Three lessons from the battlefield to the boardroom
The Army taught me a tremendous amount about leadership. In a constant leadership laboratory spanning three decades, I led, failed, learned, and grew from a tactical to a strategic leader. I share these lessons in my first book, "It's Personal, Not Personnel. Leadership Lessons For the Battlefield and the Boardroom." This book continues to fly off the shelves providing value to public and private organizations. Here are three (of many) lessons from it to kickoff your week.
Chain of command. I deliver this to the boardroom because it is a time-tested concept. I've seen many a business lacking a formal chain of command or direct reports. This is the point where confusion sets in and people are overloaded. It is the individual who pays the price when a formal chain of command does not exist. Organizations must ask and answer, "who works for who?" When an individual looks up, who is that person they report to? Keep it clean and understood by all.
Priorities. All organizations and individuals have more to do than they have time and resources. Workloads are overwhelming in today's world. The only way through this is prioritization. There are two types of priorities; enduring and periodic. Enduring priorities never change, such as investing in people or customer service. I would never back off of investing in people as an Army leader. It was always at the top of everything we did. Periodic priorities are specific to a period of time, such as product development or a marketing campaign. If a person or a team was focused on a marketing campaign and a customer (enduring priority) entered, the team would shift its priority to the customer then return to marketing.
Intent-based instructions. Clear communication is the cornerstone of good leadership and where it fails, organization's fail. Intent based instructions follow a Purpose - Key Task(s) - End State, format. Here is an example. “Mary I’d like you to reconstruct the landing page of our website because I want to attract more customers (Purpose)” “Some key tasks associated with this are ease of use (minimizing mouse clicks), a contemporary feel with colors and graphics, and search engine optimization (Key Tasks).” "End state will be a presentation for the COO and I which highlights the changes and how you believe the improvements will attract more customers. We will offer some guidance to you then get the changes complete and make plans for launch (Specifics of End State)."
There is much more in the pages of, "It's Personal..." Pick a copy wherever books are sold. Or call on me and I'll deliver my lessons in person or virtually!
Make it Personal!
Rob
Rob Campbell