Never waste a crisis!

The world around us is in turmoil… companies failing and economies are in recession. These are tough times and the need for leaders and leadership has not been greater.

“Despite all the different issues that top leaders are facing, there is a commonality to great leaders in times like these. It can be summed up in the phrase ‘Never waste a crisis.’” – Dr. Saj-nicole Joni, Never Waste A Crisis

Leaders have are some the greatest optimists that the world has ever known. When faced with challenge, oppression and obstacles leaders see these situations as opportunities. Within any crisis lies opportunities, if you’re looking for them. Tom Peters gives us the following tips for leading in really weird times these are great ideas to help us to make the best use of this crisis:

1. Be conscious in the Zen sense. Think about what you are doing more than usual. Think about how you project.
2. Meet daily, first thing, with your leadership team—to discuss whatever, check assumptions. Perhaps meet again late afternoon. Meetings max 30 minutes.
3. If you are a "big boss," use a private sounding board—check in daily.
4. Concoct scenarios by the bushel, test ‘em, play with ‘em, short-term, long-term, sane, insane.
5. MBWA. Wander. Sample attitudes. Visible but not frenzied.
6. Work the phones, chat up experts, customers, vendors. Seek enormous diversity of opinion.
7. "Over"communicate!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
8. Exercise—encourage your leadership team to double up on their exercise.
9. Underscore "excellence in every transaction."

…… and that’s not all here are more things from Tom that you should focus on…

1. Learn to thrive in unstable times—our lot (and our opportunity) for the foreseeable future.
2. Only putting people first wins in the long haul, good times and especially tough times. (No "cultural differences" on that one! Colombia = Germany = the USA.)
3. MBWA/Managing By Wandering Around. Stay in touch!
4. Call a customer today!
5. Train! Train! Train! (Growing people outperform stagnant people in terms of attitude and output—by a wide margin.)
6. Diversity is a winning strategy, and not for reasons of social justice: The more different perspectives around the table, the better the thinking.
7. Take a person in another function to lunch; friendships, lots of, are the best antidote to bad cross-functional task accomplishments. (Lousy cross-functional communication stops companies and armies alike.)
8. Transparency in all we do.
9. Create an "Innovation Machine" (even in tough times). (Hint: Trying more stuff than the other guy is Tactic #1.)
10. Get the darned Basics right—always Competitive Advantage #1. (Be relentless!)
11. Great Execution beats great strategy—99% of the time. (Make that 100% of the time.)
12. A "bias for action" is a "bias for success." (Great hockey player Wayne Gretzky: "You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.")
13. No mistakes, no progress! (A lot of fast mistakes, a lot of fast progress.) (Australian businessman Phil Daniels: "Reward excellent failures. Punish mediocre successes.")
14. Sometimes "little stuff" is more powerful than "big stuff" when it comes to change.
15. Keep it simple! (Making "it" "simple" is hard work! And pays off!)
16. Walk the talk. ("You must be the change you wish to see in the world."—Gandhi)
17. When it comes to leadership, character and people skills beat technical skills. (Emotional Intelligence beats, or at least ties, school intelligence.)
18. It’s always "the little things" when it comes to "people stuff." (Learn to say "thank you" with great regularity. Learn to apologize when you’re wrong. Learn the Big Four words: "What do you think?" Learn to listen—it can be learned with lots and lots of practice.)
19. The "obvious" may be obvious, but "getting the obvious done" is harder said than done.
20. Time micro-management is the only real "control" variable we have. (You = Your calendar. Calendars never lie.)
21. All managers have a professional obligation to their communities and their country as well as to the company and profit and themselves. (Forgetting this got the Americans into deep trouble.)
22. EXCELLENCE. ALWAYS. (What else?)

“As weather shapes mountains, so problems make leaders” – Warren Bennis

Reflect on the following…

• What are you doing to respond to this crisis?
• Are you being proactive or reactive?
• Be proactive, select 3 of Tom’s ideas to apply in your life the next 3 weeks…

Technorati Tags: Leadership, Practice, Tom Peters, Management, Crisis, Opportunity, Business

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1. Communication is essential in times of crisis
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Tagged as: Leadership Practices