I was an exceptionally bright child with a gift for language and speaking; having been the star performer in our kindergarten play. But when it came for the teachers to add comments to the report cards… it would read the same year after year: “Debbie is an excellent student, but she tends to talk too much”. Bamm! and so it begins the journey from being an obvious Extrovert to being squeezed into an Introvert box.

Having come to this realization just now (and yes this is a blog to share my “a ha” moment), I want to share my story to support my mindset shift and for others to maybe benefit from societal mis-branding and not having realized true potential. Don’t get me wrong, being branded the introvert and following the nice quiet path of an engineer and later the Head of Quality for a leading corporation has been just fine. However, if we look at the clues along the journey, you can see why I’m frustrated and had to write this article.

Being a smart child was cool because I got special treatment like going to a higher grade to learn what the bigger kids were doing or going to special classes to take tests and do puzzles and get extra books to read. During the summers, I would go to summer reading programs, win prizes for all the reading I did, but what I really enjoyed were writing plays, making puppets and performing at some of the art programs. This subtle clue shows the need for self expression and performing. But when I was skipped to a higher grade because I was starting to get bored; things changed for me for a number of years.

When I showed up for 6th grade I was challenged, but immediately I was bullied as being different and with the harder coursework, it took me a few years to rise again to an A student. Hitting the books and keeping a low profile moved me from the extrovert to the introvert tendencies for several years and I was acknowledge again for my grades and staying focused.

Fast forward to high school I started taking more challenging courses and with that came a spark for speaking up when I could not understand the concept. Even though I would raise my hand repeatedly to get clarity on a topic, the students would give me a hard time and ask me to put my hand down because I asked too many questions. Of course I would see teachers after school to get what I needed, but peers were asking me to keep it down. For me the speaking up and immediate need for resolution leads me to believe the extrovert was coming out who needed self expression.

So let’s dial it up a notch and take you to college, again I followed the nice introverted path of studying science and engineering. By this time my self esteem was crushed due to family matters (another blog someday) and playing it safe and quiet was my best bet to navigate through the challenges of a top engineering education. Staying focused on the goal to gain independence and was key which I later achieved.

But then this happened: I got into a selective program in my senior year called the Professional Leadership Program (PLP) and this select management program helped engineers prepare for going into the workforce. I can’t remember the circumstances now, but I must have evolved again to be a speaker and was voted by the team to be the spokesperson for our end of year event. So peer recognition as a leader and speaker was starting to peak out again.

After college, I enrolled in Toastmasters to practice speaking which I absolutely loved. I later received a district award for young professional women; having to give speeches in front of tens and hundreds of people along the competitive program. I was expressive and despite nervousness at time; I experienced amazing flow and energy while giving speeches. This later fed my soul by taking assignments that would allow me to do presentations and training. The thrill of preparing and then delivering content that needed to influence people was a real “high” for me and was a source of strength and satisfaction.

But I want to share one more tough story, before I end this so you can see how as a early career engineer, my extrovert tendencies were squelched yet again and pushed me into the Meyer’s Brigg or any other test used to profile people of an Introvert.

During a meeting to discuss the required credentials of a quality engineer, I was in a heated discussion with myself, the plant manager, and corporate quality who was guiding the process. There were points of disagreement between operations and corporate and without thinking I spoke up and said “isn’t this an operations role”, meaning don’t we have the final say on what we need. My comment stung for which I later received multiple lashings. I was told I should not have said that or I should not have spoken up and better to have discussed any dissension off line. Well that feedback was the nail in the coffin to think before I speak. For so many years I stayed quiet to avoid conflict and the risk of saying something inappropriate!

So fast forward to the present, I’m still a practicing engineer who has to think and plan how to best service my customers in my consulting business. But the freedom of being my own boss and the following clues has confirmed I’m actually an extrovert:

• Talking to my husband all day about every minute detail about my business; thank goodness he’s a great listener
• I’m posting video on Linkedin, writing content almost every day, volunteering to be a podcast guest, doing webinars and publishing articles for my professional organization
• I love to talk to people; actively networking 40% of my time, I seek opportunities for public speaking and I just had my son put up three whiteboards so I could start putting all my ideas “out” on the wall vs in my head.

So given my short (okay long!) history of speaking up and out, I have to believe I’m an extrovert who lost their way due to societal norms. It is only now that I can reflect on where I am most comfortable; being on a stage to express my thoughts and interact with people; a true sign of an Extrovert!

It was September 2020, one month after I suffered a broken ankle when I said to my physical therapist, “how am I ever going to curl again?” The location of the injury impeded my ability to flex my ankle to 180 degrees; a critical position for delivering a 42-pound stone on 27°F ice. My world had turned upside down and the future was unclear for me. 

Can you remember a set-back you thought you could not overcome? 

As I think about my misfortune, I can’t help but think about the CEO or Senior leader in an organization who is going through some type of rapid change and feels off track. The tricks of the past no longer serve them, they feel lonely and don’t know where to turn. Those moments may be indicators to start with a clean slate and re-evaluate your situation. Sometimes leaders have to navigate twists, turns and uncertainty to gain clarity. 

I tell leaders when they’re unclear to ask themselves these questions:

• What are the opportunities in front of you?
• What is in your control? 
• What resources do you need to get back on track?
• What personal accountability do you need to stay focused on the future?

Here’s how these questions helped my broken ankle:

Several weeks later I met with my physical therapist and told them I was frustrated and didn’t think I would get back into curling in 2 weeks time. It was now the beginning of October.

The physical therapist said the most profound thing to me: “When you look back 6 weeks ago, you could barely walk in a hard boot with crutches, now you’re in a soft boot complaining about walking up stairs. Look back and see how far you’ve come. It will make you think about the future in a whole new way!”

The first day I got back on the ice, I could only deliver the stone by carefully descending into my delivery with my foot turned at an awkward 45 degree angle; hardly the form of a silver medalist. I was frustrated, but happy to see I could get on the ice without doing too much damage. 

The Transformation

I started to throw a few stones and a few more. Because my mending ankle had not regained full flexibility, it forced me to deliver my stone more deliberately as I pushed out of the hack and accelerated down the ice. The extra second or two I took to descend into my position gave me the time to better focus on the trajectory of my stone. 

To my amazement, my delivery was far more accurate than in previous years. The unfortunate event that left doubt in my curling capability resulted in a step change improvement in my overall performance ultimately. We had a winning season and I’m pleased to say my confidence is significantly higher than when I started.

How are you going to handle a broken business?

Sometimes we feel stuck, a crumbling foundation and it’s a lonely place to rebuild the foundation, leadership and a strategy when you are dropped into a situation or conditions change. Just know that the CEO’s Compass, a 7 point assessment tool, is exactly what you need to regain confidence, control and create a winning future for you and your team! 

To learn more about The CEO’s Compass – Your Guide to Get Back on Track, my book releasing later in 2021, jump on our waitlist to get the latest information. 

If you simply want to have a free 30 minute conversation to discuss your current situation, let’s jump on a call. 

For more information about curling, go to USA Curling to learn more about the sport as we get closer to the 2022 Winter Olympics. If you are local to Cincinnati, come curl with us at the Cincinnati Curling Club! I’d love to take you out on the ice starting in October when the season opens. My business video was also partly filmed at my curling club. Check it out!

Resources:

Good reads: 

How to Negotiate When Negotiating Makes You Nervous by Moshe Cohen

The challenge of negotiating is not always in the technique, but instead negotiating with yourself.

Good music:

Veigar Margeirsson

My go-to composer when I need to feel inspired. 

Most inspirational Podcast Guest I spoke to this week:

Dr. Charles Reed, a truly transformational leader. Connect with him and share with him how you found him. Subscribe to the podcast so you catch his episode in the coming months. 

My team and I were sweating as we walked into a large conference room. Though we’d rehearsed our talking points, nothing could settle the sick feeling in our gut that we had failed our largest customer. We sat down, we thanked our customer, I made the opening comment and then passed it off to my technical expert to unfold what had happened and why. While we prepared to walk out of there with our tail between our legs, I didn’t expect what happened next…

But first, let’s turn our attention to you…

You’re reading this article because the word “failure” resonated with you. I’ve never met a single personal who has not experienced failure in some form. Whether it’s a devastating blow or minor inconvenience, the most important part of mastering failure is to leave a lasting positive impact. This is only possible if you break down the situation into what happened, the lesson that you learned and how you took proactive action moving forward.

I never think of failing forward, but moving forward with grace. That’s the ability to keep a level head at times of adversity, and see the path forward while guiding your team to success.

Next time you fail big, take these 3 steps:

• Pause and reflect on what happened. This speaks to your self leadership
• Plan for what you can do now to lessen the impact and get your team focused on the immediate actions. This speaks to the leadership your team needs now.  
• Seek the high road and realize the gift that you just received. You have gained insight into a significant issue that you can not only resolve for the long term, but also see gaps in your systems to prevent in the future. This speaks to the leadership your organization needs to realize how to sustain the gains you have made. 

When you take the time to realize the “issue,” while it may be significant, it is an opportunity for you to lead and potentially leave a lasting impact far greater than the situation at hand.

So what happened in that conference room?

Upon completing our presentation and the requisite questioning and polite interrogation, we had concluded our time with the customer. What happened next though we never expected. The customer said in light of the unfortunate situation, they agreed with our analysis and had they been in the same situation, they would have done the same thing. They also moved the conversation to one of partnership; offering their services if we were ever faced with a technical challenge again. We had successfully converted an adversarial situation into one of collaboration. 

This all came from the quiet & calm leadership style needed to guide the team and the customer from one of crisis to one of confidence.

Resources

I’d like to make a special shout-out to this week’s podcast guest, John Baldoni, who discussed Grace Under Pressure and served as my inspiration for this article. 

I have been in many situations where my experience and insight may help you. All it takes is some courage to reach out and start a conversation. Together we can elevate you, your team and your organization. Let’s book a call to see how The Drop in CEO can support you. 

To learn more about this topic and others, please join The CEO’s Compass waitlist to learn more about the book and the 7-point assessment to get you back on track. 

If you’re simply looking for weekly insights and inspiration from industry leaders, check out The Drop in CEO podcast and become part of our growing community. 

Good reads: 

Free PR by Cameron Herold

Everything you need to know to get the press you need to stand out and build credibility

Good music:

Kevin Penkin

Specifically – Wake Up, Moving on… a very refreshing and uplifting piece.  I recently found him and it gets me into my creative flow. 

Most inspirational Podcast Guest I spoke to this week:

Amy McDonald, CEO of Starwest Botanicals, LLC

An accomplished professional in the Flavor & CBD industry; but Human-Centric at the core and elevates people to their fullest potential. Her episode airs July 16th; stay tuned!

It was September 2020, one month after I suffered a broken ankle when I said to my physical therapist, “how am I ever going to curl again?” The location of the injury impeded my ability to flex my ankle to 180 degrees; a critical position for delivering a 42-pound stone on 27°F ice. My world had turned upside down and the future was unclear for me. 

Can you remember a set-back you thought you could not overcome? 

As I think about my misfortune, I can’t help but think about the CEO or Senior leader in an organization who is going through some type of rapid change and feels off track. The tricks of the past no longer serve them, they feel lonely and don’t know where to turn. Those moments may be indicators to start with a clean slate and re-evaluate your situation. Sometimes leaders have to navigate twists, turns and uncertainty to gain clarity. 

I tell leaders when they’re unclear to ask themselves these questions:

• What are the opportunities in front of you?
• What is in your control? 
• What resources do you need to get back on track?
• What personal accountability do you need to stay focused on the future?

Here’s how these questions helped my broken ankle:

Several weeks later I met with my physical therapist and told them I was frustrated and didn’t think I would get back into curling in 2 weeks time. It was now the beginning of October.

The physical therapist said the most profound thing to me: “When you look back 6 weeks ago, you could barely walk in a hard boot with crutches, now you’re in a soft boot complaining about walking up stairs. Look back and see how far you’ve come. It will make you think about the future in a whole new way!”

The first day I got back on the ice, I could only deliver the stone by carefully descending into my delivery with my foot turned at an awkward 45 degree angle; hardly the form of a silver medalist. I was frustrated, but happy to see I could get on the ice without doing too much damage. 

The Transformation

I started to throw a few stones and a few more. Because my mending ankle had not regained full flexibility, it forced me to deliver my stone more deliberately as I pushed out of the hack and accelerated down the ice. The extra second or two I took to descend into my position gave me the time to better focus on the trajectory of my stone. 

To my amazement, my delivery was far more accurate than in previous years. The unfortunate event that left doubt in my curling capability resulted in a step change improvement in my overall performance ultimately. We had a winning season and I’m pleased to say my confidence is significantly higher than when I started.

How are you going to handle a broken business?

Sometimes we feel stuck, a crumbling foundation and it’s a lonely place to rebuild the foundation, leadership and a strategy when you are dropped into a situation or conditions change. Just know that the CEO’s Compass, a 7 point assessment tool, is exactly what you need to regain confidence, control and create a winning future for you and your team! 

To learn more about The CEO’s Compass – Your Guide to Get Back on Track, my book releasing later in 2021, jump on our waitlist to get the latest information. 

If you simply want to have a free 30 minute conversation to discuss your current situation, let’s jump on a call. 

For more information about curling, go to USA Curling to learn more about the sport as we get closer to the 2022 Winter Olympics. If you are local to Cincinnati, come curl with us at the Cincinnati Curling Club! I’d love to take you out on the ice starting in October when the season opens. My business video was also partly filmed at my curling club. Check it out!

Resources:

Good reads: 

How to Negotiate When Negotiating Makes You Nervous by Moshe Cohen

The challenge of negotiating is not always in the technique, but instead negotiating with yourself.

Good music:

Veigar Margeirsson

My go-to composer when I need to feel inspired. 

Most inspirational Podcast Guest I spoke to this week:

Dr. Charles Reed, a truly transformational leader. Connect with him and share with him how you found him. Subscribe to the podcast so you catch his episode in the coming months. 

How often have you seen a new senior leader drop in an organization, turn it around in 12-18 months and then they’re gone in less than 3 years?  What went wrong? The reason lies in what we ask of these leaders; we want short term gains without focus on a sustainable outcome. In The CEO’s Compass, the outcome is the true north each leader should be navigating to or Peace of Mind. 

How to Identify a Transactional Leader

The CEO’s Compass Assessment grades you on 7 compass points and the average of those become your Peace of Mind Score. For the scenario above, the situation lies with you hiring a Transactional Leader vs. one that is using a compass. Here are the signs you hired a Transactional Leader:

• While this leader has a highly articulated Purpose and is laser focused on Performance Metrics, they fall short of ensuring it aligns with the team throughout the organization. They talk a good talk, but the transactional person in the organization only knows their job and not in the context of the overall Purpose. Just kick the boxes next time you go to Customer Service or IT department and if they speak in terms of a KPI (Key Performance Indicator). See what their response is and if they can only describe their task vs. something like “I’m here to deliver a memorable experience”, then you have only a transactional leader. Low scores on developing people around a purpose detract from the Performance. 
• This leader invests in project teams and technology to get rapid results via having the right Platforms. They’re cheered as a results driven leader, but the result is offset by a lack of understanding of the Past & Pride of the People. You see, humans need to interface with technology to get a desired result and when things are going well, the leader is cheered for efficiency improvements. The system fails however, when the environment changes, mergers, downsizing or a significant market change and the results falter.When the environment changes and a little bit of chaos is introduced, it is the humans who we need to count on to get back on track. When the leader treats the humans as just transactions as part of technologie efforts, the people are heads down and only perform a transaction. Had we taken the time to know them,  their culture and their unique intellectual property, we could have built much needed trust to get through transitional times. 
• The results of this assessment show an average investment in the Process of coaching team dynamics and that is the role of a transactional leader. The problem with this approach is they fail to develop individual skills at the People Level. We assume people have the needed skills when we hire them and they may. But often  we fail to identify the skills needed for the next level or if the environment changes requiring new skills. It is at those times we need a leader who values the development of people as a critical element of their leadership and knowing the results will come. When organizations don’t instill a culture of Personal Development as a leading indicator of a leader’s success, we never achieve Peace of Mind, hence the score in this example of 2.2 on a scale of 1-5. 

So I ask you, knowing what you know now, what to do in order to get back on track? If you’re not sure, why not take The CEO’s Assessment for yourself by direct message or email me to get the tool and then book a call to see how you can achieve Peace of Mind. 

And if you’d like to find out more about The CEO’s Compass – Your Guide to Get Back on Track and all the tools used, sign up for our wait list to learn more about the book and when it becomes available.

“It’s 4:00 o’clock, I’m exhausted from meetings and I didn’t get any of my projects done.”

“We can’t cancel the meeting; this is our opportunity for us to align and know the status of the initiative”

How often does this inner dialogue run through your head before you plaster on a smile and head into yet another “critical” meeting?

The truth is, if you’re feeling this way the chances are high your team feels the same way. Even if they show up prepared, if you’re seeing indicators of exhaustion and missed deadlines – these meetings could be doing more harm than good.

Just imagine how much time one less meeting would allow you to spend on strategic work.

So why is it so hard to have the courage to cancel meetings?

In an era where technology enables us to connect virtually, the ability to host meetings has never been easier. But as with anything in excess, over connection can actually have a negative impact on productivity. 

Before canceling your Zoom subscription, I would recommend reconsidering how many meetings you currently have with your team and what the true intention of each meeting is. Categorize them by purpose, such as Follow Up, Collaboration, Relationship Building, Strategy, etc. 

Once you’ve done that, take a look how many you have in each category and determine if your meetings are indicators of a larger problem. For example, if all of your meetings are follow ups, that may be an indicator that you aren’t trusting your team to complete their projects. If you have an excess of strategy sessions, it could be an indicator that a larger system within your organization is constantly needing attention.

There is nothing more important than creating an environment where people know and trust each other because we’ve spent time building relationships. Once we’ve laid that foundation in our organization, there is no need to continue to have meetings to maintain it. It is already there and the inputs and output of meetings can be done through other technology.

Bottom line: As leaders, we need to look at the landscape and assess what is the best use of time.

Having the courage to cancel those meetings and connect with our teams in more efficient ways isn’t “introverted” or “hands off” behavior, but rather a sign of strength in your leadership.

I recently had a conversation about communication in the workplace. This Podcast episode with Josh Little, Founder of Volley and explores how asynchronous communication gives people back time and the opportunity to engage in more meaningful conversations. 

On the Drop in CEO Podcast and my solo episode this week coming out on June 11th I speak about The CEO’s Compass and the need to spend more time on the People & Process Development.

The role of a leader is to guide the process and help them to be more effective & efficient with their time and interactions. This is especially true in my article on Three Types of Emerging Leaders that Need Your Help, where I discuss leading indicators of individuals to spend more time in their development. 

I’ve had the good fortune of meeting so many leaders whose expertise further supports the need to look at yourself and see how you avoid burnout in yourself as well as your team during Linkedin Live conversation with Dr. Stanley Ward. If you like this piece, we had a fantastic conversation during our podcast interview as well. 

Do you have the mindset to assess when a meeting is valuable and when an email or other collaborative tool will suffice? 

Here are three tips to start your journey to “Cancel Courage:”

• Assess the % of time in meetings each month and cut 10% of them and re-allocate to strategic work
• Assess the % of time in meetings each month and cut another 10% and re-allocate to personal development
• Yes… cut another 10% and re-allocate to employee development

During this process create rules for you and your team for when a meeting is required.

By demonstrating “Cancel Courage” to your team, you may find they model the same behavior and leverage email or just picking up the phone to give you back time in your day for productive work.

If you still struggle with this, please have the “Courage” to do something different in your personal life and in your organization. Let’s book a free 15 minute call

If your employee retention program is focused on keeping individuals in the same position forever, you’re not planning on them being successful.

One of the highlights of my career was being promoted to a Head of Operational Excellence role. While the offer sounded amazing, it was the beginning of one of the most difficult transitions of my career. 

The promotion was exactly what I had wanted, but I was completely unprepared because there was no succession planning. Organizations often promote people to solve an immediate need, but lack planning for when that person is actually successful and achieves what they were promoted to do.

If succession planning isn’t part of your current workplace culture, are you working to retain jobs or the people within them? 

Succession Planning demonstrates an organizational investment in talent.

Think about your experience when you arrive at a company and the first one to two days is filled with warm welcomes and a highly coordinated on-boarding process. You get a computer, a space to work, invitations for lunch and you settle into what you believe is a long and rewarding career. 

If you’re amongst the lucky few, you continue your experience with monthly meetings to discuss strategic alignment of your work with the purpose of the organization. Finally, you discuss the development skills needed to prepare you for the next level and only in the last part of your meeting, you discuss tactical issues needed to complete your work. 

Are these conversations not happening in your workplace? 

When Succession Planning is discussed on day 1 with an employee, your brand leads with this in mind; building a culture of grooming leaders.

When you attract talent in the context of succession planning (future focused) vs. filling a technical gap (today focused), the talent you draw to your organization shows up differently and your investments are better protected. 

You can start building a culture based on Succession Planning today by taking these steps:

• Ensure every functional area of the organization has a career ladder
• Include the next two roles in every job description so when you are hiring talent you are evaluating them in the context of the current role and the next levels above
• Implement leading indicator metrics that include:
• % employees on track for the next role
• % Job descriptions that have succession planning defined
• % Functions have a career ladder defined

The first day of my position as the Head of Operational Excellence for North America it was up to me to create my own plan. As a result, in my next 5 years:

• I rebuilt the Operational Excellence Organization to generate 5MM in cost savings annually (but I struggled a lot to make this happen)
• I aligned with the Head of Quality and started to shadow their work (to create my own succession plan)
• I was asked to succeed the Head of Quality and had only 2 weeks of transition (so I struggled a little less)
• I turned around North America’s Quality performance in 2.5 years, groomed my staff for the next level and handed over a transition plan for my successor. (my boss did not have to struggle with my replacement) 

When Succession Planning becomes an integral part of your culture, there are fewer surprises and people feel better prepared for the next role.

How will you create a Succession Planning Culture that attracts the right talent and more predictably prepares the organization for the future and a lasting impact?

Let’s book a call if you struggle with this and want to intentionally make Succession Planning your Organizational Lead Magnet.

“I just need you to make it simple for us,” said the senior leader of an organization I’ve recently started to help. They hired me to close a compliance gap, but as we dug into their situation, their rapidly growing organization was seeing the impact of complexity and the lack of efficient systems. My job was to leave a lasting impact by reducing complexity and mitigate risk in their business model

“I knew I had a message, but I could never find the right words,” said a recent coaching client. They’d been very successful in their coaching business, but they couldn’t see the gaps in their messaging that would potentially unleash connection with their ideal client. I could see them grappling for the right words and through well placed questions, the messaging revealed itself.

“You understand exactly what I need, when can we start,” said one of my favorite coaching clients when they were experiencing rapid change and I was able to reframe the leadership and technical solutions needed to get them back on track. My ability to see and hear what is said and see their body language enabled me to present a solution that would get them through the chaos.

The common thread amongst all these leaders is their blindspot to truly “see” the gap and provide a solution that solves their issue short & long term. 

Bringing in another set of eyes & ears enables them to see what is missing and provide a better solution by finding their “compass” to get back on track. 

The CEO’s Compass is your guide to get back on track and through assessing the 7 compass points to get you back to true North. 

By assessing your maturity across the dimensions of Purpose, Performance, Past, Pride, People, Process and Platform, you start to see the course to navigate back… but there’s another benefit I’ve not yet shared.

The CEO’s Compass is also for you. While written to address the business challenges of a CEO, each point can apply to you and your personal challenges of not feeling like you’re on track.

In my case, I recently saw via The CEO’s Compass, I did not have Peace of Mind. Doing a quick assessment across the 7 points, I was able to “see” I needed to focus on:

• People – my personal skills development to message better and create meaningful connections
• Platform – building on my accountability tools & decision logic; execute on tasks that are most impactful to my business and 
• Purpose – recommit to it and steer clear of the “shiny penny” that was starting to get me off track.

The answer is clear – every leader needs their own Compass, The CEO’s Compass is your too,  to get you back on track. 

I’d love to connect and understand where you are off track and ways we can work through it together. Let’s book a call!

When making the family spaghetti sauce recipe it’s important to stick with the ingredients that have stood the test of time and create an experience that connects the present day with your past. Having made the mistake “ONCE” of substituting jarred spaghetti sauce in the recipe nearly broke my marriage! We survived the day, but I learned my lesson to NEVER  recreate the experience without the essential ingredients. 

Now let’s think about job skills of our future leaders in the context of a recipe:

• 4 year degree
• 5-7 years of business experience
• 2-3 certifications in your field of expertise
• 1 hour of good communication 
• 20 minutes of giving feedback
• 5 seconds of navigating challenging conversations
• 1 millisecond of understanding the culture of the people they need to work with 

When you stir this up over 2-3 years, do you think the organization benefits from the investment? If it’s obvious to you this will not be  a recipe for success for the organization or the individual, then why do you continue with the wrong ingredients? What makes matters worse is the deep culture of the organization gets lost as we mix in individuals who lack the essential skills that create sustainability in your organization. People lose their trust in the organization because either brute force working long hours or having the right network is the only way to get ahead.  In “The CEO’s Compass”, the “Past” compass point along with the “People” point are where you need to navigate to, to get you to “Peace of Mind”; your true north. 

If this is you, then I want you to pause and reflect while I take a short detour…

My guest interview this week on The Drop in CEO Podcast with Tra Williams, we discussed Entrepreneurship and how critical it is to building our competitive advantage as individuals, communities and entire nations. His book, “Boss Brain” speaks on this at length. The essential skills are even more critical as the foundation for business and building relationships. Without cultivating those skills, the “American Dream” and for that matter, “Everybody’s Dream” for a better life is lost. Believing in entrepreneurship is believing in people and their talents to create a better future. Given this thought, why would you not cultivate this within business? 

When I think about you and the need to ensure you have the 3 Essential Ingredients for Leadership Recipe, I draw your attention to this picture.

You see my daughter and son making the recipe, but hidden in this image is your answer: 

1. Preserve the past of this recipe – where did it come from, why was it important to write it down, who created the recipe and what is the importance of each ingredient. When people understand the past culture,  they are more likely to understand how it connects to today. They will remember the story and build on it. 
2. Mentor the essential skills – now in the context of spaghetti, cooking the meat in the sauce, adding spices to taste and dipping the bread in it to make sure it has the right flavor are what we teach my children in making the recipe. The same goes for business when we give them the job description – we need to spend hours / weeks / years nurturing their ability to fulfill a role that provides value. When we skip this step, they may take short cuts like I did in buying jarred sauce, burning it if the stovetop temperature is too high, or one time I used sugar instead of salt. We save our employees some of this heartache if we invest some time in showing them the way. 
3. Show people you care about them; it goes a long way in building a trusting (and loving) relationship that ensures a sustainable business. While these are two of my three children making the sauce and we indeed enjoyed the results, it was more about learning the process and the experience of eating together. When we translate that same sense of family and caring to business, we not only create a sustainable business, but one that is creating a culture for tomorrow. 

With these key ingredients, for building your leaders of tomorrow and the culture you wish to see in a sustainable business, do you have everything you need to get started? Do you have the time to build your leadership team leveraging the culture, their technical skills while building their essential skills? If there are barriers in the way of starting, let’s book a call.  We can talk about the spaghetti sauce recipe, or we can talk about getting you back on track!

My heart sank when I had to call an emergency meeting with my team and had to basically say “stop everything,” because we had multiple crises to manage. I had fallen victim to what so many organizations do; ditch the strategic work in favor of firefighting. And here I was in that position, having to lead others and feeling so off track. 

I pulled out my CEO’s Compass to figure out how to stay grounded amidst the chaos and still move the organization with the strategic work in addition to the task at hand. But before I go into what I did, let me give you some context…

Crisis 1: We were having a quality problem in one plant for which we’d not found the root cause and putting us in a position of constant mitigation. On top of that, there was external pressure to resolve the issue, because there was also a major infrastructure enhancement due to start in the same area. To make matters worse, I was challenged to gain the support from some local leadership in order to bring in external resources to fill our capability gap given the multiple issues to manage. 

Crisis 2: We had found a quality issue with a supplier for which they were pushing back on us that it was not them. Despite collaboration to try to find the root cause of the quality issue, it soon escalated into our inability to ship products to a customer. When we brought all the interested parties together on a call we reached a conclusion that allowed us to continue shipping, but I felt defeated that I could not get to the root cause. What I did realize was that I got people’s attention and we collaborated on a solution; though not optimal. 

Crisis 3: We had a quality leader that was not performing and impacting the moral of the employees. We worked extensively to give them guidance and an opportunity to improve performance, but in the end we had to let them go. The energy we took to try to improve the situation for the manager and the employees ultimately was exhausting, we let them go and moved forward with interim leadership to help rebuild the organization. 

I had to quickly manage resources, set expectations and provide a calm environment for my team to perform at their highest potential as we gathered in our “War Room” to manage the crisis. While the CEO’s Compass was not even an idea at that point, it was a story in the making and here’s why:

To get back to True North or “Peace of Mind”, I needed to focus on 3 things:

• Purpose: We needed to get back on track as being a trusted brand and deliver safe & quality products our customers expected. Diverting resources for this greater purpose gives us the freedom to focus and know we would get back to the strategic work once capacity allowed us. The team poured their collective wisdom into the situation and they naturally started to collaborate on the best approach.
• Performance: I needed the framework to assess the needs of the organization, individual teams and the individuals themselves and provide the leadership, coaching and feedback needed during this time. I was no longer the subject matter expert and had to rely on really smart people on the best approach. My job was to remove barriers and provide tactical and emotional support so they could do their job.
• Pride: The intersection of the humanity on my team with their intellectual property was my single most important tool to get through this challenge. The team had expertise in areas I’d not needed to leverage and since I knew their past and what they’ve done before, I was able to deploy resources based on acknowledging their gifts and put them in the right places for the multiple crises. 

As I cleared the table for my team to address these multiple crises and had to say “stop everything.” But with these compass points in my pocket, they rose to the occasion and we addressed the crisis. Lessons unfolded into the strategic work we were meant to do. We had a few scars from these events, but we came out stronger than before. 

As I assessed the Compass points of “Purpose, Performance and Pride” to set the strategy to navigate these crises, I found myself back on track and could continue forward with the strategic work and lessons learned from these events. 

How do you manage through transformation or a crisis? What hard conversations do you have with your team? Do you have a Compass that with a few course corrections can get you back on track? 

If you don’t have a Compass, let’s book a call.