Five Proven Steps to Tomorrow’s Win
“Bold moves in the second and third quarter of your tenure tend to accelerate your career,” Pam Fox Rollin for newly promoted leaders.
Short-term wins are like fireworks they’re breath-taking but fade quickly. You need long-term wins too.
Plan next year’s win today.
- Plans identify resources and control budgets.
- Plans clarify staff development. Something’s wrong if you aren’t enabling people today to meet tomorrow’s challenges.
- Plans require timelines and timelines ignite urgency. Nothing gets done without urgency.
Be bold.
“If you want a mediocre career play it safe at every turn. If you want to gain the resources to accomplish more and more, you must take risks,” from 42 Rules for your new Leadership Role.
For the newly promoted, the first quarter is too soon to be bold; by the fourth quarter you’re a ho-hum leader. The boldness sweet-spot is the second and third quarter of your new position.
Make your own decisions.
Other executives want you to adopt their causes. Your staff and team want you to make decisions with them in mind. There is a place for both. But, you lose your future when others make your decisions.
Leverage true change points.
Short-sighted leader fix problems. Look in the shadows for causes. Systematically find opportunities to improve processes. Fixing problems is good; improving processes is great.
Build surprising relationship.
Be nice to the CEO’s gate-keeper and other support staff. Perhaps the person in accounting can uncover a pocket of discretionary spending.
A Senior Technology Executive said, “The higher you go in an organization the more people want you to fail. Best antidote: Become known as a powerful ally as well as a high performer,” Pam Fox Rollin.
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This post is an adaptation of Rule 18: Plant Seeds for Future Wins, in Pam Fox Rollin’s concise, smart book, “42 Rules for your new Leadership Role.”
The things that make you exceptional hinder your success if they block connections. – From my interview with Pam: 9 Questions that Create Connections.
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How can leaders build future wins while facing today’s challenges?
Good post, Dan. Planning helps secure the vision and the future. Once you have a concrete plan in place, people can move forward.
There is nothing so discouraging as trying to follow the lead of someone who has not clear vision, or cannot clearly articulate how they plan to get there.
And, yes, if we know where we are going, we can prepare and train to get ready for the new day and for new challenges.
Cliche as it is, still holds true – failing to plan is planning to fail. However, I will have to disagree with “Nothing gets done without urgency” – there are a lot of things that are better done without that with. At least from my personal experience, when you create a sense of urgency you create a good excuse for low quality (you know: “but this had to be done urgently, so we had to cut a few corners”). I’d rather see my team’s leader planning ahead TO AVOID urgency.
Vlad, you remind me of Covey’s Q2 activities, which are the ones that are important but not urgent. Planning is one of those. Good point.
Due to the latest economic exploits, I am literally surrounded by short-term leaders everyday. They have to make thing works as fast as possible, but there’s no such thing as a fast win. I guess they don’t care what’ll happen in 1, 5 or 10 years, they need results now, at all costs. And they mess being bold with being smart.
Gabriel, Love the idea that bold can be dumb… 🙂 Always a pleasure seeing you. Dan
Nice addition to the conversation, Gabriele. I think the economy contributes, but we’ve developed ADD when it comes to leadership. Instant gratification is the rule for bosses too. What you describe is something a former commander of mine used to call “Winning in the wrong direction.” It’s that phenomenon where you chase short-term successes that are easily attainable, and after a succession of those find yourself 45 degrees off course.
To me, your question speaks to having a compelling vision for your organization that is shared often and with passion. I’ve also had a lot of success in developing the plan collaboratively with the people who will be doing the physical work. Then, it’s a matter of executing the plan. And, when the inevitable adjustments to the plan come, everyone is able to ensure that we’re still on course to achieve the vision that was articulated.
You will get to a destination only with your team, it’s really to chose your team before the destination. Identify people you can rely on, motivate them and enable their success to reach together the destination.
Dan, I agree with the post, and with the importance of the topic. This is easiest to do if you have senior managers who have done a good job with the long-term plan, identifying at the strategic level where they are trying to move the organization over the next 5-10 years. Without that, you have to do some intelligence-gathering to know. Either way, next year’s win is only temporarily helpful if it doesn’t contribute to the win your organization needs five years from now, as Gabriele so succinctly points out in her comment above.
I study the company’s long-term plan for the implied tasks for me: If they want to grow the business by X, I need to increase capacity by Y. If they want into this market, I need to explore this technology. If they want to improve EBT, then I need to find some efficiencies. None of these tasks are explicitly given to me, but when I identify and accomplish them, it’s a huge win, and sets the foundation for the future.
Dan, I would like to see companies really becoming serious about sustainable (not green, but self-renewing nonetheless) planning AND executing. I think Pamela is getting close, but I want to see real ignition, real starts, and real finishes. She made two points to mention here.
1) Something’s wrong if we aren’t enabling people today to meet tomorrow’s challenges.
2) Plans require timelines and timelines ignite urgency. Nothing gets done without urgency.
I believe that everything that gets done gets done because people recognize its urgency. Regarding urgency, timelines to me, are temporary. They are pressured. Pressure deletes thinking and creativity. The kind of urgency I would like to see is ongoing and self-renewing like planning and executing. My sense is that urgency is not about emergency, on the line, etc., but it is a result of engagement, understanding, and connection. A company full of engaged people who are connected and who understand, are urgent and creative. That is a good start toward a sustainable future.
I just finished a book by Irving Stone -The Greek Treasure about the Schliemann’s who discovered Troy & some other early civilizations. You hear the same story over and over again when they discovered these early civilizations. They had so many people who did not want them to succeed and then you had those who came and helped with a small portion and then tried to take all of the credit. They fought hard in there beliefs at one point were outcasts but they continued to believe and now live in our history books as the pioneer’s of archeaology. I am just in the 4th quarter of managing and would very much be interested in reading this book.
First off great post. I would add focusing on today. Focusing on today’s goals and responsibility’s will set you up for winning in the future (Or Tomorrow).
Good convincing 5 steps to ensure future wins. Again, risk-taking quality of a keader is highly emphasized to get all round appreciation with desired success. l can add two more points which can add flavour to the sound base so created. Value-based offerings with higly motivated, productive employees will bring unprecedented results.
It’s the leaders at the top who drive the organizations to newer heights with right direction and innovations in 3 Ps, products, processes and people.
I think one thing that will help build future wins while facing today’s challenges is to not lose your long-term vision & goals while dealing with today’s problems.
While I’m new to the corporate world, my “former” life as a classroom teacher resonates strongly with the planning concept. While plans can be hijacked and thwarted sometimes, having no plans ensures failure at some level.
Excellent points touching on planning, boldness, being a change agent and decisivenes. The kind of urgency indicated is a planned kind, not the constant “put out the fires” kind. The higher you go up the chain of leadership, the more you are expected to show the ability to strategize, come up with the grand vision and map out multi-year plans. Blog really is great in emphasizing boldness as well. You want to map our your own vision. Not changing something for change sake (you see many folks taking leadership positions and automatically changing their predecessor’s programs just to change them and leave their own mark) but because you asked the right questions, found out gaps in programs and figured out what needs to be done to fix them for the good of the enterprise. I really enjoyed this posting!
Thanks, Mike and all, for your thoughts on this part of my book. It’s so hard to keep one eye focused above the fray! And to take bold action when you’re fairly new in the role. Yet, that’s when you have fresh eyes.
Keep ’em coming…
Pam
You are welcome Pam. I agree, great thoughts all around. Thanks for sharing your thoughts! We all added to our leadership skill sets from your post!
Wow… I’ve found that the quote below is so true! I have played it safe and played (& by the rules) most of my career. I thought I was proving myself a good future LEADER by working hard and being a team player… when it turns out I was just proving myself a good employee. No matter how hard I worked, I saw others promoted, when I was passed by. I look forward to reading Pam’s book!
“If you want a mediocre career play it safe at every turn. If you want to gain the resources to accomplish more and more, you must take risks,” from 42 Rules for your new Leadership Role.
Dan, thanks for another great post
“Short-sighted leader fix problems… Fixing problems is good; improving processes is great.”
Fixing problems (or putting out fires) is usually all that’s left to do in the absence of a plan/vision to improve things so that they don’t materialize.
Dave
Dear Dan,
I think leaders can build future wins by three things. Aligning, communicating and executing. Aligning internal resources and facilities, and gearing up for future then communicating the strategy to people across all the level. Each one should be well aware about the mission and strategy to achieve that mission. And the third and the most part is executing. Execution in time is most critical parameter to achieve future wins. Most of the best strategies fail because of execution failure. It means leaders have to have courage to execute strategies in time. In case, there are no strategies in the organization if it is in nascent stage, then leaders should not wait for strategy, instead they should make decisions.
Decision making is more futuristic in nature than just deriving satisfaction from the present situation. Not taking decision because of anticipating failure is actually failure than taking decision and failing afterwards. I think taking decision and failing is successful failure because one learns what works and what not.
In a company I was once affiliated with, you could always tell when a new Sr. VP was trying to make his mark. It was usually signaled by some ridiculous direction dictated from the corporate office to cut spending and was in turn met with resistance from the field. A word to you new execs who are trying to make your mark; please talk to a few of your middle managers before you pull the trigger because we have to live with your decision.
I loved the post. The part that spoke to me is Plans clarify staff development. Something’s wrong if you aren’t enabling people today to meet tomorrow’s challenges.
Five Proven Steps to Tomorrow’s Win – like most other common sense rules applied to carrier management it seems to me that it is based on a homogenous value system within the company / labor market. It is also not so universal as it seems – i feel a strong cultural bias here (seen from France).
Nevertheless, no wander Indian executives are so well exported in the States – they are formed according to anglo-saxon management rules and they play by those rules!
” Short-sighted leader fix problems.”
I see this in our organization everywhere. It’s very easy to get stuck with the feeling of accomplishment when you discover a fix to a problem. What I often see is that the thinking stops there and sits idle until the next problem arises (reactive leadership). You become the go to problem-solver. Our organization likes to classify problem-solvers as “leaders”. In some rights they are, but there very few innovators and policy-changers. Phase 2 of leadership comes when you can replace yourself as the problem-solver and move on to “Innovator” status.
Great post! Dan Black’s comment about today resonated with me today. We get to the big picture goal by taking the daily baby steps on the right course. Maybe we can’t fix all the issues and achieve the goal TODAY, but we can do the small piece on our plate with all our might! Good leaders encourage that behavior and take time to stop and take it all in when we reach the summit of our dream.
the main point i take away from this, is that you need both short term and long term success. you need those “fireworks” just as much as you need long term plans. If you never have any success, then your drive diminishes.
Thanks! Great thoughts!
I really like the thoughts on “Short-sighted leader fix problems.” Fixing problems can be quick and easy but fixing the process or the bigger issue often requires the type of crucial conversations that mediocre leaders avoid like plaque.
Great article! I’d love to read the book.
Thanks for sharing! In praise of the long-view…
“The boldness sweet-spot is the second and third quarter of your new position.”
I love the idea of a ‘boldness sweet-spot’. The first quarter allows you to connect and develop relationships with key stakeholders and gather important information about the highlights and challenges in the organization. You can start work on incremental changes that build on those successes.
The bold steps you want to take that improve the organization require building consensus, and asking co-workers to take on extra work to tackle obstacles and difficulties. Michael Fullan writes that only a context of high relational trust generates the willingness to go the extra mile. The first quarter should prioritize building relational trust and partnerships for long-term success.
Had no idea before my current position that some people might want me to fail. Understand that now.
Sorry you’ve encountered this, Garry. A heads-up is useful, perhaps.
enjoyed your post. would love to read the whole book. I’ve been running a plumbing contracting business for 12 years. Think we’ve made very mistake possible. Hoping to learn from the past and avoid the major ones in the future.
Like the approach of the quarters. First time hear this emphasized, namely the 2nd and 3rd Qtrs. Normally the 1st Qtr’s quick wins are pushed being – true – are long faded when the real evaluation of the whole tenure is done.
Completely agree about the “boldness sweet spot.” You need a few months to identify and evaluate for credibility. I also have personally benefited from “cultivating surprising relationships” — a great source of ideas and to seek initial feedback!
Thanks, Dan & Pam!