills…

Drawn from Pfeffer & Sutton (2006) – Hard facts, dangerous half-truths, & total nonsense: Profiting from evidence-based management

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