HumanSigma Ideation: LeaderShaping the Future

10 Metaphors to Use for Overcoming Success TRAPS

2009-10-10T01:22:00.000-07:00

People everywhere now days are in search for the best ways to have a happier life. With all of the stress, burdens and tug-of-wars that come along with job loss, downsizing and a lack of support from the doom and gloom economy, people are wondering what they must do to get through each day. If you are one of these people, or know someone who might be dealing with some of these same pains, take a look at the “10 Metaphors to Use for Overcoming Success TRAPS” – and, how these 10 strategies can help you to save the remains of your sanity to renew your focus on succeeding at all you setout to accomplish by visiting: http://skippersbiz.wordpress.com/

Success TRAPS: Awaken Your Realized Potential for Lasting Fulfillment

2009-09-20T04:39:00.000-07:00

Release Date: 11.11.09

My new book, Sucess TRAPS, taps into the riches of human motivation by stimulating the use of a new mindset. This landmark publication provides an inspiring outlook, collective wisdoms, tips, tactics and quotes to ponder that compels people to reach significantly higher levels in life and win on life’s battlefield. It offers a practical perspective that should serve as a foundation on the study of “self,” “people,” “management and leadership.” It is grounded on a simple, yet fundamental principle: First learn to lead yourself and then lead others to find their voice. It is both relevant and practical. I provide the essentials for anyone to keep striving for excellence no matter where they are or what they are doing. The advice benefits anyone in a work or non-work situation that is pressure-laden, but ultimately lacking in real personal satisfaction. Basically, it teaches what to do when you find yourself out at sea and in the water alone – “you put your head down and swim through the rough waves!”

Get ready for an exciting ride, but be prepared for a little emotional turbulence if you’re honest with yourself to create the needed opportunities that question your intentions in life. Each chapter gleans valuable insight that when put into practice helps you to develop the essential life skills used to change current and future circumstances.

What Ever It Takes!

2009-09-17T07:57:00.000-07:00

11.11.09

What Ever It Takes

On November 11, 2009, the Bison Group Corporation will debut a new advertising campaign titled “Winning the Battles.”

“Winning the Battles” is the prequel to the “Success TRAPS” project and campaign that launched on Veterans Day, November 11, 2008. America is reminded of the battles by honoring veterans who served and fought on behalf of world peace and protected the freedoms of America. Veterans reminded America of the purpose of service – to defend our nation’s freedom and the American way of life.

“Winning the Battles” is an authentic portrayal of what it really takes for Americans to stand-up to a higher purpose and overcome the enemies threatening their way of life on life’s battlefields. Developed by a team who have earned their place in a line of U.S. Marines that stretches back over 233 years, the new campaign explains the reasons why people across all corners of the nation must answering the call to excellence. Everyone who responds must start their journey to prove themselves, and uplift others to do the same, and take the steps to awaken their realized potential for lasting fulfillment in our nation’s most demanding test of mind, body, and character – Leadership. Only after they successfully complete the journey will they earn the title.

Watch the video, share it with friends and family, and come be a part of the journey that will take you down a long walk on a short path. It begins on 11.11.09 so be there to be one of the people who establish their vision for the future and set the strategy for getting there with the official premiere of “Winning the Battles.”

http://www.212movie.com/

A Consultant’s Economic Outlook using the Art of War

2009-08-19T20:17:00.000-07:00

Respected Colleagues, I need your help.

As a training consultancy operating within the business sphere over the last eighteen months, the economic state across the corporate sector signals a major shift in doctrinal thinking. With this in mind, a huge consensus suggests the sector is starring down the barrel of a massively destabilizing short range future outlook.

In the aftermath of our financial meltdown and in the words of President John F. Kennedy, “there’s something immoral about abandoning your own judgment.” This being said, there are two questions that consultants must consider today: “if the economic state has degraded (limited) our retaliatory options, for consultancy firms, how must we step-up our customer over flights (intelligence and understanding our clients), while determining best-fit organizations for individual service offerings?” And, “how can we help the organizations and the economy respond in the future by understanding ‘what’ to do before our leaders engage the ‘how-to’ do as a first strike policy?”

Your response is highly respected and welcomed with the highest regard. I will be using your answers, with your permission, in my upcoming book “Success TRAPS: Awaken your Realized Potential for Lasting Fulfillment.”

Ref. “The Devil’s Paint Brush within Organizational Leadership”

Thank you; please respond to Dpitts@thebisongroup.com.

Kindest regards.

The Devil’s Paint Brush within Organizational Leadership

2009-08-16T21:25:00.000-07:00

The article, “The Devil’s Paint Brush,” raises important questions about organizational leadership, provides information that will be new to some, yet revealing to others, and the answers provided are extremely exhilarating, yet troubling. Organizational leadership articles mostly present a single-sided view point of an issue and thus often fail to persuade the reader. This article’s approach, because enveloped as a case study with candor, revelations and an opportunity to overcome a leader’s self-doubt, is profound for anyone in a leadership, management or entrepreneurial position. The words of the outlined ten lessons are simple, but they need further unpacking to be understood – but the unpacked is hardly simplistic.

The article turns out to be neither triumphant nor liberating; it does not leave the reader feeling thrilled or especially enlightened. Its design raises as many questions as it resolves (transformational thinking). If I had to characterize my own reaction to the article, I myself would walk away feeling firmly stunned, or at best mightily puzzled about my own leadership style, ability and errors. Even as the author, I find myself metaphorically, scratching my head as I completed each lesson and “cared to think” about them later during my day.

But that’s not a bad thing. In fact, the article offers a sterling achievement for a proposed book. The operative phrase, however, is “cared to think,” and I fear that may be too great a task for the leaders across our small business sector. Although the content possess the potential to stir spirited and healthy debate, I expect my subtly disturbing article, to some, will most probably wind up preaching mostly to the choir and not widening the public debate about the lessons of Organizational leadership, let alone transformational thinking and decision making.

For that, I am sorry. Enjoy the article:

The Philosophy of LeaderShaping, the off-spring of the “Six Levels of Leadership,” depends heavily on “Communications” and “Intelligence” to be successful. When one or both of these elements becomes compromised, the result is known as the Fog of War. In military terms, this phenomenon encompasses all of the confusions and miscalculations, which can occur during an actual combat situation. In the case of unsuccessful organizational behavioral influences within the business sphere, it is defined as swaying public opinion across popular culture due to misinformation or ambiguous reporting of the facts. The Fog of War offers a clear definition for the “Devil’s Paint Brush:” a description of the actions across any organizational body that causes immanent death over a period of time.

An organization dealing with uncertainties within its master plan, internally and externally, can relate to the Fog of War through a common event known as “Murphy’s Law” (that whatever can go wrong, will): the natural result of organizations and their leaders rushing headlong into situations of negligible visibility. Further, this is explained as the influences of externally induced obstacles, which disrupt internal goal-oriented/directed behavior and process. The results of this common event could be catastrophic, as leaders in an organization fail to recognize the intentions of their cohorts, or target competitive positions thought to be clear of the organization’s interests. A collapse in process can be attributed to the Fog of War.

When Napoleon still ruled most of Europe, a Prussian general named Carl von Clausewitz wrote a book entitled “On War” – one of the all-time, classic books on warfare and strategy, still studied in military academies worldwide. In it, he coined the term “friction” to mean all the things that fail in the chaos of battle conditions. It’s better known in business as Murphy’s Law: that whatever can go wrong, probably will.

In another chapter of the same book, “Intelligence in War,” he discussed the problems of getting accurate information in the middle of a military engagement (for business purposes, this is known as “Intelligence of Process”): the effects of occupational hassles on negative mood and effort exertion.

Communication failures can also occur as a result of the Fog of War. By not closely examining operations, leaders cannot relay vital and timely course corrections or competitive positions to their Centers of Gravity in real time. This action can place the organization in harm’s way. Such delays and miscommunications are typically blamed on the Fog of War, since competitors and foes (in some cases, these people reside internally) may have to improvise a new strategy or retreat without sufficient time to relay their actions to their own operations. The Fog of War can also be blamed (in some cases) when vital orders from leaders are unsuccessful in reaching the strategic and execution teams in time.

The concept of a Fog of War has come under considerable criticism over the years. But, in the last eighteen months, it has been pronounced due to economic instability and poor planning by leaders across industry. Political leaders, elected officials and public and private leader’s response to these allegations often includes an allusion to Fog of War, meaning that some failures were due to real-time confusions, miscalculations and non-effective response to injury – not poor planning.

Some critics charge that the military depends too heavily on the Fog of War defense to excuse their own actions or missteps. This same defense can also be argued in the business sectors, but either sector being considered, military or business, the defense “should” not be accepted on a frequent basis – as a defense to failure (excuse) or missteps – for it goes against the very reason that “leadership” was birthed. Here’s an example of the Fog of War at work in business.

Fog and Friction: Why Organizations Suffer from the Devil’s Paint Brush

In 2008, I had the pleasure of training a new client on leadership, execution and team building. For the sake of eliminating any instance of embarrassment, I’ll change the client’s name to ABC & Company. Their dilemma at the time was two-fold; first, they wanted to become a stronger, more cohesive working team. Second, they wanted to learn a better way to execute by improving the leadership culture across the organization. During the four months of their training, an interesting occurrence continued to show itself – an example for demonstrated “Intelligence of Process.”

While outlining the Six Levels of Leadership, the client quickly realized that their business (and its future), like warfare, was messy and uncertain. They also learned that what von Clausewitz wrote holds true on both the battlefield and in the boardroom. As soon as people move from the calm of planning meetings to the messiness of action, fog obscures the vision and friction confounds preparation. While actions fail to work as planned (friction), accurate information is missed, lost, or mangled (fog). Regardless of how things are expected to turn-out, “all best laid plans change upon first contact with the enemy.” Amazingly, and with all of their training, the client quickly learned that regardless of any amount of training and learning, behaviors not changed brings calamity to any well run organization or military unit.

Fast forward a year to mid 2009, the client found themselves dealing with the Fog of War in the most profound way. A senior official responsible for running one of the organization’s successful profit centers decided to leave for a new opportunity. In doing so, the senior official offered a resignation, effective thirty days from the date of submission. In this specific situation, the executive leadership’s actions fell fault to Murphy’s Law and the Fog of War all in one swoop. Because their culture was one that demonstrated a “hierarchal leadership” approach, one that was actually disconnected from the day-to-day operations of the specific revenue center, the resignation caused confusion, tension, adrenaline, and anxiety to govern the more important pre-events of the transition process.

If you create “battle” pressures within an organization – by a lack of leadership and timely communications, competitiveness, low employee moral, fear of dismissal, pressure to win no matter what, and tyrannical management – you’ll get what real battles bring: chaos, confusion, constant breakdowns, frantic levels of anxiety, and many unnecessary losses. By the last week of the resignation and leading up to the last day as a member of the organization, the senior official was faced with employee infighting, a lack of trust from the consumer markets, insubordination, rebellious attitudes, and disobedience. The culture across the organization along with the stresses, competition, anxieties and pressures increased fog and friction a thousand-fold. This is a clear example of the effects of occupational hassles on negative mood and effort exertion. Simply, this is the potential for the beginning of the end – and, if this is not a wakeup call for the hierarchal leadership culture across ABC & Company, it could be the end of the organization as a whole. Little do they realize, but the Devil’s Paint Brush is designing a masterpiece on the very canvas of the client’s organization and culture.

Ten Lessons to Overcome the Devil’s Paint Brush

Every business activity has to generate a benefit to the business; if it does not I suggest you change it or stop doing it; hence, the concept of the Fog of War. The implication is that you need to measure the productivity of a number of activities so that you can measure and improve their profit contribution. This is why it is important to outline a series of lessons to overcome the Devil’s Paint Brush. These are your levers of productivity for your business – “a common architecture, a common application and a seamless approach” by all stakeholders to combat Murphy’s Law. This segment explains the principles of execution to increase/overcome barriers to productivity. Simply setting goals will not achieve your objectives; managing the activity that produces the result is what really counts. As we begin to look at how-to overcome this fog phenomenon, it’s important to comprehend the words of Carl Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist, influential thinker and the founder of analytical psychology (known as Jungian psychology): “The pendulum of the mind oscillates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong.” – Memories, Dreams, Reflections, 1962.

The lessons to overcome the Devil’s Paint Brush show you where to start:

1. Empathize with your Enemy,
2. Understand “Rationality” as the No-Safe-Zone,
3. Maximize Efficiency, Decrease Ineffectiveness,
4. Proportionality is an Absolute Guideline that Fails – within Reason!
5. Achieve the Data – Optimize its Resource,
6. Belief/Seeing are both often WRONG,
7. Prepare to Re-Examine your Reasoning,
8. Learn to Win Good by Engaging the Devil,
9. Never say Never – Never say I Can’t!
10. You Can’t Beat a Man at his Own Game – Human Nature.

Empathize with your Enemy. In order to limit opportunities for conflict, yet experience potential for peace, empathy must reside in all situations. However tough business and organizational needs might be, communicating with the enemy, empathically, creates an opening for successful outcomes. Empathy is the corrective action that overcomes all forms of misrepresentation and misunderstanding. Leaders using this strategy can remove themselves from their current emotional state, look at a situation through the lens of the opposing force and understand the thoughts that drive the decisions being made. The key to winning this strategy lie in your ability to know the enemy and how their culture responds to differing circumstances. In a military context, during the Vietnam War, the Vietnamese Government saw the United States as wanting to replace the French Government to preserve colonial power. The United States saw the Vietnamese as another potential cold war power, similar to the Russian Government. In the end, both countries were wrong. Neither imposed the strategy of “empathy” to learn what the other actually wanted (strategic intent was never understood). In the end, hundreds of thousands died on both sides and life for both cultures changed forever.

In the business context, leaders can only win this strategy by remaining connected to the day-to-day operations. Keeping a finger on the pulse of the business, internally and externally, including the actions, behaviors and thoughts of all stakeholders, allows leadership to remain ahead of the curve. But, at times of uncertainty as when essential staff moves away from the organization to pursue greater opportunities, the incident cannot cause for alarm as in the case of calling the fire “out-of-control.” This is the time that the leaders are able to spread their wings and demonstrate the true strength and foundation of excellence – the true substance of the organization must prevail beyond the parties being removed.

To be successful, leaders must empathize with the situation from all aspects (good and bad), understanding what is needed to use the situation as a growth opportunity, and get their hands dirty to realize how-to maximize the talents of the remaining human capital. People are the greatest asset to any organization, so this means that the leadership must be able to understand the thoughts and feelings of others – their internal and external customer. This cannot be done if the leaders are disconnected from the daily functioning of the organization or department being effected.

Understand “Rationality” as the No-Safe-Zone. I remember watching a fantastic movie titled, “Thirteen Days,” staring Bruce Greenwood and Kevin Costner. The film is set during the two-week Cuban missile crisis (Soviet nuclear weapons in Cuba) in October of 1962 and it centers on how President John F. Kennedy, Attorney General Robert Kennedy and others handled the explosive situation.

In October, 1962, U-2 surveillance photos revealed that the Soviet Union was in the process of placing nuclear weapons in Cuba. These weapons had the capability of wiping out most of the Eastern and Southern United States in minutes if they became operational. President John F. Kennedy and his advisors had to devise a plan of action against the Soviets. Kennedy was determined to show that he was strong enough to stand up to the threat, and the Pentagon advised U.S. military strikes against Cuba, which could have led the way to another U.S. invasion of the island. However, Kennedy was reluctant to follow through because a U.S. invasion would have cause the Soviets to retaliate in Europe. A nuclear showdown appeared inevitable and the question to ask now, some forty-seven years later is this: “how was it prevented?”

This story offers one of the greatest lesson for leaders to truly understand how-to win the strategy here. I encourage you, the reader, to rent the film from your local video rental for a lesson in leadership, patience, communications, strategy and the Fog of War. Having a true understanding of the actions from both presidents, Kennedy and Khrushchev, during this tense stand-off teaches just how fragile “rationality” actually is in times of uncertainty. It was later found out in a meeting in 1992 that the Soviets had parked 162 nuclear warheads, including 90 tactical warheads in Cuba during this critical moment in the crisis.

In the business context, leaders must have a proven process by which individuals are selected to be leaders, given they possess the required attributes and style that best fits the organization. Leaders responsible to the selection process must be equipped to make the best decisions to maximize the greatest payoff distributions. They must select the abilities after removing the noise inferred ex post from the immediate observed outcomes.

The framework design to follow must offer a model, which leaders’ judge relative to three different outcomes: First, risk must be considered at all levels of the organization. Behaviors and personalities coming together as ineffective ingredients can have a greater cost to the organization than any newly appointed incoming/ineffective leader. Second, “overconfidence” must be considered to ensure the actual needs of the organization are not being underestimated. This can cause a potential appointment decision to be based on “rationality” rather than “best practices” to meet current and future needs. Third, numerous implications for the analysis of real-world leadership and organizational behavior, new product development, relation of risk-taking to an organization’s situation and culture (past, present and future) must be discussed (i.e. one who underestimates project risk, has a higher probability of being chosen as the leader than an otherwise identical rational manager). Rationality can in fact cause a “No-Safe-Zone.”

Maximize Efficiency, Decrease Ineffectiveness. Time is critical and has a value that is mostly misunderstood. Efficiency must be a major consideration when faced with serious issues. Maximizing efficiency requires both “incremental change of process” in the way things are being done today, and “fundamental change” that brings on greater gains in efficiency for the future. Another aspect for consideration on this topic is “acceleration.” As we venture into the new world after the down sizing of the global business sphere, we’ll begin to see the need to do more with less – less cost, less time, less risk and less redundancy. To win this strategy, leaders must learn to increase efficiency across all aspects of their information infrastructure, deploy the most energy-efficient common application platforms for best practices, simplify their processes of compliance with regulations and policies, utilize the benefits of the digital age (automate IT management platforms and archetypes), secure accurate and trustworthy information at every level to execute strategically and flawlessly, and aim to be a strategic partner that enables the success of the people and organization simultaneously. Experiencing high levels of success in this area not only maximizes efficiencies, but also leverages expertise to help the organization emerge from areas of uncertainty stronger than ever into the future. All of these actions (and some not listed) decrease ineffectiveness across an organization and offer, to a leader, the many opportunities to be more effective within their operations.

Proportionality is an Absolute Guideline that Fails – within Reason! Some people seem to pursue an intuitive definition of proportionality in warfare: that the civilian casualties in war on either side should not be significantly higher than the civilian casualties on the opposing side. But, the actual definition, from international law, does not define it that way: the incidental or unintended harm caused to civilians or civilian property must be proportional and not excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated by an attack on a military objective. The question now is this: which definition makes more sense, the intuitive one or the legal one? One problem with the intuitive definition is that civilian casualties on one side could be used to justify deliberate civilian casualties on the other side. But, the official version is also problematic because it seems to justify any number of civilian casualties if the military advantage is judged great enough. Neither formulation, however you examine them, offer a quantitative comparison, which means that in any war, people holding different biases are unlikely to agree on whether or not proportionality was actually observed. Simply stated, “proportionality” in the military context is all about the rights and wrongs of killing civilians.

Proportionality in the business sense also has parallels to the definitions above, only it is outlined as a strategy to win. How, you might be asking yourself. Earlier, we outlined the definition for the Fog of War as the “actions across any organizational body that causes immanent death over a period of time.” One of the actions that leaders fail at is taking care of their organization’s greatest asset – the people. The principal fundamental asset of an organization is its people. They are the engines that drive performance and make things run. Without people, nothing can be achieved.

If leaders fail to inspire greatness from their people, they’ll quickly establish a guideline of perception that things such as profit and process has a greater value. This action is one that promises to cause immanent death to an organization. The key is to establish “Success Traps” that help individuals achieve Personal Proficiency to increase Professional Mastery. Leaders must be able to get people to answer a few questions:

- How do “I” respond to problems and challenges?
- How do “I” influence others to my point of view?
- How do “I” respond to the changing pace of the environment?
- How do “I” respond to rules and regulations set by others?

And, they too must be able to get their people to answer the following questions, as it relates to the overall state – and the future state – of the organization as well:

- Do “I” know where the organization wants to be in the future?
- Do “I” know what the organization will apply its resources against to achieve its Future Picture?
- How will the organization apply those resources? And, how might “I” contribute in the process?
- When and under what conditions will the organization exit from its current strategic plan? And, what influences will “I” contribute to ensure greater success to its outcomes?

It basically comes down to a single issue: “does leadership help everyone in the organization lead upwards? And if so, do they reveal the secrets of Service Performance Management to everyone?” In the current economy, facing the challenges of a deepening global recession with limited financial resources; many organizations are charting a new course. As business leaders navigate this evolving terrain, it is important that they satisfy the demands of customers, employees, and vendor relationships – and develop new strategies that address the economic, social, and environmental impact of their business processes and practices.

This is where service performance management adds value: Strategies to create business and societal value to provide the strategic clarity needed to align performance and service oriented management to business and organizational strategy, and hold individuals accountable while managing successfully through the downturn.

When leaders take care of their people, “proportionality” becomes a non-issue. But, when they do not value their people as their greatest asset or forget, immanent death over a period of time (shorter rather than later) is realized.

Achieve the Data – Optimize its Resource. Machines that run at high speed demand constant and abundant lubrication to prevent friction between the moving parts. Slower-speed machines need less. Running a machine, or a business organization, faster than it is designed to perform is the perfect recipe for provoking the maximum number of breakdowns. This is even more true when an organization is being forced to operate efficiently and effectively on a daily basis. Although its design requires peak performance, without the proper data to optimize its resources, things will go wrong and the leaders will experience the Fog of War.

Speaking about the need for data quality helps organizations generate the right form of business intelligence and assist leaders with making the right business decisions that becomes the game changer for the people and organization. The key to maximizing the data relies on a simple acronym that is all too familiar: GIGO – “Garbage in, Garbage out.” Data integrity is essential to an organization’s success and the leader’s ability to make great decisions.

Belief/Seeing are both often WRONG. “We see only what we want to see, and in most cases, our judgment in the face of chaos, causes us to be wrong – and right – when we only see half the picture.” Tom Petruno’s Money & Co. Blog back in April, 2008 talked about Wachovia Bank’s shareholders wishing that they could have a “do over” of the bank’s major foray into California. What he was referring to at the time was Wachovia’s 2006 purchase of Golden West Financial, the California lender that specialized in so-called option ARMs. As mortgage loan losses soared in 2008, Wachovia was forced to slash its quarterly dividend payment by 41%, from $.64 a share to $.375. At a time that the business world, more specifically, the financial markets were imploding, Wachovia was stated as saying “California really is bad and the acquisition of Golden West Financial was riskier than we initially thought” (Source: Goldman Sachs & Co. report).

The Golden West Financial organization didn’t just specialize in option ARMS, it lived, ate, and breathed them. According to Bloomberg News, “99% of Golden West’s mortgage loans were option ARMs.” You wonder, then, how it’s possible that Wall Street didn’t recognize how risky these loans were until, um, today (April 2008). Leaders must learn to take heed in the lesson that others have paid the ultimate sacrifice. The key to winning this strategy lies in a keen ability to “achieve the data and optimize its resource –and, understanding that there’s more than what meets the eye!”

Prepare to Re-Examine your Reasoning. Robert S. McNamara, the Eighth Secretary of Defense for the United States serving under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson from 1961 to 1968, is quoted as saying: “Were those who issued the approval to use Agent Orange criminals? Were they committing a crime against humanity? Let’s look at the law. Now what kind of law do we have that says these chemicals are acceptable for use in war and these chemicals are not. We don’t have clear definitions of that kind. I never in the world would have authorized an illegal action. I’m not really sure I authorized Agent Orange. I don’t remember it, but it certainly occurred, the use of it occurred while I was Secretary.” He is also quoted as saying: “What makes us omniscient? Have we a record of omniscience? We are the strongest nation in the world today. I do not believe that we should ever apply economic, political, and military power unilaterally. If we had followed that rule in Vietnam, we wouldn’t have been there. None of our allies supported us. Not Japan, not Germany, not Britain or France. If we can’t persuade nations with comparable values of the merit of our cause, we’d better reexamine our reasoning.”

What an amazing leadership lesson for us to learn from. These words are profound in a way that stipulates the reason to develop GREAT teams across an organization – and, hold them accountable for their actions and their leaders for the decisions being made when executing strategy. The greatest mistake that leaders can make is not reexamining their reasoning for moving forward with a decision. Responsible leaders develop a framework, or adopt a proven model that provides their people with a toolkit to think strategically, assess financial implications of their decisions, mobilize change within the organization and communicate with other business leaders. These actions help their managers and team leaders to chart the future of their departments, as well as manage for bottom-line performance in real-time. When a leader is able to perform in this manner, he/she provides engaging opportunities for others to specialize in a specific area of career interest. Having the confidence to remove yourself from popular culture, the “Art of Detachment,” and reexamine your reasoning, eliminates opportunities for mistakes to be repeated – by ALL parties.

Learn to Win Good by Engaging the Devil. Again, quoting Robert S. McNamara, he stated: “How much evil must we do in order to do good? We have certain ideals, certain responsibilities. Recognize that at times you will have to engage in evil, but minimize it.” This statement is in relation to the many awful things that took place in Vietnam. But, it still rings true today for the battles that are engaged by leaders in the business battle space. Sometimes, doing the right things means “not” doing what is right. Small business owners are faced with this dilemma day after day. However you look at it, it comes down to a decision having to be made. What do you do when you have to make a decision to speak an untruth because the circumstances are not right and the outcomes from the truth will do more harm? Here’s a way to deal with this dilemma.

In most cases, the Fog of War in business are the prime causes of loss and wastage in organizational settings – waste of money, time, effort, manpower, and resources of every kind. They turn opportunities into fiascos and cause excellent plans to fail. The world is already a turbulent place; there’s not much that you can do to change that. It makes no sense to add to your problems through self-inflicted and unnecessary pressure. So, the best way to avoid the effects of the Fog of War and ineffectiveness within the organization is this: slow down and operate from a clear Memorandum of Understanding that provides a common architecture, a common set of applications and a requirement of teams to complete the necessary tasks to win.

It is important that you, as a leader, have the necessary time to be proactive in order to limit any risk while moving forward (the difference between making a “compromise” vs. being “compromised”). When things go wrong, as they often do, do not switch into a panic mode, yet operate as if all is OK. The only way to pull this off is to learn how to remove yourself emotionally from the scenario you found yourself in, get reliable feedback from your peers, ensure the information (data) is accurate and uncompromised, make decisions with the future picture in mind (don’t win the small battles ONLY to lose the big war), and flawlessly execute to win.

And, if you’re wise, you’ll have expected failures along the way, prepared your contingency script and continue with non-missteps and limited surprises. Take time to let the fog clear and the dust settle. Most situations are less pressing and critical than you think. Success in business rarely depends on split-second decisions; but, in some cases, success may require you to come into the devil’s living room. When this happens and you are faced with asking yourself the question posed earlier in the segment, or a question that is unfavorable, keep the future picture and mission within sight. Engaging the devil may have to occur; when you must, do so with stunning insight and perspective. The cleanup when it’s all over must be as limited with work as possible and its cause cannot be revisited by you.

Never say Never – Never say I Can’t! Winning this strategy is simple: one of the lessons I learned early on during my service as a United States Marine is this: Never say never – never say I can’t! Never, never, never, never… say never or I can’t. And more importantly, never answer a question that is asked of you. Answer the question that you wish had been asked of you and do it honestly. Quite frankly, it is my opinion that if leaders follow these two rules, they’ll find themselves in a pretty successful position and be able to sleep at night with a clear conscience. These rules offer a simple approach. These rules are very easy to follow.

You Can’t Beat a Man at his Own Game – Human Nature. Here’s one last quote from Robert S. McNamara: “We all make mistakes. We know we make mistakes. I don't know any military commander, who is honest, who would say he has not made a mistake. There's a wonderful phrase: 'the Fog of War.' What 'the fog of war' means is: war is so complex it's beyond the ability of the human mind to comprehend all the variables. Our judgment, our understanding, is not adequate. And we kill people unnecessarily.” There’s an old adage that says “everything that’s gold don’t shine and people waiting in a long line do not constitute that they are waiting for something that is good.” Any military commander or business leader who is honest with him/herself, or with those they are speaking, will admit that he/she has made mistakes in the application of military power or in making sound business decisions. In order for leaders to win this strategy, human nature must be paid attention to at all times.

Here are a few things that can be achieved if to win the man at his own game:

Self-Serving Bias: We consistently think that we are better than we actually are. This can lead us into all kinds of traps that we will not be able to escape from. The key to avoiding this pitfall is to increase personal and situational awareness of strengths and weaknesses. Undergoing a behavioral assessment offers insight into your behavioral language and influences and provides an unfiltered view of the things that need improving overcoming the many things that hold up back from reaching our full potential.

Reliance on “Centers of Gravity:” The influence of others may not be as great as you think. Generally a “society” (family, employees, etc) changes more in response to how appealing the change is, rather than to the persuasiveness of a select few. Learn what motivates the people you’re concerned about and base your case on their interests. Most people will not champion an unfair system. If people believe they are being asked to do something they consider unfair, they will go to great lengths to avoid doing it. Pay close attention to what others believe is “fair” and you will keep people engaged and committed to the direction you want to take.

Behavior and PIAV Adds Up! Many people believe that behavior, personality, interests, attitude and value system are learned, most other people believe they are inbred. There’s probably a formula in there somewhere that combines all elements. What’s important is that people can learn new behaviors, gain a healthier attitude and adjust their values, which means they can change when and if they choose to do so. People operate in comfort zones. Sometimes those zones become “ruts” and we define ruts as “graves with the ends kicked out.” That means some people may figuratively die long before they’re ever buried. Because new behaviors, attitudes and value system adjustments can be learned, most people will give up an old way of doing something or take on a new, different belief, as long as there is some reward associated with an increase in pride, pleasure, peace of mind, or profit. Profit, in terms of money, is the most expensive way to work for change. Remember that the stake in the game doesn’t always have to be financial. Money may motivate, but it usually doesn’t satisfy for long and the effects are often short lived.

So, if you want to beat the man at his own game, use a compelling story to create inspiration for yourself and others. Let the people who are influenced by your leadership and actions have some say in how the story is going to be told and how the legacy is going to be lived after you are gone. Give them tools to work with. Give them feedback on how they’re doing. And, finally, pay attention to human nature. “We need more understanding of human nature; because the only real danger that exists is man himself...We know nothing of man, far too little. His psyche should be studied because we are the origin of all coming evil.” – Carl Jung, BBC interview, 1959.

Summation

The final lesson as we close this article is that leaders don’t just become prisoners of their perceived success. They also become prisoners of their errors. This article uses a strong military theme to outline the effects of unsuccessful organizational behavioral influences within the business sphere known as the Fog of War; swaying public opinion across popular culture due to misinformation or ambiguous reporting of the facts. The Fog of War also presents the phenomena as a tragedy for the best, talented and the brightest. These individuals simply follow as logic and common sense are both compromised. And, however independent they may have started off, soon these leaders fall victim as owners of an error they cannot admit to – the image starring at them in their reflection in mirror, who by the way is speaking the truth (mirrors don’t lie). This is by no means to suggest that leaders are not capable of being truthful about their mistakes and errors. It does suggest that the Devil’s Paint Brush makes it hard to do so. It is actually quite impressive that McNamara ever did, even years later and in a fairly limited way (admit his errors). But, although late, his account offers a learning tool for the rest of us.

Enhancing leadership decisions with independent executive judgment is a worthy aim. The life of so many leaders suggests that it is easier wished for than achieved. Avoid the Devil’s Paint Brush: the actions across any organizational body that causes immanent death over a period of time – and, a concept of battlefield or business uncertainty during a potential conflict – even when you refuse to see one headed in your direction.

The Racism that Resides within us causes the “F” Bomb!

2009-07-29T10:22:00.000-07:00

Even in 2009, the beginning of the 21ST century, racism is still prevalent because of a lack of understanding and moral blindness; it has birthed many of society’s ills and significantly fails to appreciate the many differences in the biological and physical characteristics of individuals. It is a cause for wonder.

“Racism is conditioned by economic imperatives, but negotiated through culture: religion, literature, art, science and the media… Once, they demonized the blacks to justify slavery. Then they demonized the “colored” to justify colonialism. Today, they demonize asylum seekers to justify the ways of globalism. And, in the age of the media… demonization sets out the parameters of popular culture within which such exclusion finds its own rationale — usually under the guise of xenophobia, the fear of strangers.” – A Sivanandan, Extracted from Race & Class (Vol. 43, no. 2, October–December 2001).

Racism causes us to speak the four letter “F” word found in our daily language. It is the birthplace of discrimination, separation and segregation, byproducts of a racist mentality due to ignorance. It is a mechanism that allows a roaring emotional state due to remembrance and the verbal expression that commonly articulates surprise, shock and anger when it shows its ugly face. It doesn’t matter the lens that racism is looked through, how it’s filtered to shed reason for its cause or who is right because of circumstance, racism, or its perceived behavioral influence and re-action causes behaviors that are against the values that humanity is designed. And, the convicted parties on all sides demonstrate that all too familiar four letter “F” word that expresses the emotion that everyone has experienced at one time or another in their life – FEAR!

Racism and fear are synonymous of one another, both causing people to feel anxious or apprehensive about a possible or probable situation, circumstance or event. They are used to introduce unpleasant statements or emotions experienced in anticipation of some specific pain, danger and uneasy or apprehensive concern (usually accompanied by a desire to flee or fight). The fear is due to the conviction that the members of one specific group are inherently superior to the members of other groups. This conviction is often manifested by discriminatory behaviors and practices towards the members of the supposed inferior groups.

Now that the lessons for racism have been defined, let’s talk of ways to overcome the fears that ultimately lead to the sword of demise. Yes, the word sword is used because it is often seen as an instrument of death and destruction. But, since we are focusing on bringing a resolution to the forefront of the issues that stem from racism and fear, we can learn from one of the greatest swords in the world, carried by men and women of one of the very best organizations that produces the top leaders on the globe – a premium grade Mameluke Sword and the United States Marine Corps.

Just like our U.S. Marines who always seek improvement, the Mameluke Sword is symbolic of excellence. The blade is already beautifully prepared; the craftsmanship is refined and etched to perfection. When presented to a U.S. Marine Corps officer, the sword consists of absolutely superb castings (the drag on scabbard and the acorns on the hilt) and carries with it a tradition that lives on almost as a mythical legend. The sword represents a certified metaphor of performance, now enlisted to the men and women who are “expected” to perform as the best the world has to offer. To some, the U.S. Marine Corps offers imagery of an organization led by old military commanders seeking to wage battle. This remains largely dubious, especially in today’s increasingly complex, networked world. Rather, they are leaders – men and women, young and old – of all races and endeavors who seek to better themselves and others each day of their life. They love to win, yet they think beyond themselves. They love to compete, yet they show compassion for their fellow human beings. And, they see no race, yet each individual is seen as crossing the right of passage – the rigors, disciplines, decisions, pains and defeats – of becoming the leader who has earned the title “United States Marine.”

A Marine and his/her sword regard with feelings of respect and reverence; consider hallowed or exalted and they are in awe of their own will to win through the efforts of others. They marvel at genius, a feeling of profound respect for someone or the mission they are assigned to accomplish. They too fear that which is not understood, but they carry with them a culture of honor, respect, tradition, resilience, excellence and perfection in performance that overcomes the actual fear that they face. This form of reverence overcomes the destruction that opposes harmony or community, the enslaved misunderstood mindsets that keeps division.

So, why do we fear what is not understood? One wonders. You may recall that as a very young child, you were usually free from fear. You may be swinging at the playground, racing your buddy to see who could go the highest and ready to jump, or about to fuse a firecracker – you aren’t scared and the unknown for the immediate future is also not understood. Can we call it something other than fear, such as bravery? Absolutely not; being unaware of the misunderstood is a means to grasp the opportunity for further education – one that is freed from fear. So, at this very early stage in life, children are guided by their parents, guardians and well-wishers in ways that teaches them to conqueror their fears, only in some cases, fears are placed within them that they do not own – racism. It is at this early stage and time that adults must carry the Mameluke Sword and teach the perfections that will etch the superb castings of our future – the children. And, prepare them through teachings of the Lord: “to love thy neighbor as you would want them to love you.”

We must get back to the basics and principles that have been afforded us by the men and women who have laid the foundations of a great race – humanity – which is unique. Each individual regardless of race or gender is special in a way that teaches others to become a better quality and quantity to life. Most importantly, we must teach our children (and adults who act as children even when they are greatly respected) that humans actually have more in common than not. Even science agrees to this point and it is supported by the Bible. Acts 17:26 (King James Version) declares, “And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation.” This makes us know that all mankind has the same origin, indeed we are one race of human beings. The diversity and uniqueness of both people and nations are manifestations of God’s awesome creativity and power.

But, the battle wages on in us all, regardless of how one feels. The moral blindness of racism fails to appreciate that the differences that we all offer to one another. Do we ever spare a thought about how a child would cope with the unknown or misunderstood? At a time where the United States of America has come together, in the majority – all races and both genders – to elect the first African American President, we still have stories in the media that instructs to our children that we have not grown up to lead by example. It is here that we forget that the child (and again, the adult who acts and speaks as a child) must be taught to deal with and overcome the bullies of life – racism and fear.

We must teach them to carry their own swords as a metaphor of performance. To become the leaders – men and women, young and old – of all races and endeavors, who seek to better themselves and others each day of their life. They must be taught to love to win, yet they think beyond themselves. They must be taught to love to compete, yet show compassion for their fellow human beings. And, they must be taught to see no race, yet “understand” that each individual is seen as special with something to teach and offer to the world.

This my friends is the only way to journey the right of passage – the rigors, disciplines, decisions, pains and defeats – of becoming the people who have truly earned the right to wear the title, a “LEADER.”

Leadership 2.0

2009-07-27T11:05:00.000-07:00

I have been following a discussion on LinkedIn about Leadership 2.0 where Janet Monk, IT Executive, ITIL Service Manager hit the nail on the head when she posed her question; “how do we get back to the original design that leadership was meant for?” I believe that in doing so, just as times have changed so must the outlook for the very fabric and defined meaning of leadership itself. I don’t believe that we have to develop Leadership 2.0, but execute a significant “behavioral rewiring” that instills an “us” vs. “I and me” perspective to life and through people. As a U.S. Marine turned business educator, I have always believed that leadership is too one dimensional (probably looked at as Leadership 1.0).

My team and I are currently facing this new paradigm by instructing others on the influences that military stratagem has on the effects of leadership and team building. What we think people need to realize is that leadership is tested in the military/leadership laboratories to define the effects it has on strategic thinking (decision-making) and the ability to execute flawlessly. This perspective and their outcomes offer significant findings and are often overlooked for the absolute wrong reasons – if there is a civilian who has not begun to think of war from a different perspective than war itself, then this current global economic crisis has to make them aware of the effects the current war we are all facing, economically, has on ALL people, everywhere (i.e. The Tragedy of Competition).

Teaching what we have come to realize is only a single step forward in rewiring behaviors, using military stratagem, we’ve come to understand leadership as a multi-dimensional set of influences that achieves a state of Personal Proficiency and Professional Mastery; “The Six Levels of Leadership: Military Stratagem meets the New World Order – of Business!”

Examining the Six Levels of Leadership: Pinpoint the effects of applying an “adaptive” leadership style through an interactive session with lessons learned from yesterday to create a better tomorrow.

Charting-off: Leadership Levels 1 & 2: Establish your Leadership Signature and increase your level of Emotional Intelligence – clarify and critique the attributes of emerging leadership.

Plotting the Course: Leadership Levels 3 & 4: Understand how-to experience a “Breakthrough” to begin your “Break-with” and increase your level of leadership, performance and execution.

Raising the Sails: Leadership Level 5: Learn to lead teams into qualitative team building maneuvers that prevails over the challenge of change at a time that change is definitely required in most organizations – explore expansive influence, leadership multiplication and cohesiveness.

Into the Wind: Leadership Level 6: Learn to employ organizational strategic execution tactics (The OrgSx Paradigm) to permeate enduring greatness through a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will – and the disciplines of “strategic agility and flawless execution (debriefing) with a modest approach and an unwavering commitment to higher standards, and NOT forgetting how we got here in the first place…

Success TRAPS: Understanding How-to Answer the Four Questions to Heal the Pains and Strengthen your Future Picture. This discussion works to help participants understand “accountability:” Why am I hurting? What is it about “me” that influences the hurt? How do I prevent re-injury – although I know that it will be re-visited? And, how do I change my circumstances, current and future?

Basically, looking at the last 18 months have been the most trying in decades for business leaders. The conditions that normally make running an organization of any type – a business unit or a team rewarding is market expansion, revenue growth, rising pay, and incentives – have been absent for most, replaced by the unrelenting tasks of survival, retrenchment, and cost cutting. So, it comes down to a single question: “what must leaders do in this depressed environment and what must they do not to return?”

We argue that the first task of leadership is to identify the default future, discuss it, and analyze it, and then go about re-imagining – and, in effect, rewriting the future. It has to be about Flawless and Strategic execution by teams!

Leaders must learn to overcome the daunting task of facing the future alone by teaching them to rewrite the future that leads to real business transformation with profitable growth for everyone, while eliminating the domino effects of failure.

And the lessons must be just as applicable to individuals. Here’s my bottom line, people and organizations have been leading, both poorly and with great outcomes, for centuries. Nothing new and surely nothing unique can be developed to change leadership. Leadership 2.0; why not get back to the original design that leadership was meant for, but look at it through a different lens using the lessons learned from yesterday? Leadership 2.0 does not warrant the time and effort to develop – stay with what works, only with a few tweaks!

Facebook Online Leadership Community

2009-07-26T11:57:00.000-07:00

Please join our online community and allow me to welcome you in advance! The purpose of the site is to discuss new and emerging trends within the performance management and human capital/talent management industry, in particular the emergence of our military-style executive education LeaderShaping concepts, including transformational leadership, organizational behavior, strategic execution and team building maneuvers – and their effects on the business, private, Government, faith-based and non-profit leadership communities.

Your colleagues, and the prospects you are targeting, all think much different than they did in the past. How are you adapting to this change? Transformational thinking qualities such as how business is conducted due to social networking (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Etc) have revolutionized the way people interact with each other and gather information. This information could include ways to deal with closing sales, overcoming resistance to change, resolving workplace conflict or even developing better teams to face the climate of uncertainty! These new social media, and others like them which require and thrive on the input of users, are commonly referred to as Web 2.0 platforms – and the world of leadership must also follow suite to remain in front of the technological curve to experience the many benefits shared.

Like Web 2.0, our LeaderShaping concept is not a new version, but rather, as the realization of the global leader’s thinking and decision making potential, it’s second coming (future generation) so to speak.

So, in the spirit of things, please join our online community and you are strongly encouraged to add feedback, photos, video, and start discussion topics on things that are relevant to you and our industry as a whole. Enjoy!

Also, keep in mind we have a LeaderShaping LinkedIn Group, as well:

Our Mission: Develop leadership qualities that instill and promote Personal Proficiency, while increasing Professional Mastery to achieve desired outcomes within life’s Future Picture and the success of the workplace.

The Products: Tips, discussions and white papers for training and increasing both “you” and your “teams” Personal Proficiencies and Professional Mastery in the areas of Transformational Leadership, Organizational Behavior, Strategic Execution, Diversity Education and Team Building Maneuvers to help you with coming out of the economic downturn.

We hope to see you online. Be well and keep your head to the sky.

Contact: Damian D. “Skipper” Pitts
Email: Dpitts@thebisongroup.com
www.thebisongroup.com
www.facebook.com/DDP.Skipper
http://www.linkedin.com/in/skipper
http://bisongroup.blogspot.com

New Bison Group Training site in Philadelphia, PA Targets the Economic Downturn

2009-07-26T09:15:00.000-07:00

As business transformation and intelligence needs evolve, Bison will be with them.

PHILADELPHIA, PA (July 20, 2009) – The Bison Group, the leader in military-style executive education, opened a new regional office and training facility this month in the nation’s fourth-largest urban area by population and its fourth-largest consumer media market as ranked by the Nielsen Media Research (Philadelphia proper totals more than 1.4 million and the Greater Philadelphia metropolitan area of 5.8 million residents). Philadelphia is a growing market for “Leading out of the Downturn; the most important task for leaders is to re-orient the minds of the people toward a positive vision of the future,” says consultant and author Damian D. “Skipper” Pitts.

The Greater Philadelphia metropolitan area offers one of the largest concentrations of universities and colleges in the country and has become second to none at offering executive education and innovative approaches for winning over uncertainty.

The last 18 months have been the most trying in decades for business leaders. The conditions that normally make running an organization of any type – a business unit or a team rewarding is market expansion, revenue growth, rising pay, and incentives – have been absent for most, replaced by the unrelenting tasks of survival, retrenchment, and cost cutting. What should leaders do in this depressed environment? The first task of leadership, Bison argues, is to identify the default future, discuss it, and analyze it, and then go about re-imagining – and, in effect, rewriting the future. The Bison Group’s program, “The Six Levels of Leadership,” helps business leaders overcome the daunting task of facing the future, by teaching them to rewrite the future that leads to real business transformation with profitable growth. And the lessons are just as applicable to individuals.

The Bison Group, a team of U.S. Marines turned business professionals, is a leader in military-style executive education and learning services firm for business, education, government, faith-based organizations and higher learning institutions. Bison’s consultancy works to improve the clients’ business performance by redesigning how they behave, think, and train their associates using strategies from the U.S. Marine Corps. It’s the goal of Bison’s teams to implement the rigor and discipline from its training designs, instruct the global marketplace how-to increase their human capital, and increase performance and integrated talent management’s “best practices” to exceed the outcomes within the Future Picture that lie waiting around the immediate corner.

During a recent training with start-up technology firm “PropertyCentric” in Philadelphia, centered on providing custom built local search engines and online marketing strategies for the property management industry, Skipper replied to a question by stating: “some organizations are doing well, but for many, it’s a very tough and nasty battlefield. What happens when people focus on that is that their down range view gets smaller and all they can see is the immediate targets and danger. It’s like they’re a patient in the makeshift battlefield intensive care unit and they’re doing everything they can to get back to their team and unit. But, the question should and “must” be: when you come out of the battlefield ICU, how do you build a strong and healthy Future Picture for yourself and others? Leaders need to be setting in motion transformative execution strategies and principles to follow that really are about the newly emerging future that has never been seen before. What are you going to be, how are you going to act and what will you look like when this turns around? Will you still be standing?”

It was in this city that many of the ideas, and subsequent actions, gave birth to the American Revolution and American Independence, making Philadelphia a centerpiece of early American history. It was the most populous city of the young United States and served as the nation’s first capital during much of the Revolutionary War and thereafter. Following the ratification of the U.S. Constitution, it was the temporary national capital from 1790 to 1800 while Washington, DC was under construction – and, now the home for an even more radical approach to providing leadership and team building maneuvers with the Bison Group to lead out from this downturn with promising outcomes.

Bison’s industry expertise is evidenced by long-term relationships with customers including Wachovia, Lockheed Martin, Wells Fargo, Hilton Hotels, Universal Studios – Florida, Temple University, James Madison University, U.S. Prison Systems and the U.S. Film Industry.

The new office officially opened July 1 and features a training center and attractive meeting space. The facility is located in historic Chestnut Hill, PA – a prime community in the Northwest section of the city. Interested parties can reach the Bison Group team by contacting the office at (877) 838 – 3753.

LeaderShaping your Way out of the Downturn

2009-07-25T12:09:00.000-07:00

The power in this program stems from using the Laws of Performance Management combined with the military strategies from the United States Marine Corps. The Laws of Performance Management does not offer a rule or code to follow, but distinguishes the moving parts at work behind defining a process for setting goals and regularly checking progress toward achieving the desired outcomes and effects as observable phenomenon. A law is invariable, a system of rules usually enforced through a process and by institutions. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a primary social mediator in relations between people – whether you believe that the military does more than just fight wars or not doesn’t lessen its effect on you.

The greatest advances in history have come at times of uncertainty and economic despair that called for applying newly discovered laws and strategies. Think of Sir Isaac Newton’s laws of motion. They describe the relationship between the forces acting on a body to the motion of the body. When applied in a business context, they become powerful and predictive. When the Laws of Performance Management combined with the U.S. Marine Corps stratagem are applied, performance and leadership transforms to a higher level of understanding and purpose far beyond what most people think is possible. It does not occur in small subsets, but all at once, as individuals and organizations rewrite their Future Picture.

The opening segment of the program, the “Executive Education” overview, takes the stratagem one at a time, introduces and examines “The Six Levels of Leadership” and demonstrates how to apply them. You’ll pinpoint the effects of applying an “adaptive” leadership style through an interactive session and how to jettison what’s holding you back; create a future for yourself and your organization beyond what’s predictably going to happen. Along the way, you’ll likely see and transform much of what is holding you back (behaviors and values), both personally and professionally.

Through the journey of the opening segment, we’ll show how “The Six Levels of Leadership” will hold true, in any circumstance individuals and organizations may face – they are universal principles that will win at any time and in any scenario type. We’ll see the result of understanding and applying them – dramatic elevations in performance that can be used to lead you out of a downturn and re-orient the minds of staff and employees toward a positive vision of the future.

The second part, “Charting-off: Leadership Levels 1 & 2,” is about the personal face of leadership. This session shows how you can apply the stratagem – and in the process expand your own leadership. Charting-off is about taking the long walk down the short path to increase your level of Personal Proficiency and provides some guidance on how to take these new ideas out into your world. Charting-off establishes your Leadership Signature and increases your level of Emotional Intelligence – clarifying and critiquing the attributes of emerging and adaptive leadership. It looks at leadership in light of the Laws of Performance Management.

This segment identifies key leadership behaviors and value propositions, and how to apply them in and across organizational environments and workplaces. We also look at the new frontier of organizational behavior: working effectively in the emerging and developing world, creating sustainability in communities and generating the expansion of wealth (both material and in the well-being of people). This segment is intended for people interested in becoming an agent of change, raising their levels of individual and professional leadership.

The third part, “Plotting the Course: Leadership Levels 3 & 4,” helps you with understanding how-to experience a “Breakthrough” to begin your “Break-with” and increases your level of leadership, performance and execution all with the same amount of energy. We’ll visit national and international organizations through third party white papers, looking into diverse industries such as aerospace, energy, construction, and technology. We’ll even make stops at top U.S. conglomerates, the Wharton School of Business, Harvard Business School, Darden School of Business and other institutions.

The fourth part, “Raising the Sails: Leadership Level 5,” helps you with learning to lead teams into qualitative team building maneuvers that prevails over the challenge of change at a time that change is definitely required in most organizations. It explores expansive influence, leadership multiplication and cohesiveness.

The fifth part, “Into the Wind: Leadership Level 6,” helps you with learning to employ organizational strategic execution tactics (The OrgSx Paradigm) that permeates enduring greatness through a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will – and the disciplines of “strategic agility and flawless execution (debriefing) with a modest approach and an unwavering commitment to higher standards – individually and organizationally.

“The Six Levels of Leadership” is the stimulus to initiate and maintain the behavioral and emotional relationships necessary to develop the leadership traits needed to successfully contest rapid change: an interactive investigation that takes you on a journey to increase Personal Proficiency that leads to greater levels of Professional Mastery and respect. You’ll learn from one of our Master Facilitators how to lead at both the head and heart levels – from any position within your organization.

Based on the content of nationally-acclaimed leadership and team building expert, facilitator, and author Damian D. “Skipper” Pitts, the Six Levels equips you with the tools and knowledge to become the leader “you,” “your team” and “your organization” requires: The LeaderShaped Leader! Additionally, with the daunting outlook and uncertainties in the current economic climate, participants are able to examine the newest features of the program, “Success TRAPS: Understanding How-to Answer the Four Questions to Heal the Pains and Strengthen your Future Picture.” This segment works to help participants understand: Why am I hurting? What is it about “me” that influences the hurt? How do I prevent re-injury – although I know that it will be re-visited? And, how do I change my circumstances, current and future?

With a dedicated perspective, participants are able to navigate through various steps to ensure they follow the right path for the greatest benefit. Learning to transform into a LeaderShaped Leader, you’ll be able to transition top leadership, project management, execution and team building performance – all encompassed within the stratagem – the Laws of Performance Management combined with the military strategies from the United States Marine Corps. This program delivers the required skills so that you can execute and more effectively communicate to gain more retention from the people influenced by your leadership.

This program is not an academic study, although its conclusions draw on well-established lines of research. Our intent is to introduce these principles and illustrate how their application can enhance performance. The examples almost all come from cases in which we and our colleagues have been personally involved – and in some cases, from third party relationships such as Booz & Company, Bersin and Associates and others in the field of leadership, strategic execution, team building and performance research. We’ve been there, seen it and now we want to share it.

In attending this program and reading the materials, journals and publications – and applying the stratagem – you’ll do more than find fixes to your problems and challenges. You’ll find the power to rewrite your future.

For additional information, please contact:
Damian D. “Skipper” Pitts, Instructor,
The Bison Group® Corporation
Toll Free: (877) 838 – 3753
Email: Dpitts@thebisongroup.com
www.thebisongroup.com
www.teambuildingbootcamp.com

6 Levels of Leadership City Tour

2009-07-20T20:35:00.000-07:00

“Setting an example is not the main means of influencing another, it is the only means.” – Albert Einstein

In our exploration of leading in uncharted territory, we dare to share a simple principle: Use discipline and rigor while remaining strategic and nimble in answering the following:

- What kind of influence do you have in the workplace?
- Do people understand what it takes to move performance to the next level?
- Do they understand how to follow when led…and, how to lead when others must follow?
- Do they know how to execute strategically and flawlessly?

Let The Bison Group stimulate your ability to impact your workplace. The Six Levels of Leadership, also known as “The LeaderShaped Leader,” helps you to consider Key Talent Management Processes that drive high levels of business impact. The business world had to realize that their potential leaders are a major asset – and do so rather quickly. Taking that potential and developing it is highly desirable, especially during an economic downturn, downsizing, mergers and acquisitions, and layoffs.

The Process of LeaderShaping is the stimulus to initiate and maintain the behavioral and emotional relationships necessary to develop the leadership traits needed to successfully contest rapid change: an interactive investigation that takes you on a journey to increase Personal Proficiency that leads to greater levels of Professional Mastery and respect. Learn from one of our Master Facilitators how to lead at both the head and heart levels – from any position within your organization.

Based on the content of nationally-acclaimed leadership and team building expert, facilitator, and author Damian D. “Skipper” Pitts, the Six Levels equips you with the tools and knowledge to become the leader your team and your organization requires: The LeaderShaped Leader!

With a dedicated perspective, participants are able to navigate through various steps to ensure they follow the right path for the greatest benefit. Learning to transform into a LeaderShaped Leader, you’ll be able to transition top leadership, project management, execution and team building performance skills so that you can execute and more effectively communicate to gain more retention from the people influenced by your leadership.

Upcoming Dates and Locations

September 9, 2009 Philadelphia, PA
September 16, 2009 Cherry Hill, NJ
September 23, 2009 New York City, NY
September 30, 2009 Wilmington, DE

Materials

Too many corporate training experiences hand out little more than catchy clichés and cheerleading slogans. At The Bison Group, we value motivation and encouragement, but we also believe in the long-lasting impact of practical tools and resources.

Our in-depth, classroom style symposium provides you with an accurate picture of your present leadership position. During the day, you’ll capture the essence of the Six Levels of Leadership in the course workbook. In addition, certified facilitators will help you craft a customized Strategic Performance Management Action Plan (SPMAP) with tangible steps to guide your leadership to new heights.

Rates

Individual Fees: $499.00
* Prices include attendance at each session, course materials, and lunch.

What You Will Learn

Through a day of highly personalized and experiential learning, you will:

- Learn the difference between dynamic leadership and mediocre management,
- Examine applicable leadership case studies,
- Apply a series of simple principles and strategies to empower your team, and
- Chart your leadership course with a personalized SPMAP (Strategic Performance Management Action Plan) that finds your leadership voice.

Agenda

Six Levels of Leadership One-Day Workshop
8:00 am – 4:45 pm

Module I - Examining the Six Levels of Leadership
Pinpoint the effects of applying an “adaptive” leadership style through an interactive session

Module II – Charting-off: Leadership Levels 1 & 2
Establish your Leadership Signature and increase your level of Emotional Intelligence – clarify and critique the attributes of emerging leadership

Module III – Plotting the Course: Leadership Levels 3 & 4
Understand how-to experience a “Breakthrough” to begin your “Break-with” and increase your level of leadership, performance and execution

Module IV – Raising the Sails: Leadership Level 5
Learn to lead teams into qualitative team building maneuvers that prevails over the challenge of change at a time that change is definitely required in most organizations – explore expansive influence, leadership multiplication and cohesiveness

Module V – Into the Wind: Leadership Level 6
Learn to employ organizational strategic execution tactics (The OrgSx Paradigm) to permeate enduring greatness through a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will – and the disciplines of “strategic agility and flawless execution (debriefing) with a modest approach and an unwavering commitment to higher standards

Seats are limited, so register today by email at:

Solutions@thebisongroup.com
www.thebisongroup.com
www.teambuildingbootcamp.com

Factors that Drive Positive Impact & ROI for Executive Leadership Programs

2009-07-12T17:47:00.000-07:00

While sitting at a local coffee shop enjoying the company of two business colleagues, a significant question was posed that caused time to stop for a brief moment: “Skipper, how does your organization measure leadership ROI in plain language for an executive to understand when considering hiring your team?” Wow I thought… do I answer in my normal corporate language and attempt to impress upon that we really are good at what we do? Or, maybe I throw around a few $20 words and some leadership jargon to sound important. Either way, I must answer the question with an assumed definition as if I was actually seasoned to field the question with absolute and unquestionable resolve. “I don’t know…I’ve never actually had anyone ask that question before now,” I replied. What a moment of agony while sitting at the table with two very successful and respected businessmen with polished academic backgrounds, including a mid 1980’s graduate of the Wharton School of Business, both retired and now successfully working on their next ventures. The pressure of just wanting to receive an endorsement from either of them to a colleague of theirs in hopes of that person is willing to accept a meeting from me to present our perfected elevator pitch: “this is why you should use us.”

The remainder of the evening and much of the next day, I researched why and how to answer the question in the future. With the many uncertainties in the “NOW” real-world that business is forced to coexist, this is a question that will most likely show its face again and again. “I must be better prepared to answer it with profound implications that will impress upon our experiential learning from the participants in our past session,” I thought. But, the real skinny on this new found dilemma that I am faced with is this: I too must “again” reinvest in my own development and learning.

It is my hopes that this article can help others who might be sitting at a similar table having coffee in the same dilemma. In my research and looking at Scott Saslow’s writings, the Executive Director of The Institute of Executive Development, a significant high number of people “Rarely” or “Never” calculate the ROI on executive development (take a look at the table below, from market study Leadership Development: Challenges & Best Practices).

Although there are several factors that lead to reasons for tracking the impact of executive development leadership and team building programs such as those delivered from our team, it is very important to do so in plain language for others to grasp the concept of the programs intention. In answering the question for our programs, I am not only looking to monitor the impact, I am also interested in expressing a thorough examination of developmental activity along with the benefits and cost to deploy across the entire organizational environment.

According to Saslow, “conventional wisdom on any corporate spending, executive development investments need to be fully understood and ranked against other company projects to ensure proper allocation of scarce organizational resources.” This is so true in the current economic climate. No organization can take a leap of faith to engage any form of human capital training without knowing that their current needs are being met and pains are being cared for.

There are a few factors that drive the need to track program and developmental investments:

 Increased accountability for all functional areas within the organization, driven by initiatives such as “Balanced Scorecard, Six Sigma, et al” and other process improvement programs. In areas such as training and development, which are known to produce a mix of tangible and intangible benefits, there is an increased desire by senior management to measure performance management outcomes and desired effects.

 Increased awareness by both executive management as well as HRD professionals on the availability of tools and techniques to quantify impact of executive development programs.

 A visible increase in Human Resource Development (HRD) professionals who view their departments as stand-alone business units/revenue centers and are utilizing department profit and loss statements as one measure of performance. Increasingly, professionals from non-HR departments have figured out the many benefits of joining HR teams to bring “bottom-line” perspective to human capital investments.

The following ¹information explains the results from the question relating to organizations that attempt to calculate ROI on executive development:

10% – Always: Each program is evaluated independently,
7% – Frequently: Most of our programs are evaluated,
15% – Sometimes: As appropriate, we will evaluate some of our programs,
21% – Rarely: Only a small number of programs are evaluated, and
46% – Never: We never measure ROI for leadership development.

¹From “Leadership Development: Challenges & Best Practices,” www.execsight.com/benchmarks.

Business Benefits and ROI Assumptions for The Process of LeaderShaping Executive Education Leadership and Organizational Behavior Program

The business world has quickly realized that their very best people, leaders and organizational specialists, are the greatest asset. Taking that potential and developing it is highly desirable. The Process of LeaderShaping, a transformational leadership and organizational behavior program that focuses on team building and strategic execution, is the stimulus to initiate and maintain the behavioral and emotional relationships necessary to develop leadership traits at every level of an organization.

With a dedicated perspective, participants are able to navigate through various steps six phases/stages to ensure they follow the right path for the greatest individual benefit – achieve Personal Proficiency – while attaining a greater level of Professional Mastery. LeaderShaping transforms top leaders to be more effective in their communication and more strategic in their execution. Regardless of circumstance, LeaderShaping takes every participant on their very own personal journey to explore their inner “self” while influencing others to find their voice. The journey explores the following six developmental stages:

Stage 1 is the “Recruit, the good-to-great highly capable individual who makes productive contributions through talent, knowledge, skills and good work habits. This individual is the one person in the environment that understands ‘people first, then the organization;’ hence, the development and achievement of the desired effects within the expected Future Picture.”

Stage 2 is the Experienced Manager “who is working to establish his/her ‘Leadership Signature’ to integrate their newly found skills to the achievement of team and organizational objectives (mission) and work effectively with others in a team-led environment. The Experienced Manager begins his/her growth by learning the constructs in the Memorandum of Understanding to find a voice; then, influences others to find theirs.”

Stage 3 is the competent Fleet Leader who “understands the criticality of employing organizational behavior across environments – organizes people and resources to develop an effective strategy forward using the critical Centers of Gravity to achieve the desired effects.”

Stage 4 is an effective Breakthrough Executor who “outlines the specific cognitive abilities that will be sought and cultivated by other leaders in the years ahead using the Five Minds for the Future: the disciplined mind, the synthesizing mind, the creating mind, the respectful mind, and the ethical mind; the leader who remains committed to a vigorous pursuit of a clear and compelling vision, stimulating higher performance standards using team maneuvers."

Stage 5 is the Team/Project Leader who “employs the highest standards of customer service by achieving the five disciplines of greatness – these are the leaders who understand maneuver warfare and the disciplines within a Five Paragraph Order: SMEAC. They know an extraordinary organization is one that is driven by extraordinary people who make a distinctive impact and deliver superior performance over a long period of time – as a team unit.”

Stage 6 is the LeaderShaped Leader “who employs organizational strategic execution tactics (The OrgSx Paradigm) to permeate enduring greatness through a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will. All successful organizations have a single component in common; they have a strategic-executor at the helm who knows the disciplines of ‘strategic agility’ and ‘flawless execution.’ These leaders are described as being tactical in their approach, ferocious and fearless, yet modest with an unwavering commitment to high standards.” This is the leader who knows how to win!

LeaderShaping helps people to consider key talent management processes that drive high levels of business impact:

Performance Management
• Coaching and development drives much greater value than appraisal.
• Goal setting and goal-alignment drive high levels of impact.

Competency Analyses
• Skills-based workforce planning and critical job analysis is imperative to succeed.
• Competency management is a foundational process to make talent management work.

Assessments & Recruiting
• Assessment metrics and recruiting are key strategies and replace decentralized recruiting.
• Internal sourcing tools drive greater value than improvements in external sourcing.

Learning & Development
• Alignment with talent gaps is biggest area of impact.
• Tremendous growth in career development programs.

Based on interviews within our executive education program participants at Temple University since 2007, these four key elements were identified, which positively had an impact on the participants and their organizations upon returning to their perspective workplaces. Nonetheless, the environment (culture and organizational behavior) and the organizations processes received the greatest impact with staggering results.

Regardless of ROI, it is important to understand that no matter what measures are placed on the program itself, or what name the initiative goes under (team-based improvement effort, continuous improvement, total quality management, lean manufacturing, Human Sigma, or self-directed work teams) you must strive to improve results for internal and external customers. Few organizations and leaders, however, are totally pleased with the results their team improvement efforts produce because of the limited shelf life and excitement the program itself warrants upon completion (how often are the materials from the visiting program “never” shared with others and, in most cases, only become a part of the office library never to be looked at again?).

Here are a few things to consider when measuring if the program drives positive impact that is poised for the ROI you are seeking. The “twelve Cs for effective unit development,” (let’s get it straight, the only reason to engage a specific program is to institutionalize its effects across every level of the organization) offers successful maneuvers that develop effective, focused impacts that require attention to detail in the following areas.

It is important to think about the many questions posed to ensure the appropriate discussions are stimulating directional flow towards the organization’s success – if to measure ROI appropriately:

1. Clear Expectations: Has executive leadership (to be successful, there must be buy-in from the top) clearly communicated its expectations for the team’s performance and expected outcomes? Do team members understand why the team was created? Is the organization demonstrating consistency of purpose in supporting the team with resources of people, time and money? Does the work of the team receive sufficient emphasis as a priority in terms of the time, discussion, attention and interest directed its way by executive leaders?

2. Context: Do team members understand why they are participating on the team? Do they understand how the strategy of using teams will help the organization attain its communicated business goals? Can team members define their team’s importance to the accomplishment of goal orientation? Does the team understand where its work fits in the total context of the organization’s goals, principles, posture, vision, organizational behavior and values?

3. Commitment: Do team members want to participate on the team? Do team members feel the team mission is important? Are members committed to accomplishing the team mission and expected outcomes? Do team members perceive their service as valuable to the organization and to their own careers – is there a “win-win?” Do team members anticipate recognition for their contributions? Do team members expect their skills to grow and develop on the team? Are team members excited and challenged by the team opportunity?

4. Competence: Does the team feel that it has the appropriate people participating? (As an example, in a process improvement initiative, is each step of the process represented on the team?) Does the team feel that its members have the knowledge, skill and capability to address the issues for which the team was formed? If not, does the team have access to the help it needs? Does the team feel it has the resources, strategies and support needed to accomplish its mission/objectives and future picture?

5. Contract: Has the team taken its assigned area of responsibility and designed its own mission, vision, posture statement, Memorandum of Understanding and strategic intent to accomplish the mission. Has the team defined and communicated its goals; its anticipated outcomes and contributions; its timelines; and how it will measure both the outcomes of its work and the process the team followed to accomplish their task? Does the leadership team or other coordinating group support what the team has designed?

6. Command and Control: This can be defined as the exercise of authority and direction by a properly designated team leader or members on a team over assigned and attached resources in the accomplishment of the organization’s mission. That being said, does the team have enough freedom and empowerment to feel the ownership necessary to accomplish its contract? At the same time, do team members clearly understand their boundaries? How far may members go in pursuit of solutions? Are limitations (i.e. monetary and time resources) defined at the beginning of a project before the team experiences barriers and rework? Is the team’s reporting relationship and accountability understood by all members of the organization? Has the organization defined the team’s authority? To make recommendations? To implement its plan? Is there a defined review process so both the team and the organization are consistently aligned in direction and purpose? Do team members hold each other accountable for project timelines, commitments and results? Does the organization have a plan to increase opportunities for self-management among organization members?

7. Collaboration (Coalition of Forces): Does the team understand team and group process? Do members understand the stages of group development? Are team members working together effectively interpersonally? Do all team members understand the roles and responsibilities of team members (Concept of the “Bus”)? Team leaders? Can the team approach problem solving, process improvement, goal setting and measurement jointly? Do team members cooperate to accomplish the team contract? Has the team established group norms or rules of conduct in areas such as LeaderShaping, conflict resolution, consensus decision making and meeting management? Is the team using an appropriate strategy to accomplish its action plan?

8. Communication: Are team members clear about the priority of their tasks? Is there an established method for the teams to give feedback and receive honest performance feedback? Does the organization provide important business information regularly? Do the teams understand the complete context for their existence? Do team members communicate clearly and honestly with each other? Do team members bring diverse opinions to the table? Are necessary conflicts raised and addressed? Do team members understand that conflict is necessary for lessons learned?

9. Creative Innovation: Is the organization really interested in change? Does it understand the contextual implications for the change? Does it value creative thinking, transformational thinking, unique solutions and new ideation? Does it reward people who take reasonable risks to make improvements? Or does it reward the people who fit in and maintain the status quo? Does it provide the training, education, access to publications and textual resources, performance management assessments and infield trips necessary to stimulate new thinking?

10. Consequences: Do team members feel responsible and accountable for team achievements? Do team members feel responsible and accountable for other team members? Are rewards and recognition supplied when teams are successful? Not successful? Is reasonable risk respected and encouraged in the organization? Do team members fear reprisal? Do team members spend their time finger pointing rather than resolving problems during the necessary Debrief sessions? Is the organization designing reward systems that recognize both team and individual performance and organizational behavior? Is the organization planning to share gains and increased profitability with team and individual contributors? Do team members feel responsible and accountable for team and individual strategic execution tactics? Can contributors see their impact on increased organization success?

11. Coordination: Are teams coordinated by a central leadership team that assists the groups to obtain what they need for success? Are teams coordinated by a designated “Red Team,” one who works to employ contingency script that assists the team with working out problems and challenges as a precursor to engaging the mission? Have priorities and resource allocation been planned across departments? Have the proper configurations or reconfigurations been made and planned for across departments? Do teams understand the concept of the internal customer – the next process, anyone to whom they provide a product or a service? Are cross-functional and multi-department teams common and working together effectively and efficiently? Is the organization developing a customer-focused process-centric orientation and moving away from traditional departmental thinking?

12. Cultural Change – Collective Behaviors: Does the organization recognize that the team-based, collaborative, empowering, enabling organizational culture of the future is different than the traditional, hierarchical organization it may currently be? Is the team a networked unit or hierarchical one? Is the organization planning to or in the process of changing how it rewards, recognizes, appraises, hires, develops, plans with, motivates and manages the people it employs? Does the organization plan to use failures for learning and support reasonable risk? Does the organization recognize that the more it can change its climate to support teams, the more it will receive in pay back (ROI) from the work of the teams?

Spend time and attention on each of these “twelve Cs for effective unit development” to ensure your work teams contribute most effectively to your business success after completing an executive education program. In a position of leadership, your team members will respond favorably, your business will soar to new heights and empowered people will “own” and be responsible for their work processes. Everyone will find his/her voice – this is ROI that permeates enduring freedoms (breakthroughs) and successful outcomes that lasts.

Can you ask for anything better in the workplace than what is proposed here? There's a table of critical information to support this segment of the article that you can request by email at Solutions@thebisongroup.com (In your headline, remember to include the title of the article and request the "best practices" table).

The table outlines “best practices” in measuring and maximizing ROI in executive education and development programs like The Process of LeaderShaping. No more will I have to agonize on the original question posed that sparked me writing this article. The factors that drive positive impact & ROI for executive style leadership programs lie in the hands of the participants going through it and their response to the instruction upon entering back into the workplace.

So, measuring ROI begins in the decision and selection process of the individuals chosen to attend. Everything else is a culmination of everyone doing their part to ensure successful outcomes within the desired effects in the end.

Reference
Shortcut the original article:
http://www.mannaz.com/Mail.asp?MailID=118&TopicID=1374

Scott Saslow is the Executive Director of The Institute of Executive Development, a company that delivers a unique service to executive development professionals by providing an unbiased source of information on the best practices and innovative ideas in executive development. Clients of The Institute include professionals from global companies who manage their organization’s executive development programs, as well as recognized experts who advise, publish, and speak on industry topics. The Institute is the largest in its field and most dynamic in terms of its services. There are currently over 4,000 individuals from 85 countries who use the Institute. As head of the organization, Mr. Saslow is responsible for all strategy and operations. Mr. Saslow also manages the design and delivery of multiple market studies in executive development such as “Transforming Corporate Leadership: Best Practices in Executive Education” and “Leadership Development in European Organizations.” In all, Mr. Saslow has authored over 15 articles and in-depth research reports on the field of executive development for publications such as CLO Magazine, Strategic HR Review, Leadership in Action, and ASTD’s Leadership/OD Newsletter.

Team Building Maneuvers and the Team’s Leadership

2009-07-06T10:24:00.000-07:00

Conquering the Challenge of “Change” through Team Building Maneuvers

Leading teams into qualitative team building maneuvers prevails over the challenge of change at a time that change is definitely required in most organizations. In order to experience successful change, the “fear to change” must be addressed. Change is the one constant when uncertainty shows itself in life and change undoes the way process is both managed and executed. Change is natural and good, but people’s reaction to change is both unpredictable and irrational. It can be managed if done right – but when reacting to the uncertainties exhibited by the stimulus for change, mistakes are made and can be very costly. Managing the process that leads to change means managing people’s fear.

Nothing is as upsetting to your people as change. Nothing has greater potential to cause failures, loss of production or failing quality. Yet nothing is as important to the survival of your organization as your people and their response to change.

Research tells us that 70 percent of all change initiatives fail (Source: Author Peter Senge, “The Dance of Change,” Doubleday Press, Toronto, Ont. 1999, p. 3-4). Beyond a doubt, the likelihood of your change initiative failing is overwhelming. Since 2004, I’ve studied, facilitated and taught change processes and experience tells me that change efforts fail for one, two, or all of the following three reasons:

1. Failure to properly define the Future Picture and the impact of the change.
All too often, the “change” initiative addresses the symptoms of current challenges and problems rather than the future the organization wants or needs to create. Change is about creating a desired future, not just correcting current problem/symptoms.

2. Failure to properly assess the current situation, in order to determine the scope within the requirements for change.
Organizations perpetually assess the current situation against current measures of performance. However, change is not the same as problem-solving or project management. Rather, managing change is about moving an organization strategically forward to achieve its vision of the future.

3. Failure to effectively manage the transition of moving from the present to the future.
Experience demonstrates that failure to effectively manage the transition/transformation need is the leading cause of failure for strategic change initiatives. The change itself is not the problem. Change is an event; it is situational: deciding to implement a new system, target a new market, acquire or merge two organizational cultures (Source: Author William Bridges, “Managing Transitions: Making the Most of Change,” Addison Wesley, Don Mills Ont., p.3). The problem occurs with what happens within the gap between the present and future, after the “change” and before you get to “there.” The reality of change is that change is about people not structures – people are the reasons for stop gaps in change initiatives!

Failure to successfully execute often comes from seeing the change as solely structural, so once the new system is designed and ready for implementation, the new organization is agreed upon and the doctrine papers are signed to legalize the “deal,” everyone, including the CEO, walks away from what is considered (prematurely) a “done deal.” This is a mistake that goes on all too often like a broken record. History is full of examples of organizations and teams that failed when experiencing changing environments (most of them are now extinct). The secret to successfully managing change, from the perspective of the people within the organization and their teams, is “definition” and “understanding.”

To make it clear, I’ll explain them in subsets.

Definition and Understanding for the “WHAT” in Teams

It is important to understand that not everyone who works together or in close proximity is a member of a team. This concept is a misnomer for a lot of people. A clear explanation of a team is a group of individuals who are interdependent with respect to intelligence, information, transferable skill sets, resources, and tools and who seek to combine their efforts to achieve a shared-vision towards a common goal. A team, for instance, is either building or falling apart. An essential aptitude for true team building and the maneuvers they require is leading the team into building on a continuous basis. Team building maneuvers lead a group into higher levels of team spirit, cooperation and interpersonal communication. Building teams is the process of developing on the team-dynamics and interpersonal relationship of the people that come together to make-up the unit. Team spirit either grows or it dies based on the dynamics of the unit.

Teams have specific characteristics that should be addressed:

- Teams must be constructed to achieve a shared-vision for a shared goal.

- Team associates are interdependent regarding some common interests; teams are the instrument of sustained and enduring success in leadership and management.

- Teams use strategic thinking, acting, and influence – associates each possess the authority to manage their own stimulus for change.

- A team is a type of group, but not all groups are teams – team leaders know this to be true.

- Teams are formed to best facilitate learning and peak performance while operating in a socialist environment.

- Team associates are not responsible to “self,” but to their team and its mission; their obligation is to guide the unit to find its voice, while strategically and flawlessly executing.

- Teams learn to navigate positive transition to disseminate authority and power for change – and, they understand when it is a “must” to move into greater levels of performance (the difference between ordinary and extraordinary high performance teams).

The difference between ordinary teams and high performance teams are its people and their abilities to overcome the fear of change. High performance teams place a focus on the people who drive the overall performance within the system: “how do you define a high-performance team?” A high performance team is a group of people who are led by an exception leader, ALL having complementary skills, who understand roles and goals, and who are committed to achieving those goals through a shared-voice, as one unit or body, to demonstrate strategic and flawless execution measures for overcoming changing environments.

This team format learns quickly how-to work together toward mutual goals using their individual skills to support one another regardless of the situation they are engaging or any amount of resistance to change from a fear of the unknown or an expectation of loss or failure.

The “alpha” of the high performance team’s resistance to change is how they perceive the change. The “omega” is how well they are equipped to deal with the change they expect. The team member’s degree of resistance is determined by whether they perceive the change as good or bad, and how they expect the impact of the change to be on the entire unit. Their ultimate acceptance of the change is a function of how much resistance the team member has and the quality of their coping skills and their support system. The job role of the team leader is to address their resistance from both perspectives by helping each member reduce it to a minimal, manageable process level. The success of the response depends on the leader’s ability to lead by example, their level of trust from the members on the team and their ability to persuade the members to overcome their resistance so the unit can move ahead. When the leader is able to communicate a low threat level and/or limited risk, the member’s perception will be one of trust for engaging the objective. Simply, it will all come down to the leader’s relationship with the team; hence, the success of the team not only depends on its members, but also on the leadership they follow.

Definition and Understanding for Accepting “CHANGE” on Teams and Organizations

Now, we’ll look at how teams can manage change and fear, and overcome them both to perform at its peak as a unit, and pronounce its leadership style to permeate peak performance across an entire organization. The “alpha” here begins by looking at change as an emotions state that is synonymous with fear. Fear stipulates an uncomfortable emotional response to potential threats and a way of life. It is a basic survival mechanism that occurs in response to specific stimulus of future events, such as worsening of a situation or continuation of a situation that is unacceptable. It needs to be addressed by the leadership personnel in as much detail and as early as possible. Leadership must be able to provide updates as things develop and become clearer if any chance is possible for overcoming the fears that are the precursor for change.

“Definition” is a two-way street. In addition to defining a problem that causes fear, team leaders need to get their members to a point that they feel comfortable defining the reasons behind their resistance. “Understanding,” the “omega” here is also a two-way street. Team leaders must be prepared to clearly explain to their members what is changing and why. They must also be clear about the member’s reluctance. Here are a few things that the team leaders must be aware of:

- Team leaders must not try to rationalize the issues, but focus on opening and maintaining clear channels of communication with their team members so they understand what is coming and what it means to them and the unit.

- Team leaders must be able to help their member gain a comprehensive understanding of the situation at hand, both the positives and negatives.

- Team leaders must inform their members what the change will be, when it will happen and why – what is not changing and how the anchors on the team (the characteristics, such as “trust” that holds the team together) will be affected as they face the winds of uncertainty and change.

- Team leaders must be able to understand the specific fears of each member. What their concerns are and how strongly they feel about the potential outcomes, both the positives and negatives (do they perceive it as a good or a bad thing?).

The Bottom Line: Definition and Understanding

Conquering the challenge of “change” through team building maneuvers requires innovation, creativity and some good old fashion “leadership.” People yearn for ideas (big and small ones) and think that if they just had that one “right” idea for the team or organization, success would surely come. Certainly, we can all do things to be more creative, but having ideas isn’t the biggest, or even first, source of our challenges.

Think about it this way. You’ve experienced what is believed by you to be the greatest workshop ever attended, so you go back to the workplace to integrate what you’ve learned – only, you never do. You’ve thought about trying a new approach to your meetings, but never did. You’ve had a great idea that never went anywhere. You’ve had an idea for a new process, but failed to introduce it to other the leaders. The list can go on and on and you’ll see that there’s no shortage of ideas or creativity that is stopping you. What is stopping you is fear, the fear of change or the fear of failure. Either way you look at it, fear is the stimulus that stops great people from doing great things – the action that is required for successful progress in life and in the workplace.

Change and Failure (Breakdown)

Failure and success are the outcomes of change. No matter how you look at them both, they each have a constant that cannot go unnoticed, “leadership.” We cannot succeed at higher levels of performance if we maintain status quo, but inherent in change is the possibility that we might fail or experience a breakdown in process. So any discussion of the “fear of change” or the “fear of failure” needs to start with a discussion on transition and transformation. While there are downsides and risks involved in change (including the risk of failure) think of all of the positives that can come from change:

 Process Improvement to Leadership and Management,
 Overall Employee Performance Increases,
 Team Development, Transition and Transformation,
 Greater Satisfaction (Individual) – Personal Proficiency,
 Organizational Renewal – Professional Mastery, and
 Marketplace Expansion, and much more.

And these are just a few. The next time you feel the fear of failure, think about how you feel about change and how it impacts your level of fear. All change involves a certain amount of uncertainty and ambiguity and those two conditions provoke anxiety. This is a reason to hold onto the past for lessons learned; it’s familiar, and as the adage goes, “better what you know versus whet you don’t know.” So, although change has the ability to promote new systems, structures, organizations and teams, people will always conform to the “same old~same old,” unwilling to let go of the past. That is why looking at the positives and keeping an open mind is so critical to the success of experiencing change.

Structuring Failure and Success (Breakthrough)

One individual’s failure is another individual’s success; it’s all based on a decision that “must” be made at some point. Sun Tzu, arguably the greatest military strategist that many still follow, had his say on success and failure: “Consideration and analysis of The Five Elements, “Dao” – Moral Unity, “Tian” – Weather Condition, “Di” – Geographical Condition, “Jiang” – Leadership Quality, “Fa” – Discipline and Organization Structure, a must know for all commanders. Victory to those who understand and no victory to those who does not. The Five Elements will determine success or failure of conducting war.”

Here’s an explanation of Sun Tzu’s statement through comparison and an analytical lens. The Five Elements will reveal the factors of success and failure of all battle, namely: Moral Unity, Weather Condition, Geographical Condition, Leadership Quality, Discipline and Organization Structure.

Moral Unity determines the cohesiveness between the ruler and his subjects, the leader and his followers, the general and his soldiers. Ultimately, to achieve full support by fellowman, putting aside life and death matters and share the view of the ruler’s is the goal of Moral Unity. Only when a view or decision is fully supported, can orders be carried out smoothly by the team.

Weather Condition such as summer/winter and drought/flood will have significant affects on how plans are executed. When weather is an element that no one has any control, the best strategy will be take full advantage of the conditions when able. Going against the force of nature may prove rewarding when one overcomes, but it usually spells destruction.

Geographical Condition here refers to distance of near/far, terrain/mountainous/flat regarding the battle space, wide/narrow the battle field and whether the location chosen to engage the battle favors attack/defense. This will limit the size, type and performance of the troop. The same for business – this will also determine the team’s reaction to the mission and the amount of resources – people, process and management of initiative that will be required to win.

Leadership Quality (my favorite) concerns the general/commander’s leading capability. There are five qualities of a good leader: “wisdom, trustworthiness, benevolence and deportment, courage (both physical and emotional) and sternness (temperament).” These five qualities will affect the leading capability of a commander, his culture and climate for organizational behavior effectiveness within the environment and the efficacy and value of his command being carried out by the people under his leadership.

Discipline and Organization Structure is the system of open communication and the vehicles used to do so – how each level within the organization manages and leads the people and process, including logistics. It requires a fair, consistent and clear communication to everyone. Communication is the greatest resource in all of life, not only in organizations, but in all we set out to accomplish. Effective communications is leadership’s greatest tool to win its people, systems, processes and management of functions.

As The Five Elements are inter-related, no leader can either ignore or fail to understand the constructive/destructive nature of each element. Victory will overcome “failure” and “success” will fall upon those who analyze and clearly understand The Five Elements. Therefore, by asking who offers fairest reward and punishment, whose troop, team or organization is best trained and led, whose equipment and resources are more efficient and plentiful, who can deliver and communicate order/leadership smoothly, effectively and thoroughly, who has better geographical/weather advantages (culture and organizational climate), who has more resourceful leaders and followers – teams, whether the appointed leader/leadership is wiser, more strategic in their thinking, tactical in their approach to engage and has virtue… the winner is clear, defined and understood.

Constructing it all to Enhance Leadership for Teamwork as an Essential Goal

What am I referring to in the term “Leadership for Teamwork?” Organizations can try to influence leaders to work as a team, but only leaders themselves can make it work. Why should you want to be a team-oriented leader, and how can you take steps to make it happen, even when the status quo is not favorable? A strong motivator to becoming a better cohort with your leaders-colleagues-peers is to take stock of what “not” collaborating is costing you during the tough times (and, even the not so tough times).

As you attempt to lead others and yourself, it is important to keep in mind your quintessential intention to enhance, deepen and strengthen the spirit of “we are absolutely on the same team, sounding with one unified voice, and committed to achieving the same outcome/ Future Picture for one another.” Integrate the improvement of the quality of leadership for effective teamwork into your objective, strategy and tactics. Include it in the vision and mission and ensure that all members across each level of the organization understand and can communicate it without fail. It must not “only” be written on a fancy picture and placed on the wall (the all too common inspirational). It must run like blood through veins and become as important as the air we breathe.

Express your value of Leadership for Teamwork and team fortitude by ensuring that the cost factor is not as important in the decision to remain on a continuum to train organizational behavior, transformational leadership, strategic execution and team building maneuvers as the decision to make all allocations to do so. The cost of not doing it, even when things are tough, offers a far more potential for failure.

If you overlook Leadership for Teamwork and effective team building maneuvers by focused exclusively or excessively on the outcome you want teamwork to accomplish, you’ll place your team and organization in a position to neglect the means to your end and eliminate the solution-centric outcomes in your future. This would be like a U.S. Marine purposely neglecting to adequately care for his weapons while on the battlefield.

How you think about each individual and team in the organization is the most critical aspect in Leadership for Teamwork. By leading your own thoughts, you begin leading in the most significant way. So discipline yourself to think about those you are responsible for leading as members of your team, and not as your problems, adversaries or competitors. You have to “mentally embrace” them as for you, and not against you, particularly when they demonstrate difficult conduct. This is the truest form of selflessness that, in most cases, is forgotten.

An effective and easy tool to form the greatest disciplines in Leadership for Teamwork is for everyone to do his best to interpret the behaviors of others, however dissonant, as a sign of a core challenge or initiative that needs immediate attention. It’s important to realize that behaviors are a form of communications to address Leadership for Teamwork and this action can transform bad feelings of resentment into positive organizational behaviors and gratitude. Our President Barack Obama, the 44TH of the United States, used similar techniques to successfully win the elections to lead the American people; “CHANGE and Leadership for Teamwork!” His message rings true around the world and is also being used to bring communities and Governments (also forms of teams) together in ways that at one time, would never have been thought of. Marcus Aurelius said, “Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart.”

This statement can be applied to teams and defines the true meaning of Leadership for Teamwork. The team that is not overwhelmed with being productive and full of life is far too busy dying. Life is born from every member and led by every member. Regard Leadership for Teamwork as an essential means for overcoming fear, winning change and leading through cooperation to experience peak performance that takes the organization to the next level.

How to Lead your Team to the Next Level

What is the worst thing that could happen? Actually, people will ask a more rhetorical question: “what could happen?” But, they never really get the answer they are hoping for because of fear. Most of the time, just asking the question seems like progress is being made or, a significant amount of time (meetings to schedule more meetings that promotes nothing but time and talk) planning and not executing. This is a question that simply hangs in the spam folders, lost in internet space or on a memo at the water cooler. Don’t let it become a technical “error message” that requires someone else to get it done. Take the initiative to go against the status quo and get the question answered yourself. Consider the very worst thing that could happen; answering the question for yourself can and will stimulate movement in a positive direction. Often, the absolute worst case isn’t as bad as might think.

What is the best possible outcome? Seriously, what is the best thing that could happen? Think about the scenario where everything goes perfectly. Will this be your outcome? Maybe not, but your worst case scenario likely won’t happen either. It takes both of these questions to really understand your situation. Chances are, your results will be somewhere between the two. Once you have considered the range of possibilities, you are in a better position to decide whether to proceed or not, and you will have definitely reduced your fear of failure if you do take that step forward.

Next, you can explore the development of a “Memorandum of Understanding” (MOU) for the team. This is designed for people to learn broadly, to inspire the service out of generosity for others, and to prepare them to lead courageously into the future. A Memorandum of Understanding encourages a perspective to become firmly grounded in the potential for successful growth using a series of constructs – a portfolio management approach – that everyone buys into for effective deportment and forward movement. A Memorandum of Understanding acts as the blueprint for strategic leadership on the teams and across the organization.

Are you wondering how to build an organization in which executive leaders, team leaders, middle managers and front line staff will flourish? To build an environment where people, teams and organizations will flourish and achieve peak performance, you must get the best leaders to pay close attention to the design of the elements around them (situational awareness).

The Memorandum of Understanding articulate a lucid purpose, helps to create effective leadership teams, prioritize their initiatives carefully, redesign organizational structures, employ strategic intent meets strategic agility to result flawless and strategic execution and, most importantly, integrate all these tactics into one coherent strategy.

The Memorandum of Understanding must include the following constructs:

 The Cardinal Rules,
 The Guiding Precepts,
 The Forms of Disposition,
 The General Orders,
 The Strategy Forward – Establishing Professional Mastery, and
 The Centers of Gravity.

The Cardinal Rules are a set of guidelines that are invaluable for people and organizations to follow while planning and executing at the strategic or tactical level. These rules, once established by the individual(s) or teams are the rules that govern forward movement and must not change (i.e. To manage by mind, lead by heart).

The Guiding Precepts are designed to inform people what they should and should not be doing in accordance with executing a well designed strategy to win. They also inform of the reasons “why” an action must occur and the repercussions should the individual and/or organization fail at meeting such a task (i.e. Unselfishness; this trait is the avoidance of providing for one's personal comfort and advancement at the expense of others. The comfort, pleasure, and recreation levels should be placed above everything. Looking out for the needs of others is the essence of self-leadership).

The Forms of Disposition offer a substantive transformation in “thought” about how people achieve a perspective on things in life. It refers to an orchestrated, systemic and revolutionary new world-view resulting in a “change” of societies, cultures, and marketplaces due to behavioral perspective. This is today often called "systems theory," which sees a web of relationships coalescing to become something greater than the parts. Individuals must be able to look at things from a perspective that they are always changing and evolving into new forms – thinking “out-of-the-box!” We are doomed to a slow death unless radical change occurs in the way we think. Change your way of thinking or die a slow death (i.e. Mistakes are a fact of life that requires an eraser; it is the ability to respond to error that counts. You can’t live without an eraser).

The General Orders are broad, community-wide "need statements,” designed to encompass a variety of related issues in a person’s life or within the life cycle of an organization. These related issues are referred to as “Guiding Objectives,” which are specific items that need to be addressed. The Guiding Strategies (developed to fit current and future circumstance) are the methods identified for addressing the Guiding Objectives, and the Guiding Policies are the specific action steps that are recommended to implement the Guiding Strategies. The General Orders, all eleven of them, offer the ability to explore implications in an open and reflective manner and reinforce each other in providing a coherency and wholeness often lacking in life cycles (i.e. Know yourself as a “Leader” and seek continuous improvement).

The Strategy Forward – Establishing Professional Mastery. The traditional values are the foundation of the modern day; that was yesterday. Tomorrow, you have an opportunity to create commitment and the needed momentum to establish, publish, share, and teach a different set of life’s code, values, and ethics to journey into the future. After much hard work, you are prepared to develop a strategy to move forward and plan the next steps to target critical successes for winning the Future Picture. What a legacy you will leave when executed with personal and professional bearing for others to follow. This is the way of the future. This is a new chapter (i.e. Remove the Jars’ Lid: Allow for profound growth by employing Transformational Thinking to navigate the maze of organizational politics – and the schedule to do so – to accept change).

The Centers of Gravity. Just as time changes, so does the internal and external influence in your life and in the life cycle of an organization. The Centers of Gravity are the dynamics within a process that offer the greatest impact on the overall system when change happens. They offer a high level of “value” and return on your energy “investment.” When combined with the concept of parallel deposits (creating energy from various perspectives in a short period of time), the Centers of Gravity make possible the seemingly impossible task of realizing success in changing paradigms.

The Centers of Gravity places significant influence on the five established epicenters of any changing system to receive desired effects: Leadership, Processes, Infrastructure, Population, and Action Units.

In summary, a Memorandum of Understanding, your blueprint for strategic leadership, offers an opportunity to free up our actions as public servants. It is empowering, it is enabling and it grounds us in a public way on the fundamentals that we all must share. There is no ethical malaise. It is important to realize that the new is not a finding from what has been lost. Rather, we are like the journey of the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz story in search of a brain (brain power in this context); the Tin Woodsman in search of a heart, and the Cowardly Lion in search of courage. Your value system is intact and has been with you the entire way thus far. The Memorandum of Understanding simply articulates and reaffirms the core value and behavioral perspective that already underlie your personal and professional appearance and conduct to achieve significant growth.

Develop, learn and instruct the Memorandum of Understanding well. It will make the difference between winning and losing in every aspect of your life – personally and professionally – and maintain a positive team building attitude.

Finally, Maintain a Positive Team Building Attitude

To lead most effectively, the leader’s attitude needs to be strongly and deeply rooted in the dynamics of the team and its fortitude, particularly when relating with individuals who are also seeking to grow themselves and the organization they are a part. The Memorandum of Understanding has been used to lead successful transformation efforts for organization and teams to achieve their goals in and away from the organization and the battlefields of life. A paradigm-changing approach, the Memorandum of Understanding concurrently addresses multiple disciplines across the entire transformation life cycle; enabling leaders and teams help people build a stronger, more responsive and resilient organizations.

It all begins with three creeds: one for achieving Personal Proficiency, one for achieving Professional Mastery and the last for achieving strategic execution while remaining strategically agile; a message in the form of a poem to help you with overcoming your deepest fear; and finally, something my team and I refer to as, “The Entitlement.”

Rather than relating to a series of ongoing problematic behaviors as a hindrance or as a threat to your objective, relate to the development of your Memorandum of Understanding as a guide for how you need to build teamwork and team spirit and fortitude to meet the inevitable challenge of change and effective leadership.

The Leader’s Creed – Individual Leadership

“I possess my own weapon. There are many like it but this one is unique. It is my life. I must master it as I must master the discipline that allows me to be. Without my weapon, I am useless. I must fire my weapon as a rifle. I must shoot straighter than the enemy who is aiming at me. I must win him before he wins me. I will! My weapon is human, even as I am human, because it is my life. My weapon and I know that what counts in personal war are not the rounds we fire. We know that it is the hits that count. We will hit! I will keep my weapon clear and free, even as I am clear and free. My weapon and I are the defenders of my soul. We are the masters of our enemy. We are the standard of generations to follow – Failure is never an option, Ductus Exemplo!”

The Leader’s Creed – Instructors

“These are my future leaders. I will train them to the best of my ability. I will develop them into smartly disciplined, mindful-physically fit, basically trained specialists, thoroughly indoctrinated in love of personal leadership. I will demand of them, teach them to demand of themselves, excellence and demonstrate by my own example the highest standards of personal conduct, morality, and professional skill.”
The Strategic Executor’s Creed

“My loyalty to my team and organization is beyond reproach. I humbly serve as a guardian to my fellow colleagues, always ready to defend against the enemy’s force that is trying to diminish our progress. I do not advertise the nature of my work, nor seek recognition for my actions. I voluntarily accept the inherent hazards of my profession, placing the welfare and security of others before my own. I serve with sincere gratitude on and away from my team to impact my teams’ responsibility on the battlefield. The ability to control my emotions and my actions, regardless of circumstance, sets me apart from others. ... In the absence of orders I will take charge, lead my teammates and accomplish the mission. ... I will never quit nor will I ever conclude my pursuit for excellence. I remain agile to strike with speed and force and thrive on adversity. My team expects me to be mentally stronger and strategically smarter than my enemies. If knocked down, I will get back up, each and every time. I will draw on every remaining ounce of emotional strength and ability to protect my teammates, the mission and the organization to ensure success. I am never out of the fight and forever in debt to self, my teammates and the mission."

Your Deepest Fear
“Conditions are never just right. People who delay actions until all factors are favorable are the kinds who do nothing.” – William Feather

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. Storms come and go, but it is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We must ask ourselves, why are we chosen to accept brilliance? In actuality, why would we not want to be chosen? And, chosen by whom? You? Me? It's impossible to thrive without constantly updating ourselves with the knowledge used to execute life’s journey. Individuals who see themselves as visionary’s grasp this concept better than most. They remain on a continuum for growth, personally and professionally, to stay ahead of the learning curve within our ever changing global economy.

Accepting your personal call to duty may require you to walk slower so that people won't feel insecure as you embark upon a personal rite of passage. We are meant to live for greatness and the time to shine is now. Are you ready? You have no choice but to be prepared to influence others to be ready for finding their voice as you have learned to find your own. It requires a choice for changing reality and for some, that choice is easy. As we decide to become a beacon of light, we must be willing to step out on faith, work towards greatness, and be fully aware that all storms have a time to be over. Liberation found within our personal convictions unshackles our souls to guide us unconsciously into becoming a Champion of Change.

The Entitlement

No one alive can buy it or rent it and it can not be lent for any price
…If ignored both of your enemy and yourself, you are sure to be defeated in every battle

Truth must always protect the covenant of integrity and honor amongst good
…knowing how to subdue the enemy without fighting is the ultimate objective

It can not be inherited nor can it be purchased
… the laws of success are to avoid the enemy’s strength and strike his weakness

You alone and our own have earned it with our passion, heart, sweat and tears
…it is a doctrine in battle, that supreme training gleans a presence and makes our position invincible

You own it forever, the attribute & title: The “LeaderShaped Leader!”

If you would like to receive a copy of our Memorandum of Understanding to guide you with developing your own, simply send me an email at Dpitts@thebisongroup.com. God Speed as you continue on your path to experience your own unique state of Leadership for Teamwork, using team building maneuvers to take your people and team to new levels and conquer the challenge of overcoming the “fears of change” across the organizations and teams you are leading.

Developing yourself (Personal Proficiency) and your Organization (Professional Mastery)

2009-07-05T12:39:00.000-07:00

Leading at the Edge

Leading at the edge means playing to win as an individual, as a team and as an organization. Surprisingly, the vast majority of leaders are in fact “playing not to lose,” which means they are not really leading at all. Organizations that develop a transformational leadership culture and understand the impact of organizational behavior excel because they become magnets for the enormous talent produced during the economic downturn. These are the organizations that continue to provide its greatest assets – the people – with opportunities to learn, grow and build the leadership competencies that win.

These organizations become high-performing organizations by attracting and keeping their most talented people fully engaged, and by creating a self reinforcing cycle whereby leadership development is at the heart of successfully running the organization. Regardless of their professional and organizational roles, all top leaders must understand how leadership, culture, organizational behavior, teams and operational effectiveness are closely intertwined to achieve outstanding results.

Drawing on the latest studies of high-performance leadership and years in the executive education classrooms whereby the world of business professionals across a multi-disciplined spectrum of industry delivered outstanding lessons to our faculty, we will translate this cutting-edge knowledge to the real world of leading teams and organizations, especially in times of change, transformation and uncertainty. You will learn what the leaders in top companies, who are known for their outstanding leadership cultures, do so successfully to continue leading at the edge.

To learn more about our "Leading at the Edge" program, please email me at: Dpitts@thebisongroup.com and visit us at: http://www.thebisongroup.com or http://www.teambuildingbootcamp.com.

How to Develop Successful Work Teams

2009-06-21T07:07:00.000-07:00

Twelve Solutions for Effective Team Building Maneuvers

The talk in the workplace during the uncertainties in the global markets centers around the many nuances about how to become a team, the differences between teams and groups, what it takes to work as a team and how to make the team more effective, but few people have come to understand what it really takes to develop a great team that performs with extraordinary results! Being a part of a team that most can count on, in the broadest sense, requires the right people coming together with skills and talents to compliment one another to achieve the desired effects of the sponsoring organization and leadership. It has much to do with the people possessing the passion to be great, in order for their behaviors to stimulate great outcomes and their understanding of the future picture – the mission and objectives – and how to achieve the overall purpose of the organization.

People selected to become a member of a team must be prepared to contribute to the environment and overall success of the organization. They must put their personal feeling aside and work towards a significant level of Personal Proficiency that translates into increased levels of Professional Mastery. When assigned to a specific task, they must understand and be in tuned with their situational awareness; unified to the heart beat across other departments of the organization and members to accomplish the overall objectives. The future picture must drive their actions and performance to do what is needed to win.

People must differentiate the overall sense of teamwork from the task of developing working groups that is formed to accomplish a specific goal. People confuse these two team building objectives. This is why so many team building trainings, programs and seminars, meetings, retreats and activities are deemed failures by the participants who attend. The facilitators would normally fail to define the differences of the two, “groups” and “teams,” and the participants would leave not having a comprehensive understanding for the team they would like to achieve. Developing an overall sense of team work is much different from building an effective, focused work team when considering the approach to take to engage effective team building maneuvers.

The Differences between Teams and Groups

In 2007, the Bison Group’s Executive Education Training Division was launched at Temple University due to a conversation between an Adjunct Professor in the Human Resource Development department and myself. The Professor posed an interesting statement about teams and groups from one of his clients in the workplace. He started off by asking; “what is the difference between a group of people that work together towards achieving an initiative and a team doing the same?” I answered by posing a question of my own; “when does a group become a team?” This exchange stimulated a lengthy conversation and we were in agreement that the same took place with deeper meaning in the workplace. I went on to say, “the definition of a team is best described as a small group of individuals with complementary skills and abilities who are committed to a common goal and approach for which they hold each other accountable.” This definition would presume that the behaviors of a team are decidedly different from a group.

The best size for teams is 6-12 individuals. Larger teams require more structure and support; smaller teams often have difficulty meeting when members are absent. Members have skills and abilities that complement the team’s purpose. Not all members have the same skills, but together they are greater than the sum of their parts. On teams, members share roles and responsibilities and are constantly developing new skills to improve the team’s performance. They work in a democratic fashion with every voice having an opportunity to be heard. Teams identify and reach consensus on their common goal and approach, rather than looking to a leader to define the goal and approach. Again, and most importantly, teams hold their members accountable – very accountable! What does this mean in practical terms? When they experience conflict with a member, they speak to that member directly rather than to a supervisor. When a member is not performing to the level required, the team addresses, or self disciplines, the performance issue.

As we continued on in the conversation, the Professor decided to define the groups’ perspective and functions. He went on to say, “a group can be defined as a small unit of people with complementary skills and abilities who are committed to a leader’s goal and approach and are willing to be held accountable by the leader. A group supports the leader’s goals and the leader-dominated approach to goal orientation and achievement. A group drives individual accountability rather than shared accountability. Leadership is predominantly held by one person rather than the shared, fluid leadership on a team. In a group, the dominant viewpoint is represented much different from the team’s democratic approach with voice where multiple, diverse viewpoints are represented. Decisions in a group are made by voting or implied agreement; decisions on a team are typically made by consensus.”

When taking on the approach of defining the two, teams and groups, it is unfair to say that one is better than the other. A good question to ask would be, “when is it best to develop and use a group and when do you make the extra effort to develop a team?” It’s important to understand that groups are much easier and less complex to form than teams. Groups work best when the decisions and process are already determined, buy-in is not necessary, time is a critical factor and there is split or minimal management support for teaming. To form a group, it is best to identify a very strong and confident, effective leader and empower the person to recruit group members, formulate the goal/orientation and approach for driving decisions to be made. This approach would be practical for short-term projects where the outcomes are already defined.

Teaming, on the other hand, should be used when you need a broad buy-in for the greatest level of performance output, when no one person has the answer and when shared responsibility is important to the success of the goal and meeting objectives. To achieve a real team is difficult and time-consuming, yet achieving a great team is almost improbable. Great teams require specific ingredients such as time, trust, positive organizational behaviors and more. There is no silver bullet or magic dust that will transform a group into a team overnight. It takes an enormous amount of time, along with lessons learned from mistakes to craft the necessary skills that work well together. And, a comprehensive understanding how to solve problems, challenges and issues when they show up – and, make the right decisions effectively.

The conversation finished by the end of a twelve week semester with both of us coming to a common ground about teams and groups. We decided that organizations must decide on their short and long-term objectives before deciding on which direction they should journey. Also, senior leadership must be prepared to ask the people involved, “what would it take to be a real, high performance unit?” Then, as they brainstorm the answer, they must challenge the stakeholders and themselves to press onward to become the very best they can be to achieve the future picture of the organization. We also agreed that the team approach using the characteristics found within the outlined “twelve Cs for effective unit development” is the best approach organizations can use to overcome any uncertainties that lie waiting in the marketplace. The stakes are far too high and an extraordinary team of individuals will be needed to win.

Twelve Cs for Effective Unit Development

Most team building programs don’t achieve anything in the long term, even if they appear to have worked in the short term. Changing behavior takes time. You cannot expect people to change their behavior and continue with those changes from a two or three day training experience. The focus of team building must be on improving results, not just improving relationships.

The process starts by measuring how clear team members are on their purpose, vision, values and goals, and goes on to focus on the maneuvers and all aspects of the team dynamics for achieving those goals.

It is important to know that no matter what you call your team-based improvement effort: continuous improvement, total quality management, lean manufacturing and Human Sigma, or self-directed work teams, you are striving to improve results for internal and external customers. Few organizations and leaders, however, are totally pleased with the results their team improvement efforts produce.

If your team improvement efforts are not living up to your expectations, the “twelve Cs for effective unit development,” a self-diagnosing checklist might tell you why. Successful team building maneuvers that develop effective, focused work teams require attention to detail in the following areas. It is important to think about the many questions posed to ensure the appropriate discussions are stimulating directional flow towards the team’s success.

1. Clear Expectations: Has executive leadership (to be successful, there must be buy-in from the top) clearly communicated its expectations for the team’s performance and expected outcomes? Do team members understand why the team was created? Is the organization demonstrating consistency of purpose in supporting the team with resources of people, time and money? Does the work of the team receive sufficient emphasis as a priority in terms of the time, discussion, attention and interest directed its way by executive leaders?

2. Context: Do team members understand why they are participating on the team? Do they understand how the strategy of using teams will help the organization attain its communicated business goals? Can team members define their team’s importance to the accomplishment of goal orientation? Does the team understand where its work fits in the total context of the organization’s goals, principles, posture, vision, organizational behavior and values?

3. Commitment: Do team members want to participate on the team? Do team members feel the team mission is important? Are members committed to accomplishing the team mission and expected outcomes? Do team members perceive their service as valuable to the organization and to their own careers – is there a “win-win?” Do team members anticipate recognition for their contributions? Do team members expect their skills to grow and develop on the team? Are team members excited and challenged by the team opportunity?

4. Competence: Does the team feel that it has the appropriate people participating? (As an example, in a process improvement initiative, is each step of the process represented on the team?) Does the team feel that its members have the knowledge, skill and capability to address the issues for which the team was formed? If not, does the team have access to the help it needs? Does the team feel it has the resources, strategies and support needed to accomplish its mission/objectives and future picture?

5. Contract: Has the team taken its assigned area of responsibility and designed its own mission, vision, posture statement, Memorandum of Understanding and strategic intent to accomplish the mission. Has the team defined and communicated its goals; its anticipated outcomes and contributions; its timelines; and how it will measure both the outcomes of its work and the process the team followed to accomplish their task? Does the leadership team or other coordinating group support what the team has designed?

6. Command and Control: This can be defined as the exercise of authority and direction by a properly designated team leader or members on a team over assigned and attached resources in the accomplishment of the organization’s mission. That being said, does the team have enough freedom and empowerment to feel the ownership necessary to accomplish its contract? At the same time, do team members clearly understand their boundaries? How far may members go in pursuit of solutions? Are limitations (i.e. monetary and time resources) defined at the beginning of a project before the team experiences barriers and rework? Is the team’s reporting relationship and accountability understood by all members of the organization? Has the organization defined the team’s authority? To make recommendations? To implement its plan? Is there a defined review process so both the team and the organization are consistently aligned in direction and purpose? Do team members hold each other accountable for project timelines, commitments and results? Does the organization have a plan to increase opportunities for self-management among organization members?

7. Collaboration (Coalition of Forces): Does the team understand team and group process? Do members understand the stages of group development? Are team members working together effectively interpersonally? Do all team members understand the roles and responsibilities of team members (Concept of the “Bus”)? Team leaders? Can the team approach problem solving, process improvement, goal setting and measurement jointly? Do team members cooperate to accomplish the team contract? Has the team established group norms or rules of conduct in areas such as LeaderShaping, conflict resolution, consensus decision making and meeting management? Is the team using an appropriate strategy to accomplish its action plan?

8. Communication: Are team members clear about the priority of their tasks? Is there an established method for the teams to give feedback and receive honest performance feedback? Does the organization provide important business information regularly? Do the teams understand the complete context for their existence? Do team members communicate clearly and honestly with each other? Do team members bring diverse opinions to the table? Are necessary conflicts raised and addressed? Do team members understand that conflict is necessary for lessons learned?

9. Creative Innovation: Is the organization really interested in change? Does it understand the contextual implications for the change? Does it value creative thinking, transformational thinking, unique solutions and new ideation? Does it reward people who take reasonable risks to make improvements? Or does it reward the people who fit in and maintain the status quo? Does it provide the training, education, access to publications and textual resources, performance management assessments and infield trips necessary to stimulate new thinking?

10. Consequences: Do team members feel responsible and accountable for team achievements? Do team members feel responsible and accountable for other team members? Are rewards and recognition supplied when teams are successful? Not successful? Is reasonable risk respected and encouraged in the organization? Do team members fear reprisal? Do team members spend their time finger pointing rather than resolving problems during the necessary Debrief sessions? Is the organization designing reward systems that recognize both team and individual performance and organizational behavior? Is the organization planning to share gains and increased profitability with team and individual contributors? Do team members feel responsible and accountable for team and individual strategic execution tactics? Can contributors see their impact on increased organization success?

11. Coordination: Are teams coordinated by a central leadership team that assists the groups to obtain what they need for success? Are teams coordinated by a designated “Red Team,” one who works to employ contingency script that assists the team with working out problems and challenges as a precursor to engaging the mission? Have priorities and resource allocation been planned across departments? Have the proper configurations or reconfigurations been made and planned for across departments? Do teams understand the concept of the internal customer – the next process, anyone to whom they provide a product or a service? Are cross-functional and multi-department teams common and working together effectively and efficiently? Is the organization developing a customer-focused process-centric orientation and moving away from traditional departmental thinking?

12. Cultural Change – Collective Behaviors: Does the organization recognize that the team-based, collaborative, empowering, enabling organizational culture of the future is different than the traditional, hierarchical organization it may currently be? Is the team a networked unit or hierarchical one? Is the organization planning to or in the process of changing how it rewards, recognizes, appraises, hires, develops, plans with, motivates and manages the people it employs? Does the organization plan to use failures for learning and support reasonable risk? Does the organization recognize that the more it can change its climate to support teams, the more it will receive in pay back (ROI) from the work of the teams?

Spend time and attention on each of these “twelve Cs for effective unit development” to ensure your work teams contribute most effectively to your business success. In a position of leadership, your team members will respond favorably, your business will soar to new heights and empowered people will “own” and be responsible for their work processes. Everyone will find his/her voice. Can you ask for anything better in the workplace than what is proposed here?

Accelerate Your Team Building Success with these Dynamic Publications

People in every industry talk about team building and working as a team, but few understand how to create the experience of team building or how to develop an effective team. Many view teams as the best organization design for involving all staff associates in developing business success, productivity and profitability. The following publications have been referenced to assist you accelerate your team building maneuvers and development success.

1. The Discipline of Teams: Small Group Performance Workbook
How to implement the disciplines, frameworks, tools, and techniques required for team building and team performance is the focus of this book by the authors of one of my favorites, “The Wisdom of Teams.” Performance is the result of both the leader and the team successfully interacting for business results, quickly. (Jon R. Katzenbach, Douglas K. Smith: John Wiley & Sons)

2. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team
Once again using an astutely written fictional tale to unambiguously but painlessly deliver some hard truths about critical business procedures, the text targets group behavior in this entertaining, quick read filled with useful information that will prove easy to digest and implement. The text weaves lessons around the story of a troubled Silicon Valley firm and its unexpected choice for a new CEO: an old-school manager who had retired from a traditional manufacturing company two years earlier at age 55. Showing exactly how existing personnel failed to function as a unit, and precisely how the new boss worked to reestablish that essential conduct, the book's first part colorfully illustrates the ways that teamwork can elude even the most dedicated individuals--and be restored by an insightful leader. A second part offers details on the “five dysfunctions” (absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability, and inattention to results), along with a questionnaire for readers to use in evaluating their own teams and specifics to help them understand and overcome these common shortcomings. (Patrick Lencioni: Jossey-Bass)

3. Overcoming the Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Field Guide for Leaders, Managers, and Facilitators
Fans have clamored for more information on how to implement the ideas outlined in The Five Dysfunctions of a Team publication, so the author answered the call. This text, “Overcoming the Five Dysfunctions of a Team,” offers more specific, practical guidance for overcoming the Five Dysfunctions, using tools, exercises, assessments and real-world examples. He examines questions that all teams must ask themselves: Are we really a team? How are we currently performing? Are we prepared to invest the time and energy required to be a great team? Written concisely and to the point, this guide gives leaders, line managers, and consultants alike the tools they need to get their teams up and running quickly and effectively. (Patrick Lencioni: Jossey-Bass)

4. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: Participant Workbook
Based on Patrick Lencioni’s extraordinarily successful leadership fable The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, this Participants Workbook outlines Lencioni’s powerful model and the actionable steps that can be used to overcome five common problems that may prevent your team from performing at its best: Absence of Trust, Fear of Conflict, Lack of Commitment, Avoidance of Accountability and Inattention to Results. (Patrick Lencioni: Jossey-Bass)

5. Building Great Teams: Charting the Path of Organizational Politics
Learn how to strengthen and build your team dynamics and interpersonal communications skills; remain in control of any situation that you and your team encounter; and manage your responsibilities with tact, poise, and polish. Building great teams requires your ability to understand how to successfully chart the path of organizational politics as the essential task to achieving personal mastery and the results they influence. This text is designed for professionals who are looking for a non-traditional approach to integrating a well-defined, team-centric initiative into their organization. It facilitates a high level of professional development and demonstrates how to navigate the maze of successful team building. Using strategies from the United States Marine Corps, the text demonstrates reasons to incorporate innovative ideas and insights into core responsibilities and identifies real solutions to pressing organizational issues. You will learn to look for and see the organization behind the organization and use the insights to build and maintain support for your upcoming team-led projects. The text develops a compelling case study for your associates and the organization to understand the comprehensive approach for integrating strategic human capital and team development initiatives. Upon completion, you will receive actionable insights to emulate its approach into your existing work environment, while increasing the performance benchmarks that lie within the four critical dimensions of process improvement and effective team development: people, process, profit and profitability.
(Damian D. “Skipper” Pitts: Book Surge Publishing)

6. Building Great Teams: The Monograph
The author answers the “how-to” question for leaders across the business marketplace on building great teams with a Monograph to accompany “Building Great Teams: Charting the Path of Organizational Politics.” The text offers more specific, practical guidance for teams to chart the path of organizational politics while building greatness. The Monograph offers a blueprint for leaders and managers alike to apply a few of the disciplines found in great teams. A clear model for diagnosing and improving a team’s performance will assist beginning teams to grow. The action steps provided are the path to successful team building. Longer term teams will use these reminders for effective performance and ongoing team building.
(Damian D. “Skipper” Pitts: Book Surge Publishing)

8. Business WARFIGHTING For Great Teams
Have a team that is under performing and not living up to expectations? This team building book offers 23+ strategies and suggestions for spotting performance problems and solving them using U.S. Marine Corps-like initiatives for successful results. The text seeks to expose the future business leaders of the world to the types of training exercises that have produced generations of successful military leaders. While there are obvious differences between battlefield leadership and corporate leadership, there are also many parallels that can be drawn - especially in the constantly evolving business landscape and its use of teams. We could be nimbler in our decision-making. We could be team players, even from the top. We could lead by example. And we could actively train our subordinates to eventually lead us. Sounds like hogwash? Don’t forget that the U.S. Marines has a proven track record of success in the area of building teams that execute flawlessly and strategically – 233 years and running. (Damian D. “Skipper” Pitts and Jason G. Brown: Book Surge Publishing)

9. Why Teams Can Fail and What to Do About It:
Essential Tools for Anyone Have a team that is under performing and not living up to expectations? This team building book offers suggestions for spotting performance problems and solving them. A long term favorite of mine, you’ll learn a lot about helping teams perform more effectively from these team building recommendations. (Darcy Hitchcock: McGraw-Hill)

10. The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork
Autocratic leadership is dead; it doesn’t work in today’s organizations; it may never have really worked. Building a sense of team work in your organization will help you win and perform. These team building lessons help you professionally and personally contribute to the team. (John C. Maxwell: Nelson, Thomas Publishers)

11. The Performance Factor: Unlocking the Secrets of Teamwork
Pat Macmillan discusses the six components needed to produce high performance teams. This readable book provides insight into the challenges facing groups. The role of the leader in service to the team and the importance of team purpose are emphasized. (Pat Macmillan: Broadman & Holman Publishers)

12. Skilled Facilitator: Practical Wisdom for Developing Effective Groups
You’d look a long time to find a book that defines the art and science of group facilitation as well as Schwarz in this instant classic. Starting with an introduction to group functioning, he offers insight into all aspects of groups including how to play the varying roles of the facilitator and work with different personalities and problems. (Roger M. Schwarz: Jossey-Bass)

13. The Wisdom of Teams: Creating the High-Performance Organization
The importance of teams has become a cliché of modern business theory, but few have a clear idea of what it means. In this new edition of their best-selling primer, Katzenbach and Smith try to impart some analytical rigor to the concept. Drawing on their experience as management consultants and a plethora of case studies at companies like Burlington Northern and Motorola, they cover such topics as the optimal size of teams, coping with turnover in team personnel and nurturing “extraordinary teams” rather than “pseudo-teams.” Reacting against the touchy-feely interpersonal bent of discourse on teams, they emphasize hard-nosed principles of “performance, focus, and discipline,” over the softer concerns of “communication, openness and ‘chemistry.’” Teams, they argue, gel and achieve not by developing “togetherness,” but by tackling and surmounting specific “outcome-based” challenges (“eliminate all late deliveries...within 90 days” rather than the vaguer “develop a plan for improving customer satisfaction.”). Some of the authors’ recommendations are reasonably precise and practical, but too many are nebulous truisms (“keep the purpose, goals, and approach relevant and meaningful”) or weighed down by turgid consultant-ese (“integrating the performance goals of formal, structural units as well as special ad hoc group efforts becomes a significant process design challenge”). The case studies are better written, but it’s not clear that these inspiring anecdotes of team triumph add up to a systematic doctrine. The book leaves the impression that teams ultimately just have to learn by doing. (John R. Katzenbach and Douglas K. Smith: Collins Business)

14. The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization
A director at MIT's Sloan School, Senge here proposes the “systems thinking” method to help a corporation to become a “learning organization,” one that integrates at all personnel levels indifferently related company functions (sales, product design, etc.) to “expand the ability to produce.” He describes requisite disciplines, of which systems-thinking is the fifth. Others include “personal mastery” of one’s capacities and “team learning” through group discussion of individual objectives and problems. Employees and managers are also encouraged to examine together their often negative perceptions or “mental models” of company people and procedures. The text is esoteric and flavored with terms like “re contextualized rationality,” but the book should help inventory-addled retailers whom the author cites as unaware of their customers’ desire for quality. (Peter Senge: Broadway Business)

15. The One Minute Manager Builds High-Performing Teams (Updated)
Simplistic? Absolutely! But, this team building book covers the stages of team development, how to work with a team, the importance of team leadership and more. This highly readable book is a useful beginning read about teams. It’s one that all team members will use and enjoy. (Eunice Parisi-Carew, Donald K. Carew, Kenneth H. Blanchard: Morrow/Avon)

16. A Message To Garcia
This text written by legendary author Elbert Hubbard is widely considered to be one of the top 100 greatest books of all time. This great classic will surely attract a whole new generation of readers. For many, A Message To Garcia is required reading for various courses and curriculums. And for others who simply enjoy reading timeless pieces of classic literature, this gem by Elbert Hubbard is highly recommended. Beautifully produced, A Message To Garcia would make an ideal gift and it should be a part of everyone’s personal team building and leadership library. (Elbert Hubbard: Classic House Books)

Defining a Refreshed and Irreplaceable Type of Organizational Leadership: The LeaderShaped Leader

2009-05-23T09:00:00.000-07:00

Abstract

In this paper, the concepts of transformational leadership, organizational behavior, strategic execution and fearlessness are defined, discussed, and examined. The concepts are then integrated to form an orientation toward transformational leadership, known as LeaderShaping.

The LeaderShaped Leader sits atop a hierarchy of six significant leadership and organizational behavioral stages – and possesses the skills of all six. Individuals without these skills have gaps in their understanding of producing exceptional leadership for the 21st century and beyond. Gone are the days of good and great; the future requires exceptional and extraordinary. With these six skill sets, leaders are able to perform in ways that leaves others amazed because of their ability to make it look so easy (work and reward orientation and organizational impact), yet effective. The implications for leadership in non-LeaderShaped settings are highlighted.

Included with this full LEADERSHIP text:

1. Article Summary

The Idea in Brief – the core idea
The Idea in Practice – putting the idea to work

2. LeaderShaping as a Philosophy

An attempt to perceive what things really are, not how they appear to be, and to discern how things really work, not how they appear to work – a comprehensive overview on the differences in “leadership,” “management” and “LeaderShaping” – and why LeaderShaping matters today

3. Further Reading – Experiential Learning

Realize that you are becoming LeaderShaped; flawlessly execute to reach your breakout point – this is what is called “Breakthrough Execution for Peak Performance.”

THE IDEA IN BRIEF

Organizational Behavior (OB): Emerging Realities that Transforms the Workplace. This paper presents an overview of the Bison Group’s executive education program on the theories and practices of organizational behavior and the techniques of applied management – Defining a Refreshed and Irreplaceable Type of Organizational Leadership: The LeaderShaped Leader. This course is being taught at Temple University and focuses on individual and team behavior (leadership development, accountability, a contextual blend of the paradoxical combination of deep personal humility that achieves Personal Proficiency with an intense will to achieve Professional Mastery) in life and in organizations.

Taking a passive approach to influencing peak performance will most likely lead to exasperating results that you will regret later in life. LeaderShaping continues the trailblazing innovations that make other studies that develop healthy workplace cultures less appetizing. Integrating the strategies, practices, tactics and principles of the United States Marine Corps, discussions of traditional behavioral theories, organizational dynamics, current trends and transformative directions to develop the archetype for a solid Future Picture offers new “OB” realities and knowledge that everyone needs in and around organizational environments.

Acclaimed for its readability and presentation of current knowledge, the course’s philosophy is that OB and strategic-execution knowledge is a “must” for everyone, not just traditional leaders. The Process of LeaderShaping is unparalleled in its ability to engage participants by bringing cutting edge military-style battlefield concepts closer to reality through the “OODA Loop” approach: Observe, orient, decide and act – it has become an important concept in both business and military strategy. This military strategy, when applied to the concepts in LeaderShaping, allow participants to connect OB theories to emerging workplace realities (the developers of this concept emphasized that “the loop” is actually a set of interactive spheres that are to be kept in continuous movement during combat; hence, the phase of any competitive engagement has an important bearing on the ideal allocation of one’s energies).

Accordingly, decision-making occurs in a recurring cycle of observe-orient-decide-act. An entity (whether an individual, a team or an organization) that can process this cycle quickly, observing and reacting to unfolding events more rapidly than an opponent, can thereby “get inside” the opponent’s decision cycle and gain the advantage. LeaderShaping’s use of this strategy provides a much deeper, richer, and more comprehensive “set of lenses” to glean instruction from OB best practices. The Bison Group’s interpretation explains how to direct one’s energies to separate emotionally from constructive conflict, defeat an adversary and survive – both in business and in life.

What is LeaderShaping and WHY should it matter?

A synonym for “Fearlessness,” LeaderShaping provides the cultural influences and the collective behaviors used for facing the reality of your current situation, to recognize what you can actually achieve given the powerful organizational and relationship dynamics without thinking that you cannot actually achieve success through your own will, and become more powerful than you are. And then, at the same time, while moving equal amounts of energy from the depths of your character, you decide who you want to be, so that you can stand firm on personal conviction and the practices of life that you believe most deeply in so as to accept criticism and achieve greatness. This is the beginning stage within an expected healthy debate about the nature and effectiveness of employing transformational thinking and change across organizations that is seeking to achieve a well planned Future Picture for generations to follow.

Simplified: LeaderShaping is the stimulus that moves a decision into reality and away from a state of fearlessness by increasing two very different perspectives in a person’s life – “Personal Proficiency” and “Professional Mastery!” LeaderShaping works to provide summary answers to key questions about why it is important for people to accept change using transformational thinking: What is it? How is it applied? Why is it critical to my current circumstance? How will it help me to respond to problems and challenges? Can it help me with influencing positive change within my point of view? How does it help me to respond to the pace of my changing environment? How does it help me to respond to rules and procedures set by others? (Personal Proficiency)

As it relates external organizational relationships, LeaderShaping prepares your voice to be heard in answering these key questions: Where does your organization want to be in the future? What will the organization apply its resources against to achieve its Future Picture? How will the organization apply those resources? When and under what conditions will the organization exit from its current strategic plan? (Professional Mastery)

LeaderShaping provides a performance DNA using the Bison Group’s Breakthrough TTI Performance DNA™ LeaderShaping instruments that is designed to increase the understanding of an individual's talents. The instruments provide insight into three distinctive areas: Behaviors, motivators, and competencies. Understanding strengths and weaknesses, “Strength Finders,” in each of the three areas, the user is led into an achieved level of personal and professional development along with a higher level of satisfaction.

The Prerequisites

A willingness to achieve a successful life, business, organization, team and future by learning to apply the skills and acumen “not” previously used in order to get greater returns on your behavioral deposits and withdrawals, and human capital investments.

THE IDEA IN PRACTICE

“Personal Proficiency + Professional Mastery = A LeaderShaped Leader”

How do ordinary people manifest humility to achieve significant Personal Proficiencies that deliver extraordinary results? They remain on a continuum for learning to achieve greatness, become an agent of change through positive organizational behaviors and establish a leadership signature that links their leadership to their legacy.

Most importantly, when the unexpected happens and the results are less than expected, they carry the pains and burdens upon their shoulders without blame to others – relying on a Memorandum of Understanding – the collective behaviors and cultural influences from the trusted people, their teams, within their employ.

A Memorandum of Understanding, the inspired standards and code of conduct, demonstrate the LeaderShaped Leaders’ unwavering will and drive. Intolerant of mediocrity and failure, they are determined to do whatever must be done to produce extraordinary results – terminating everything that has the potential to get in their way. And, they develop others to successfully complete succession planning to ensure that the torch can be carried by competent men and women into the future.

Can you become a LeaderShaped Leader?

The LeaderShaped Leader sits atop a hierarchy of six significant leadership and organizational behavior stages – and possesses the skills of all six. Individuals without these skills have gaps in their understanding of producing exceptional leadership for the 21st century and beyond. Gone are the days of good and great; the future requires exceptional and extraordinary. With these six skill sets, leaders are able to perform in ways that leaves others amazed because of their ability to make it look so easy, yet effective.

The LeaderShaped Leader

Perhaps the most important component in the transition from ordinary to extraordinary is what our faculty calls, the “Process of LeaderShaping: the ‘intellectual and emotional thought space’ for value creation.”

 Stage 1 is the “Recruit, the good-to-great highly capable individual who makes productive contributions through talent, knowledge, skills and good work habits. This individual is the one person in the environment that understands ‘people first, then the organization;’ hence, the development and achievement of the desired effects within the expected Future Picture.”

 Stage 2 is the Experienced Manager “who is working to establish his/her ‘Leadership Signature’ to integrate their newly found skills to the achievement of team and organizational objectives (mission) and work effectively with others in a team-led environment. The Experienced Manager begins his/her growth by learning the constructs in the Memorandum of Understanding to find a voice; then, influences others to find theirs.”

 Stage 3 is the competent Fleet Leader who “understands the criticality of employing organizational behavior across environments – organizes people and resources to develop an effective strategy forward using the critical Centers of Gravity to achieve the desired effects.”

 Stage 4 is an effective Breakthrough Executor who “outlines the specific cognitive abilities that will be sought and cultivated by other leaders in the years ahead using the Five Minds for the Future: the disciplined mind, the synthesizing mind, the creating mind, the respectful mind, and the ethical mind; the leader who remains committed to a vigorous pursuit of a clear and compelling vision, stimulating higher performance standards using team maneuvers."

 Stage 5 is the Team/Project Leader who “employs the highest standards of customer service by achieving the five disciplines of greatness – these are the leaders who understand maneuver warfare and the disciplines within a Five Paragraph Order: SMEAC. They know an extraordinary organization is one that is driven by extraordinary people who make a distinctive impact and deliver superior performance over a long period of time – as a team unit.”

 Stage 6 is the LeaderShaped Leader “who employs organizational strategic execution tactics (The OrgSx Paradigm) to permeate enduring greatness through a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will. All successful organizations have a single component in common; they have a strategic-executor at the helm who knows the disciplines of ‘strategic agility’ and ‘flawless execution.’ These leaders are described as being tactical in their approach, ferocious and fearless, yet modest with an unwavering commitment to high standards.” This is the leader who knows how to win!

A synonym for “Fearlessness,” LeaderShaping provides the cultural influences and the collective behaviors used for facing the reality of your current situation, to recognize what you can actually achieve given the powerful organizational and relationship dynamics without thinking that you can actually achieve success through your own will, and become more powerful than you are.

And then, at the same time, while moving equal amounts of energy from the depths of your character, you decide who you want to be, so that you can stand firm on personal conviction and the practices of life that you believe most deeply in, so as to accept criticism and achieve greatness. This is the beginning stage within an expected healthy debate about the nature and effectiveness of employing transformational thinking and change across organizations that is seeking to achieve a well planned Future Picture for generations to follow – greatness requires a LeaderShaped Leader for influencing the same from others and from within the growing organizations they are a part.

MAKING IT HAPPEN – LIVING THE WORK …Doing the STORY for the GLORY!

In this day and time, there are some people who are willing to have the glory before the story. Let me be the first to say that this is the wrong thinking that results terrible outcomes. Nothing in life, and certainly not in leadership, comes easy. Having the story before the glory prepares anyone for the tough road ahead and allows for the proper amount of “humility” along the way. A question to ask yourself and those individuals who trust in your leadership is this: what do we do to prepare our people, our teams and our organizations for uncertainty – a plan for the future that exceeds everyone’s expectations? The answer is a complex, yet simple one; keep pace with today’s rapidly changing business environment by engaging and improving your emotional intelligence and organizational behavior skills to recognize, adopt and adapt generational expertise, to include concepts of team-building practices and high-performance perception and values that result realistic winning solutions into the future.

Are you ready to challenge yourself to a higher purpose of leadership?

Taking on a leadership role in today’s environment is like signing on for a constant race against change. You have to stay several steps ahead of the trends...strive to develop new strategies and keep ahead of the crowd. It’s up to you to ensure that your department or team is on track for success. And now you can achieve your leadership goals!

Here is your opportunity to learn how to identify and manage the challenges you face with practical and proven-in-action techniques. The following information explains what it takes to become a “LeaderShaped Leader.” In-class exercises, coupled with updates on current research and performance management assessments, allow you to practice new ideas, military stratagem, gaming/simulation and to try out shared insights. In this highly interactive executive education program, participants will have the opportunity to learn from their team associates and peers as they stretch their leadership driven minds and methods for learning to assert their role upon return to their workplace, organization and home life.

LeaderShaping as a Philosophy

In general, philosophy is the search for sense, meaning, cause and principle using logical thinking and rigorous thought. Philosophy unearths foundations and stresses being and mechanisms, discerning what things are and how they work. It is an attempt to perceive what things really are, not how they appear to be, and to discern how things really work, not how they appear to work. Philosophy seeks ultimate, irreducible truth.

Philosophy claims to be able to make sense out of any human awareness or endeavor, however massive or minuscule. Perhaps we will find interesting things about the nature of investing in humanity. But how? The answer lies within the Process of LeaderShaping’s hierarchy of six significant leadership and organizational behavior stages.

As you think about how individuals are by nature, you quickly realize how selfish people really are. They consider their own actions first: How will this affect me? At the same time, we try to disguise our selfishness with an authentic portrayal of interests that ultimately show its true face that leads to problems. This brings us to the alpha and omega on influence. It is important to acknowledge an individual’s ability to get along well with others while achieving their cooperation and shared-vision for reaching mission objectives and assigned tasks.

By defining the differences between “leadership” and “management” (this is still, to some, confusing phenomena) as the prior and “LeaderShaping” as the ladder, we can identify noteworthy differences and commonalties, clarify what LeaderShaping includes that the other omits, and identify significantly fruitful ways that a marriage of the three can engender an interesting new concept or philosophy.

Leadership is frequently defined as the ability to exercise influence across a group or team of people with the expectations of meeting the mission objectives established for the future. The ability to exert such influence can derive formally from one’s position, office, title, function, control of resources, control of rewards and punishments, or role; or informally from one’s abilities, skills, experience, expertise, behavior, style, charisma, or charm. A given leader may have at his/her disposal either or both formal and informal sources of influence, but it remains his/her potential to manage them to decide just how successful they are as a leader. Regardless of the level of influence, a social relationship exists.

There are two forms of social relationships to consider; one with people and the other with the environment. So far, we’ve spoken about the people aspect, but the relationship with the environment, also known as “Social Learning Theory: the reciprocal relationships between behaviors and environments,” focuses in the area of “Organizational Behavior: the study and application of knowledge about how people, individuals, groups and teams act in organizations, while being influenced by others.” It does this by interpreting people/organizational relationships in terms of the whole person, whole group, whole team, whole organization, and whole social system. Its purpose is to build better relationships by achieving human objectives, organizational objectives, and social objectives. As you can see from the explanation above, the study of organization behavior encompasses a wide range of topics, such as human behavior, change, leadership and management, teams, execution and more.

It is important to be aware that leadership does not exist in a social vacuum, but rather is socially defined and determined in terms of one’s influence on others. Leadership only exists if there is someone to be led who accepts the leader’s influence in order to attain a goal, while management is all about managing process. Leadership, by its very nature, is an entity of influence through choice and changing environmental reality. As we think about popular culture and its belief for what leadership may be, the conclusion would bring most individuals to the conclusion (and not an assumption) that there is a greater state that achieves leadership itself. Leadership focuses on the long-term, but management places its focus on the short-term.

Leadership keeps its eye on the horizon, while management keeps its eye on the bottom-line. Leadership will tolerate failure or missteps as long as the direction provides instruction toward the goal for both the individual and the organization to learn from the failure or the lessons learned.

Failure, therefore, is viewed as a significant opportunity to learn – only when it is managed and turned into a precise process. It is therefore safe to say that when thinking about how individuals comprehend an ability to influence environments to become successful at meeting its objectives, it would be OK to acknowledge the current state of leadership does not fit into a single mold. There are six characteristics that provide a framework for people in leadership that helps them to achieve a state of understanding for its being. By gaining a thorough understanding for the framework’s place, the six characteristics define the leader’s intent and builds his/her level of trust with others – the framework is also the core discipline that increases credibility across the environments that leadership has a significant presence. The six characteristics within the framework are known as the 6Cs: Consistency, Courage, Conviction, Commitment, Contrite, and Captivating.

1. Consistency. Leaders steadily act to influence greatness. They achieve all accomplishments through collaboration by fostering a warrior culture and the ultimate obligation of a winner rather than an uninspired drive that results significant under-achievement.

2. Courage (Challenge the Established Processes). Leaders must never run from doing what is right. They must be prepared to step out on faith, removing themselves outside of popular culture, while searching for the courage and understanding to win over failure. This characteristic is where the rainmakers reside.

3. Conviction. Leaders communicate their convictions boldly.

4. Commitment (Model the Way). Leaders understand that the only thing necessary for the triumph of greatness is for the chosen to fail at not trying! Allowing your walk to mirror your talk demonstrates by example “what” should be done and “how” it must be done to execute task and responsibilities strategically and flawlessly.

5. Contrite (Encourage and Inspire the Heart of a Winner). Leaders know when to be humble and willingly demonstrate ability for being flexible in their way of thinking, hence transformational thought. Be prepared to recognize, appreciate, and celebrate the contributions from all persons involved in the winning process.

6. Captivating (Inspire a Shared-Vision). Leaders are tactical in their ability to positively influence a journey within the community that helps the stakeholders to find their voices. Individuals must envision the future picture that includes a sense of vitality and creativity that appeal to the desires of all stakeholders who act and contribute to the realization of an established vision.

The characteristics that make-up this framework for leadership helps individuals to become the maverick conformists that stimulate a community’s ability to change its perspective to current reality, using best practices, when needed. As time matriculates as a changing paradigm, so does a vision and the expected outcomes within an environment of trust. And, as this happens, an individual in a position of leadership will assert or affirm positive influence that transfers an attitudinal approach for achieving excellence to others within their community. In doing so, recognition is achieved at all levels and places individuals on a continuum for future examination of proactive change.

Here are some other things about leadership for consideration. Leadership must reinforce the values of the mission outlined by positive organizational behavior. Because all actions are based on internal and often unexpressed motivation and behavior, leaders recognize that achieving buy-in from their associates is the way to success.

In contrast, management focuses exclusively on the actions and behaviors of their associates with little or no interest in the reasons behind those actions. One of the greatest attributes for effective leaders is that they are unafraid of looking vulnerable to their peers when they don’t have the answers that others are seeking. In the same light, some managers when they don’t have the answers to the information tend to place emotional distance between themselves and those seeking the information. Leaders will listen to the people around them, knowing that they may glean lessons from their peers.

Old school managers were known to talk at the people, thinking that they can not learn from people who may not be on their level. Leaders quickly and effectively learn to openly embrace diversity and multiculturalism, while managers might try to encourage traditionalism. Effective leaders inspire the heart of a winner, while a manager may focus exclusively on the mind of a player. Leaders will courageously embrace change if they feel that change is eminent for the system to experience growth.

Managers will have a difficult time overcoming resistance to change and might hold the reins tightly to preserve the status quo. Leaders inspire and develop emotional bonds to the mission at hand, but managers will tend to create compliance issues and stick closely to the status quo that might lead to a commanding perspective. Leaders create, inspire, and support ideation within their peer groups, while managers dictate based on the inflexible approach to leading.

Leadership, therefore, is crucial in creating exceptional performance. Leadership and management skills are complementary. Leadership combined with management creates synergistic opportunities and engage the mind, body, heart, and soul of the associates influenced by the actions of a winning team of great leadership qualities and positive influence. Leadership is the successful influence of management in human behavior in and away from the environment. Those chosen to lead lay foundational structure for the leaders they develop and influence to no longer just give words to lofty, ethical values; now they are required to walk the talk and deliver at high performance levels with significant implications for effective results.

Success into the future requires not only leaders who can manage, but managers who can lead systems, people, and environments into greatness, only now, at a much higher level. The people who are able to accept “command” as the exercise of authority and “control” as feedback about the effects of the action taken. This is the outcome and most significant difference from those who are LeaderShaped and the people who are not.

A discipline of leadership that works to develop an intense, custom learning experience used to understand leadership and management to increase the leadership ability – personally and professionally – in people seeking a better tomorrow means that a process must be endured. This is a process that helps individuals to drive fundamental change and to achieve communal commitment by applying a unified framework of understanding a significant body of knowledge – the body of knowledge that encapsulates leadership, management, organizational behavior, team building and strategic execution – hence, the essential and key disciplines in LeaderShaping!

In addition to what has been explained thus far, LeaderShaping too, inspires and encourages a shared-vision of making “deposits” and “withdrawals” that both profit individuals and organizations and creates winning attitudes within the race of change. There are several questions to consider here: how would one go about creating new paradigms to current reality and norms? How do you overcome resistance to change? A third issue to examine is the outcome of the Future Picture (a state that you intend to make happen as a successful platform for forward motion or an end-state). How do you stimulate change and own it as a requirement for transitioning your life, relationships, teams, or organizational development? The answer to these questions lie in your ability to comprehend the profound implications of both the social aspects in leadership and the centurion principles that each LeaderShaped Leader possesses: a rise throughout the ranks of leadership while demonstrating exceptional mental sharpness and discipline, and physical endurance to understand and deal with the strategic and tactical thought …and it all comes at a cost; “emotional restraint, sweat and sacrifice.”

The LeaderShaped Leader’s sword is his/her ability to outthink his enemy using a strategic and tactical philosophy and approach, touching the enemy first before anyone else in battle (the first to engage) to win them by leading from the front with strength, honor and unyielding integrity. The key is not to engage the enemy on their terrain, but to change their behaviors by engaging them prior to arriving to the battle – you win by changing the way they think by keeping them on the offensive with a well designed Battleplan.

An interesting state of affairs exists between leadership, management and LeaderShaping – people, both as followers and leaders themselves, and the complex dance along the way. To be an effective leader, an individual must possess certain qualities or certain sources of influence that other people do not possess. They seek to readily employ these qualities as credible resources to address various burning platforms before they flare up when required or needed.

In a sense then, a leader is someone who differs from all others. If leadership was easy, more people would be doing it and recruited for it. However, when you add the additional ingredients that are needed for the 21st century and beyond, LeaderShaping, the leader must perform a very difficult balancing act, to be like their followers, but also to behave differently than their followers. Expressing this balancing act in a somewhat different manner, a leader must be in front of followers, (no longer leading from the flanks, rear or middle) taking people from a an ordinary group to an extraordinary team, where they must want to journey or be influenced to go.

LeaderShaped Leaders must be able to do the following, much different from leaders:

1. Transform their way of thinking from simply thinking outside of the box; they must have the know-how to bury the box and be damn certain that the enemy cannot find the box and dig it up.

2. Understand that failure is the greatest teacher; “victory” instructs the simple, “failure” the wise; success teaches few lessons, but failure teaches many. Debrief for lessons learned and learn from them – the failures that is!

3. Know “how-to” use fresh ideas, hone them for efficient and effective integration, and model for reproduction using the ideas as the basis for modeling to learn, teach, and lead into the future: Instruct a shared-vision by influencing trust through balance; Demonstrate by example the benefits and features found in success; Experience the glory after executing process and procedure flawlessly; and Assess all areas of the environment to reshape and reconfigure process to ensure enduring success.

4. Understand the know-how for using the Seven “D’s” of Courage: (1) Desire: Become a champion of change; a major part of a solution; (2) Dream: Achieve a preferred future picture with just leaders; (3) Decisiveness: Recognize the process of trust, competence, and influence to encourage and inspire a journey to find your voice; (4) Dare: The courage to act outweighs the fear to not! (5) Dedication: Remain committed to fulfill the responsibility within a call; (6) Direction: Achieve a clear plan of influenced and proactive change; and (7) Dependence: Rely on achieving greatness – not effectiveness.

5. Transfer the knowledge and use of the “The Morale Constructs Strategy.” The secret to building a shared-vision across an organization is to get the associates to think less of their motives and more of the mission at hand. Achieving this measure requires trust, credibility, character, and an understanding of your situational awareness at all times. Ensure the members of the community each understands the competitive forces against the system and the potential outcome should the forces breach the talent fields of the organization. Turn the mission into a crusade that everyone is a major influence to narrow the competitions base of support and room for tactical maneuvering. Always lean on “right,” as the good guy’s white hat never hits the ground due to his convictions and disposition for righteousness.

6. Practice the skills found within the Memorandum of Understanding and ensure that everyone does the same.

Our research shows that building extraordinary people and organizations requires a process that facilitates a hierarchy of six disciplined stages with a foundation that also translates the process into increased effectiveness and efficiency to raise the overall performance value and growth – specifically within the individual and organizational life cycle. The foundation is a simple code of conduct, known as the “Memorandum of Understanding.”

Establishing Principles to Achieve Personal Proficiency and Professional Mastery

You now have before you the opportunity to take the steps that achieve a high level of personal mastery for your life. It requires the adoption of a “code” as a living organism into your life. How can you build awareness, use your experiences in implementing a new approach to deportment, and develop a strategy, which includes resolve and ethical conduct? This is the task before you.

It sounds like the normal work that we all know and do so well. But be cautioned, it is not! When we bind the code with rules and regulations, reporting and accountability to force conformity to standards, we will fail – to oppose change by way of fear is not what we want. Rather, achieving personal mastery is a continuous, yet discontinuous pursuit of ethical behavior that ultimately manifests into a quest of improving the human spirit; to pursue good, to do the right thing in our lives, work and in the workplace. The code says that who ever should adopt it into his/her life, will possess a level of courage – both physically and emotionally – to execute the necessary task that drives performance that exemplify the highest level of personal conviction.

Why establish a code to live and operate by? The answer is simple; establishing a code or set of principles ensures a level of conduct (code of conduct) for healthy lifestyle living and workplace etiquette. This code of conduct is also known as a “Memorandum of Understanding.” As a code of conduct, the Memorandum of Understanding provides a resource to assist people in their personal development, growth, guidance, and assessment in the leadership of self. The Memorandum of Understanding establishes a strict perspective for instructing successful practices, theories, and beliefs that drives people to achieve a successful future (how you intend to conduct yourself into the future for others to emulate).

The Memorandum of Understanding, followed by and inspired from the LeaderShaped Leader, is also designed for people to learn broadly; to inspire the service out of generosity for others; and to prepare them to lead courageously into the future. A Memorandum of Understanding must encourage a perspective to become firmly grounded in the potential for successful growth using the following constructs (A Portfolio Management Series):

 The Cardinal Rules
 The Guiding Precepts
 The Forms of Disposition
 The General Orders
 The Strategy Forward – Establishing Professional Mastery
 The Centers of Gravity

The Cardinal Rules. The Cardinal Rules are a set of guidelines that are invaluable for people and organizations to follow while planning and executing at the strategic or tactical level. These rules, once established by the individual(s) or teams are the rules that govern forward movement and must not change.

The Guiding Precepts. The Guiding Precepts are designed to inform people what they should and should not be doing in accordance with executing a well designed strategy to win. They also inform of the reasons “why” an action must occur and the repercussions should the individual and/or organization fail at meeting such a task.

The Forms of Disposition. The Forms of Disposition offer a substantive transformation in “thought” about how people achieve a perspective on things in life. It refers to an orchestrated, systemic and revolutionary new world-view resulting in a “change” of societies, cultures, and marketplaces due to behavioral perspective. This is today often called "systems theory," which sees a web of relationships coalescing to become something greater than the parts. Individuals must be able to look at things from a perspective that they are always changing and evolving into new forms – thinking “out-of-the-box!” We are doomed to a slow death unless radical change occurs in the way we think. Change your way of thinking or die a slow death.

The General Orders. The General Orders are broad, community-wide "need statements,” designed to encompass a variety of related issues in a person’s life or within the life cycle of an organization. These related issues are referred to as “Guiding Objectives,” which are specific items that need to be addressed. The Guiding Strategies (developed to fit current and future circumstance) are the methods identified for addressing the Guiding Objectives, and the Guiding Policies are the specific action steps that are recommended to implement the Guiding Strategies. The General Orders, all eleven of them, offer the ability to explore implications in an open and reflective manner and reinforce each other in providing a coherency and wholeness often lacking in life cycles.

The Strategy Forward – Establishing Professional Mastery. The traditional values are the foundation of the modern day; that was yesterday. Tomorrow, you have an opportunity to create commitment and the needed momentum to establish, publish, share, and teach a different set of life’s code, values, and ethics to journey into the future. After much hard work, you are prepared to develop a strategy to move forward and plan the next steps to target critical successes for winning the Future Picture. What a legacy you will leave when executed with personal and professional bearing for others to follow. This is the way of the future. This is a new chapter!

The Centers of Gravity. Just as time changes, so does the internal and external influence in your life and in the life cycle of an organization. The Centers of Gravity are the dynamics within a process that offer the greatest impact on the overall system when change happens. They offer a high level of “value” and return on your energy “investment.” When combined with the concept of parallel deposits (creating energy from various perspectives in a short period of time), the Centers of Gravity make possible the seemingly impossible task of realizing success in changing paradigms. The Centers of Gravity places significant influence on the five established epicenters of any changing system to receive desired effects: Leadership, Processes, Infrastructure, Population, and Action Units.

In summary, this Memorandum of Understanding offers an opportunity to free up our actions as public servants (leaders responsible for influencing social relationships). It is empowering, it is enabling and it grounds us in a public way on the fundamentals that we all must share. There is no ethical malaise.

It is important to realize that the “new” is not a finding from what has been lost. Rather, we are like the journey of the Scarecrow in search of a brain (brain power in this context), the Tin Woodsman in search of a heart, and the Lion in search of courage in the Wizard of Oz. Your value system is intact and has been with you the entire way thus far. This Memorandum of Understanding simply articulates and reaffirms the core value and behavioral perspective that already underlie your personal and professional conduct to achieve significant growth. The key is for everyone to have the discipline of following it to ensure successful organizational behaviors in leadership and beyond.

Summation

The challenge with overcoming the many barriers in life and in the workplace lies in our abilities as adults to stop making things so hard. Everything in life, both personally and professionally, can be achieved if we will only begin to think back to our childhood (if you remember that specific time in your life). Growing up as children reminds us of how fearless and invincible we were.

For most of us, it didn’t matter how tough the issue, we would try anything to fix a problem. All that it required was for us to think differently from the way we did prior to beginning to solve the issue that lay in our way. And, in most cases, the issue was brought to a resolution and was quickly forgotten about before moving on to something else or a bigger issue. Well, the same should apply for leadership and organizational behavior. For the LeaderShaped Leader, the journey begins by becoming a participant in an exciting, fun filled 2 hour special topics session based on the classic film, the “Wizard of Oz.”

While the metaphor of The Wizard of Oz receives light treatment in the opening session for LeaderShaping, The Seven “T’s” of Oz: Getting Results Through Critical Thinking, Effective Decision-Making and Team Building Maneuvers, uses the characters in the story as a powerful illustration to demonstrate the positive impact the seven principles gleaned from them can have on an individual’s life. Each of the six characters in the story unlocks the Steps to achieve Personal Proficiency that is required for the journey from ordinary to extraordinary.

Keeping in the tradition of providing clever instruction for people to grow their lives our team felt that there is no greater time than today to use a creative and innovative approach to provide dynamic instruction that entertains, guides, teaches and facilitates thought provoking insight for anyone to use in life. After watching the famed film classic, Frank L. Baum’s 1939 adaptation of “The Wizard of Oz” with Judy Garland et al, we noticed how the characters, through no fault of their own, found themselves in circumstances beyond their control.

Dorothy Gale from Kansas finds herself ripped from her home by a tornado and transported, beyond her will, to the Land of Oz. The Scarecrow was cosigned to life in the fields because he had no brain and, therefore, no options to make effective decisions. The Tin Woodsman was frozen with an inability to act because he lacked the heart (passion) and drive to move. And, of course, the Cowardly Lion was robbed of his courage and ability to live the life as the king of the jungle he was destined to live. Lastly, the Wicked Witch of the West was very upset because her sister was killed by Dorothy’s house when it landed on top of her from the tornado. This happening caused a snag in her plans to torment the Land of Oz with her sister, the Wicked Witch of the East!

This timeless story brings together each of these seemingly helpless characters, all of whom felt victimized by their individual circumstances and shortcomings. Feeling powerless and unable to change their situations, a unique thing happened during the journey to Emerald City. They became a team and pooled their many resources during their journey on the yellow brick road to the Land of Oz in hopes to find the great wizard to solve their problems and help them with winning the many obstacles that stood in their way. However, upon arriving in Emerald City much after a very dangerous journey, Dorothy’s trusted companion Toto pulls the curtain back to reveal a powerless Wizard who is controlling levers and blowing smoke and who can actually do nothing for them. In the end, we see each character eventually rise above their circumstances and shortcomings to achieve the results they were looking for. Their success came not from the magic of the wizard, but from each of their own willingness to change; “change is an inside-out process.” Working together to find the unique talents required to win found their way to surface to help each character achieve their own successes.

We encourage you to begin a refreshed journey of leadership for your life by enlisting in a Seven “T’s” of Oz session. The seven principles outlined in the session each demonstrate how to make significant deposits into your life and the lives of others. You’ll see glaring similarities between your life experiences and those of Dorothy Gale from Kansas, the Cowardly Lion, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodsman, and the Wicked Witch of the West and the Wizard of Emerald City. You will be required to think “outside-the-box” for learning the uniquely creative approach for adding a new set of guiding precepts into your life.

While you will not find much more in the session and materials about The Wizard of Oz than you have already read, you will find a set of transferable skills, seven of them to be exact that begin the journey to be LeaderShaped. These skills will deepen your understanding for achieving your Personal Proficiency and Professional Mastery in life – valuable and necessary changes from the status quo – what we like to call, “a long walk on a short path on becoming a LeaderShaped Leader!”

Have a bit of leadership news, feedback on this article, or to learn more about the Process of LeaderShaping and becoming a LeaderShaped Leader, please send me an email at: Dpitts@thebisongroup.com.

Seven Ways to Establish the Future Picture you Deserve: Preparing for Organizational Renewal during the Economic Upturn

2009-01-25T07:28:00.000-08:00

As a way to further flush out the military strategies outlined in the previous post, I was asked to elaborate on how these strategies can be used to establish a successful upturn for businesses and organizations. Taking a passive approach to influencing positive organizational behavior will only lead to exasperating results that you will regret later in life. So a question to ask yourself and those individuals with who trust in your leadership is this: what do we do to bail ourselves out of the economic turmoil to plan for the future picture that exceeds everyone’s expectations? The answer is simple; keep pace with today’s rapidly changing business environment by engaging seven military stratagems, known as the “Preemptive Strike,” (seven disciplines that require strategic and flawless execution) to win and thrive during the economic upturn for success.

So how does this short lesson on military strategy and doctrine relate to organizational renewal? Like warfighting, things and circumstances change, and the two have changed quickly in the business sphere – the “speed within the business marketplace” is matching the quantum increase in the “speed of life” – leading us to the need for a significant “revolution in business and organizational affairs.” This revolution requires the launch of a Preemptive Strike on the way business is conducted; a new state of mind also known as, business unusual:

Define the importance of the strategy forward. You must first master the art of organizational navigation – mission planning, methodology and Future Picture planning. Essentially, by first knowing what it is that you wish to achieve, or what your purpose is, you are able to decide on the absolute best means for achieving the objective (with contingency planning of course). Beginning with the organizational vision (Missional Map), or the Future Picture (how you expect the future to look before your arrival based on the work done in the present), you must first align the goals and perceptions to those of the people responsible for leading into victory. This requires the development of your code of conduct, or simply, your Memorandum of Understanding.

It is here that you must begin to articulate how the organization will support individual lifestyles and the organizations lifecycle. As a code of conduct, the Memorandum of Understanding provides a set of disciplines and resource: the Cardinal Rules, Guiding Precepts, Forms of Disposition (transformative and critical thinking), General Orders and Centers of Gravity, to assist people in their personal and professional development, growth, guidance, and assessment in the leadership of self. The Memorandum of Understanding establishes a strict perspective for instructing successful practices, theories, and beliefs that drives people to achieve a successful future (also, how you intend to conduct yourself into the future for others to emulate). The Memorandum of Understanding must be designed for people to learn broadly; to inspire the service out of generosity for others; and to prepare them to lead courageously into the future. A Memorandum of Understanding must encourage a perspective to become firmly grounded in the art of “success.”

From this point, you are able to begin to examine the methodology by which the organization will achieve its Future Picture. The methodologies statements are and provide stringent, yet flexibility to the actual application (as one thing you must realize is that things change, and they change quickly!). Finally the mission is the action part, giving you immediate direction and meaning within the organization.

Engage your preemptive strike measures. The importance here is to strike while others are distracted. To do so, it requires you to have a thorough understanding for what transformational leadership is truly about (changing situational awareness); understanding that people are now much smarter and more empowered, and that true leadership and transformation is tied into trust and empowerment. Transformational leadership and the application of the maneuver approach (the strike measures) in business are the intangible aspects. This is about LeaderShaping people, process and the business to achieve a desired outcome – either in a human resource environment, departmental function, effectiveness and efficiencies of process, loyalties between people or a greater opportunity for the business.

The key underlying principles to this concept is; an acknowledgement of the empowered individual, situational awareness, setting conditions and perhaps most importantly, thinking like a strategist who remains disciplined in his/her approach to tactfully win while keeping the end state at the forefront. Winning a swift victory by catching the enemy off guard is one of any leaders’ greatest dreams. Sometimes it can be a dramatic reaction to an opportunity, or it can be designed to remove a potential threat from the enemy’s arsenal. On a broader strategic level, preemptive strike can be a deliberate Battleplan used by a strategic and numerically inferior power to head off a situation in which ultimate defeat would be inevitable. Whatever the reason, the tough economic times calls for a non-traditional approach that in some cases, might seem ruthless, and carries enormous risks if not planned well in the Innovation War Room.

This strategy and its fundamentals set out the parameters of the Battleplan and examines why leaders should decide on this particular course of action to impact their centers of gravity. The same fundamentals were successfully used during two now infamous military engagements: the Japanese bombing and attack of Pearl Harbor on 6 December 1941, the most infamous preemptive strike of all and the Israeli preemptive strike which began the Six Day War of June 1967. Using this strategy, leaders can move their organizations into regional prominence by attacking fear in the marketplace – acquire opportunities and capitalize where others are afraid to venture.

Establish Achievable Aims. Understand what it takes to make business and organizations function with greater capacity than it has in the past – as early as yesterday! Establish a code or set of principles that ensure a level of conduct (code of conduct) to extend the life cycle of the organization – helping to define what’s most important to the organization and eliminating what is not. When this can be achieved, organizations can challenge deeply-held orthodoxies about who their customers are and how they interact with them. When establishing achievable aims, it is critically important that leaders understand strategy and tactics, the many differences between them and their influences on the organization. For example, in planning the invasion of Pearl Harbor, had the Japanese leadership only listened to Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, one of Japans more experienced commanders in the fleet, they would have succeeded Pearl as a flawless strategy by launching a third attack. History now shows that the third attack was never launched. As it relates to tactics for the attack, the Japanese was highly successful, yet strategically, the only result was the awakening of a sleeping giant that lie waiting in the United States’ military might.

Just like a good old SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threat) analysis, establishing achievable aims requires the complete acknowledgement and integration of specific and focused Centers of Gravity: Leadership, infrastructure, processes, populations and action units to map out the capabilities, strengths and weaknesses across the organization. Not only as they are now, but also as they “must be” to achieve the mission! So, the lesson for business leaders is this: do not start what cannot be successfully completed with well throughout plans that ultimately lead to goals being achieved and the organization’s life cycle being extended.

Identify means and ensure intelligence. I'd like to start this segment off with a question; what’s the purpose of your organization? Or, perhaps more specifically, what’s the purpose of your organization’s leadership within its industry? Do you ever think about that throughout the course of the day? When identifying means for your organization, three words come to mind: purpose, focus and connection.

Focus involves a discovery, or at least rediscovery, of what you want most out of your organization and its leadership. That knowledge then must become the focus of your thoughts and the basis for your business decision-making. See, unless you know and focus on what more success and more effective freedom really means to you (or looks like), only then will you be able to strive for a winning outcome. Purpose is the stimulus that defines momentum in transformational thinking: “you are what you are because of the way you think.” If you believe that there is more waiting you in the future, at that point, you’ll be able to focus on that purpose for moving forward to execute your effective thoughts.

Connection is the systematic application of your purpose in life to the day-to-day function of your organization. This is where intelligence works its way into the equation. Organizational leadership must ensure intelligence by leveraging core competencies and strategic assets using a “Five Paragraph Order” approach to generate opportunities and eliminate risk of compromising new growth. The five paragraph order provides guidance to the leadership and outlines a strategy forward using the acronym known as “SMEAC.” This acronym allows an organization to ensure that everyone is striving towards a well established purpose: S: they keep an eye on the current “situation” and they fully understand the reality of their circumstances to plan a course of action; M: they are able to identify a clear “mission” – goals and objectives – to engage high and low ground; E: they are able to target critical successes and “execute” towards the future picture, while expecting the unexpected and knowing how-to deal with it accordingly; A: they remain fluid in their priorities to ensure the organization’s “administrative needs and logistics” are firmly acknowledged and moving in the right direction to affirm growth strategies and finally, C: they complete a succession process through “command and control” measures and when complete, they effectively document lessons learned to ensure generational excellence and linkage to legacy.

Here’s the lesson; when leaders identify means and ensure intelligence, they sanction effective decision-making to act on the transformative organizational behavioral measures and identify key actions that foster goal accomplishment. They harness emergent trends and discontinuities to substantially change the way things are done in and across their industry by leading the way change is realized. And finally, they positively influence their people and organizations to leverage core competencies and strategic assets in novel ways that generate new growth and focus the organization and its purpose to connect with success. When you are able to do this for yourself and your organization, you will achieve the means to ensure intelligence to win over adversity.

Enforce Security. Leaders know that their success depends upon how well their organization understands and addresses the deep customer needs, internal and external, that are currently going unmet. It is important to develop a cadence of accountability by building an organizational planning and accounting platform to establish a significant measure of merit to meet future obligations. Life does not provide all of the answers on a silver platter nor can I provide answers to life’s most persistent questions in the span of this article, but I can tell you this; enforce security of process, business process, and open your eyes to be willing to accept change or else. Dwelling on the “or else” is not worth the energy, as I suspect the economic times over the course of the past year has made you realize the effects of what could be if you do not.

Get rid of the processes and things that have outlived their usefulness. Turbulent times demand that your most coveted resources go to the high potential areas to get the greatest return. If you, as the leader, has allowed the wrong type of leadership to govern your decisions and the organization is filled with clutter (in some cases, the wrong people and talent) that proliferated unnoticed, the time has never been better to get some spring cleaning done. This is the hardest task of leadership, making the decision to shake things up for the “absolute” right reasons! In the end, everyone will understand, or not deserve to be in your successful future picture when you arrive.

Here’s the lesson: Understand what makes the business tick functionally and how your strategy forward impacts your business operating protocol. Business operating protocol is the place by which you are able to document the processes, intellectual property and the reason, purpose, and means to do business. These will almost certainly change regularly as things evolve (new technologies, battlefields, people and personalities, new customer needs and wants, etc). Enforcing security means that you must tighten the bootstraps across the board; influence the physical system that develops assets out of the business, rather than a job out of the business. If you are able to establish enforced security, you will achieve a standardized and workable solution that requires limited supervision to allow you to focus on other critical areas of the business (realizing your efforts as capital gains on business offerings and revenues).

Engage the Strike; the time to behave accordingly is now! Develop a deliberate Battleplan that can be used by a strategic and numerically inferior power to head off a situation in which ultimate defeat would be inevitable to your advantage. One way of developing such the plan is to engage the disciplines of “warfare” and act. These disciplines are paramount in defining the true meaning of leadership, execution and prosperity.

An extraordinary organization is one that is driven by extraordinary people who make a distinctive impact and deliver superior performance over a long period of time. There are some striking characteristics of the leaders who achieve sustained success along their journey within the lifecycle of their organization. They experience an increased level of personal mastery. These leaders have gone through a process. The process serves as a guiding framework, solely based on the inevitability for making significant change to influence greatness. This process is one that defines the performance outcomes that exceeds expectations – the opportunities that become unveiled due to the influenced greatness that is driven by the extraordinary people who make-up a great team.

If an organization is only as good as its people, organizations today have much to worry about. The reason: The associates are under unprecedented strain. In an economic environment that demands increased productivity, leaders are tightening control over their organizations, creating smaller environments that ask the associates to do more work in less time. At the same time, employers are paying less attention to their associates’ individuality and more to their ability to work within team environments. Preparing to engage an effective strike upon the enemy requires effective team building maneuvers. These maneuvers or disciplines of warfare must suggest that leaders at all levels can cope with a situation by employing two specific tactics: “Fearlessness” and “Business Warfighting.” When leaders learn to integrate these two tactics as their warfare disciplines across and within a team building strategy that is driven by quality and the values of the people, great actions will follow. I believe that very few organizations have the ability to lift themselves above the short-term fray to get this message, but those who do are the very few needed to lead us into the future.

For several years I’ve noticed a deep disappointment and despair, even among business people whom I had formerly thought of as engaged, capable leaders. Since 2003, my time has been spent working on environmental systems change for organizations and leadership types. My goal was to help organizations become more committed and productive with the full engagement of people across all levels. Many of these people were heroes to me that I have tried to emulate specific qualities to become great myself. They knew about the value of participative and democratic leadership. They made great gains in both the traditional measures of profitability and in innovation and viability. They understood what I have recently become aware of – the strategy of the “Blue Ocean:” Comprehending the requirements to affect change when others cannot see the future through the unique set of lenses you are wearing. To do what has never been achieved to affect a large mass using energy that creates momentum for change. They helped me to define what fearlessness means as a leader and how-to use it as a discipline of warfare for business and change.

Business warfighting is all about balance. Bringing balance to a situation causes for relaxed, yet disciplined behaviors to be present. Balance offers a greater sense of purpose, rather than going against it to tear down, destroy, or disembark the competition. Embracing conflict in the face of complex situations that seem disillusioned (terrain that are untamed), that is directly in front of you, creates opportunities to control the future picture. Business Warfighting calls for change from the inside-out. If this is the case, you must begin within yourself first then engage others to help them with finding their voice. Balance offers a significant leadership advantage that provides a philosophy, the experiential quality, and the strategic methodology to help users with successfully applying the inherent tools to achieve an increase in efficiency and effectiveness to their leadership and team capabilities. As a framework, the various disciplines each combine the entire team’s warfighting process into a unique configuration that results performance management value.

So, how do you effectively engage the strike? You do it with a team that has embraced fearlessness and business warfighting as the blitzkrieg that cannot be seen by the enemy until the time is too late to react.

Flawlessly Execute the Exit Strategy. Just as everything has a beginning, all things have an end. You must be prepared to execute your well planned, thought-out and established exit points that were defined in your Innovation War Room at the start. There are five disciplines of greatness to consider here in order to face fierce challenges in short time frames to flawlessly execute the exit strategy. This is the most critical part of developing your Battleplan and the one area that everyone gets wrong. Going back to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the tactics within the attack would have been flawless had they launched a third attack. The United States would have had to send its remaining carriers and battle group away from Pearl and the setback would have been at least a year before reaching the appropriate levels to manage an effective attack. But, with all great plans that are flawed, the execution within the exit strategy was not planned well and the U.S. emerged as sleeping giants often do. There are five disciplines of greatness that will help you to flawlessly execute the exit strategy you are planning for is: a positive attitude, an understanding that “power” is not “conformity,” influence, risk and luck.

A positive attitude; it is critically important that you achieve a winning and open minded positive attitude about yourself and those influenced by your behaviors, personality, and speak. What about an understanding that “power” is not “conformity;” you have to be discrete in you personal behavior to become great, but this does not mean that you must become a conformist! All ambitious people in history have had to take their share of hard knocks. If you are trying to go along with the flow within popular culture, you will be looked at as just another “Joe.” So, you might as well be the trail-blazer of a person and blaze new trails for others to follow – and be “you” along the way.

As for influence, at the end of the day, you should be able to do an audit of the day’s outcomes to see a lineage of successful outcomes that were partly influenced by your behaviors. Do what is important to be exposed to different things that can take you to higher levels of performance – increase the talent capital to market yourself into the future – and ensure that you are exposed to different disciplines. Contribute in new ways that allow others to become great because they attempt to emulate you as a significant influence in their life. Make sure that you do all that you can to prove yourself, and then make it known that you are willing to go the extra mile to achieve the future picture.

Risk; one of the most important adjustments for most people who are trying to accomplish greatness is their attitude to exercise fearlessness and take risk. This is tricky, as the outcomes are unknown in most cases. If you have played it safe thus far in your approach to life and in your career, understand that greatness does not allow for this approach – specifically, in the days ahead. To win big, you must play big! Greatness is all about handling risks responsibly, intelligently, and in a calculated manner. And finally, luck; in this world, there’s no such thing as a pure meritocracy. Nobody gets ahead in life without experiencing a little luck along the way. Luck happens to the most deserving of people and some of the most undeserving. The key to having luck come your way is to make your own luck happen. It’s that simple! These five disciplines of greatness might not deliver immediate results now, but you’ll be well-positioned for the future and a much better individual and organization in the end.

It is my belief that as people and organizations begin to reshape their inner circles, way of thinking and cultures; it’s not hard to recognize how the principles found within the military-style ideation and methodology of the Battleplan for Preemptive Strike apply to the many burning platforms people and organizations are facing today. Isn’t it time you subjected your own business model to some “creative reconstruction,” aimed at making it better suited to today’s shifting customer needs and new economic realities?

For those not comfortable with the military analogy, I offer this more simplistic view. Like a law enforcement officer, he/she begins their shift with the understanding that at the end of the day, all is well, and they are able to go home to their families and loved ones safely (Future Picture). They need all available resources to deal with the conditions and the climate of the public – its behaviors, personalities, attitudes and nuances (Centers of Gravity and SMEAC). A course of action is determined during their routine briefing session and contingencies are set in place to deal with expected changes within the climate (Method Planning).

The members on the team, while on the shift, must be trained in the procedures and drills for an effective and safe journey (Business operating system). Each officer must have the knowledge of trust for his/her fellow officers, the knowledge that everyone understands, that in order to protect and serve, they must also protect and serve one another as well (Mission), and be able to take ownership, when needed, for the team to excel as one unified voice (Leadership). With all these things in place, the agency can ensure its citizens that they are safe (Profit Drivers), improving the community (Centers of Gravity), looking to decrease crime with the help of its citizens (Battleplan), improving situational awareness (Tactics and Maneuverability) and setting out for an idyllic vision (Doing business).

Certainly, these military principles alone do not provide business with all the answers, but they do help us create a framework that begins to engage the realities of business today in an enabled global marketplace where people, processes and products have been forever changed by the economies of scale, markets, leadership and organizational behaviors. Mixed within this framework are the conventional, and unconventional traditional military approaches used by military tacticians throughout history. The Battleplan for Preemptive Strike provides a nontraditional attack mode for business and organizational development that anyone leader or decision maker can engage today’s battlefields that demand more now than ever before; only now, these same leaders and decision makers can do so with more understanding and control. And, with a set of tools (strategies) that have been used to shape successful organizations and leadership commands that are filled with the progressive thinkers of our time.

For additional information or to get a copy of the book, "Business WARFIGHTING For GREAT Teams" (BookSurge Publishers, 2009), please email Dpitts@thebisongroup.com or visit http://www.thebisongroup.com.

Engage Military Stratagem to Survive, Win the Recession and Establish the Future Picture you Deserve

2009-01-19T02:35:00.000-08:00

As we are looking down the barrel of a dangerous weapon in the economy, not pulling the trigger to successfully engage the enemy would be senseless. Taking a passive approach to influencing positive organizational behavior will only lead to exasperating results that you will regret later in life. So a question to ask yourself and those individuals with who you trust is this: what do we do to bail ourselves out of this mess and plan for a future picture that exceeds our own expectations? Using a specific military strategy, known as “Preemptive Strike,” anyone can develop a future that others will marvel at and one that establishes a legacy to be remembered and emulated. Here are seven steps and strategies to change your current circumstances effectively.

Define the importance of the strategy forward. Designate a specific area, to be known as your Innovation War Room, to begin your planning sessions that is secure and away from the daily routine and distractions. Without this location added to the mix, there’s no need to start because without it, the potential for failure rises incredibly. The initial task for the room is to unpack your business model into five centers of gravity (COG) to influence forward momentum: leadership, infrastructure, processes, populations and action units. Ensure that the five are used to influence positive organizational behavior from the people who are responsible to lead and make the needed decisions for effective governance. Their decisions must drive momentum and work to come up with answers to a few pointed questions about the organization: who does it serve? What service does it provide? How is the service delivered and benchmarked? What are the revenue streams? And, how are they different from the competitors across the industry to differentiate its offerings to sustain a strategic advantage? Use the five centers of gravity to define the answers to these questions and form a more effective strategy forward.

Engage your preemptive strike measures. The importance here is to strike while others are distracted. Winning a swift victory by catching the enemy off guard is one of any leaders’ greatest dreams. Sometimes it can be a dramatic reaction to an opportunity, or it can be designed to remove a potential threat from the enemy’s arsenal. On a broader strategic level, preemptive strike can be a deliberate Battleplan used by a strategic and numerically inferior power to head off a situation in which ultimate defeat would be inevitable. Whatever the reason, the tough economic times calls for a non-traditional approach that in some cases, might seem ruthless, and carries enormous risks if not planned well in the Innovation War Room.

This strategy and its fundamentals set out the parameters of the Battleplan and examines why leaders should decide on this particular course of action to impact their centers of gravity. The same fundamentals were successfully used during two now infamous military engagements: the Japanese bombing and attack of Pearl Harbor on 6 December 1941, the most infamous preemptive strike of all and the Israeli preemptive strike which began the Six Day War of June 1967. Using this strategy, leaders can move their organizations into regional prominence by attacking fear in the marketplace – acquire opportunities and capitalize where others are afraid to venture.

Establish Achievable Aims. Establish a code or set of principles that ensure a level of conduct (code of conduct) to extend the life cycle of the organization – helping to define what’s most important to the organization and eliminating what is not. When this can be achieved, organizations can challenge deeply-held orthodoxies about who their customers are and how they interact with them. When establishing achievable aims, it is critically important that leaders understand strategy and tactics, the many differences between them and their influences on the organization. For example, in planning the invasion of Pearl Harbor, had the Japanese leadership only listened to Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, one of Japans more experienced commanders in the fleet, they would have succeeded Pearl as a flawless strategy by launching a third attack. History now shows that the third attack was never launched. As it relates to tactics for the attack, the Japanese was highly successful, yet strategically, the only result was the awakening of a sleeping giant that lie waiting in the United States’ military might.

So, the lesson for business leaders is this: do not start what cannot be successfully completed with well throughout plans that ultimately lead to goals being achieved and the organization’s life cycle being extended.

Identify means and ensure intelligence. I'd like to start this segment off with a question; what’s the purpose of your organization? Or, perhaps more specifically, what’s the purpose of your organization’s leadership within its industry? Do you ever think about that throughout the course of the day? When identifying means for your organization, three words come to mind: purpose, focus and connection.

Focus involves a discovery, or at least rediscovery, of what you want most out of your organization and its leadership. That knowledge then must become the focus of your thoughts and the basis for your business decision-making. See, unless you know and focus on what more success and more effective freedom really means to you (or looks like), only then will you be able to strive for a winning outcome. Purpose is the stimulus that defines momentum in transformational thinking: “you are what you are because of the way you think.” If you believe that there is more waiting you in the future, at that point, you’ll be able to focus on that purpose for moving forward to execute your effective thoughts.

Connection is the systematic application of your purpose in life to the day-to-day function of your organization. This is where intelligence works its way into the equation. Organizational leadership must ensure intelligence by leveraging core competencies and strategic assets using a “Five Paragraph Order” approach to generate opportunities and eliminate risk of compromising new growth. The five paragraph order provides guidance to the leadership and outlines a strategy forward using the acronym known as “SMEAC.” This acronym allows an organization to ensure that everyone is striving towards a well established purpose: S: they keep an eye on the current “situation” and they fully understand the reality of their circumstances to plan a course of action; M: they are able to identify a clear “mission” – goals and objectives – to engage high and low ground; E: they are able to target critical successes and “execute” towards the future picture, while expecting the unexpected and knowing how-to deal with it accordingly; A: they remain fluid in their priorities to ensure the organization’s “administrative needs and logistics” are firmly acknowledged and moving in the right direction to affirm growth strategies and finally, C: they complete a succession process through “command and control” measures and when complete, they effectively document lessons learned to ensure generational excellence and linkage to legacy.

Here’s the lesson; when leaders identify means and ensure intelligence, they sanction effective decision-making to act on the transformative organizational behavioral measures and identify key actions that foster goal accomplishment. They harness emergent trends and discontinuities to substantially change the way things are done in and across their industry by leading the way change is realized. And finally, they positively influence their people and organizations to leverage core competencies and strategic assets in novel ways that generate new growth and focus the organization and its purpose to connect with success. When you are able to do this for yourself and your organization, you will achieve the means to ensure intelligence to win over adversity.

Enforce Security. Leaders know that their success depends upon how well their organization understands and addresses the deep customer needs, internal and external, that are currently going unmet. It is important to develop a cadence of accountability by building an organizational planning and accounting platform to establish a significant measure of merit to meet future obligations. Life does not provide all of the answers on a silver platter nor can I provide answers to life’s most persistent questions in the span of this article, but I can tell you this; enforce security of process, business process, and open your eyes to be willing to accept change or else. Dwelling on the “or else” is not worth the energy, as I suspect the economic times over the course of the past year has made you realize the effects of what could be if you do not.

Get rid of the processes and things that have outlived their usefulness. Turbulent times demand that your most coveted resources go to the high potential areas to get the greatest return. If you, as the leader, has allowed the wrong type of leadership to govern your decisions and the organization is filled with clutter (in some cases, the wrong people and talent) that proliferated unnoticed, the time has never been better to get some spring cleaning done.

This is the hardest task of leadership, making the decision to shake things up for the “absolute” right reasons! In the end, everyone will understand, or not deserve to be in your successful future picture when you arrive.

Engage the Strike; the time to behave accordingly is now! Develop a deliberate Battleplan that can be used by a strategic and numerically inferior power to head off a situation in which ultimate defeat would be inevitable to your advantage. One way of developing such the plan is to engage the disciplines of “warfare” and act. These disciplines are paramount in defining the true meaning of leadership, execution and prosperity.

An extraordinary organization is one that is driven by extraordinary people who make a distinctive impact and deliver superior performance over a long period of time. There are some striking characteristics of the leaders who achieve sustained success along their journey within the lifecycle of their organization. They experience an increased level of personal mastery. These leaders have gone through a process. The process serves as a guiding framework, solely based on the inevitability for making significant change to influence greatness. This process is one that defines the performance outcomes that exceeds expectations – the opportunities that become unveiled due to the influenced greatness that is driven by the extraordinary people who make-up a great team.

If an organization is only as good as its people, organizations today have much to worry about. The reason: The associates are under unprecedented strain. In an economic environment that demands increased productivity, leaders are tightening control over their organizations, creating smaller environments that ask the associates to do more work in less time. At the same time, employers are paying less attention to their associates’ individuality and more to their ability to work within team environments. Preparing to engage an effective strike upon the enemy requires effective team building maneuvers. These maneuvers or disciplines of warfare must suggest that leaders at all levels can cope with a situation by employing two specific tactics: “Fearlessness” and “Business Warfighting.” When leaders learn to integrate these two tactics as their warfare disciplines across and within a team building strategy that is driven by quality and the values of the people, great actions will follow. I believe that very few organizations have the ability to lift themselves above the short-term fray to get this message, but those who do are the very few needed to lead us into the future.

For several years I’ve noticed a deep disappointment and despair, even among business people whom I had formerly thought of as engaged, capable leaders. Since 2003, my time has been spent working on environmental systems change for organizations and leadership types. My goal was to help organizations become more committed and productive with the full engagement of people across all levels. Many of these people were heroes to me that I have tried to emulate specific qualities to become great myself. They knew about the value of participative and democratic leadership. They made great gains in both the traditional measures of profitability and in innovation and viability. They understood what I have recently become aware of – the strategy of the “Blue Ocean:” Comprehending the requirements to affect change when others cannot see the future through the unique set of lenses you are wearing. To do what has never been achieved to affect a large mass using energy that creates momentum for change. They helped me to define what fearlessness means as a leader and how-to use it as a discipline of warfare for business and change.

Business warfighting is all about balance. Bringing balance to a situation causes for relaxed, yet disciplined behaviors to be present. Balance offers a greater sense of purpose, rather than going against it to tear down, destroy, or disembark the competition. Embracing conflict in the face of complex situations that seem disillusioned (terrain that are untamed), that is directly in front of you, creates opportunities to control the future picture. Business Warfighting calls for change from the inside-out. If this is the case, you must begin within yourself first then engage others to help them with finding their voice. Balance offers a significant leadership advantage that provides a philosophy, the experiential quality, and the strategic methodology to help users with successfully applying the inherent tools to achieve an increase in efficiency and effectiveness to their leadership and team capabilities. As a framework, the various disciplines each combine the entire team’s warfighting process into a unique configuration that results performance management value.

So, how do you effectively engage the strike? You do it with a team that has embraced fearlessness and business warfighting as the blitzkrieg that cannot be seen by the enemy until the time is too late to react.

Flawlessly Execute the Exit Strategy. Just as everything has a beginning, all things have an end. You must be prepared to execute your well planned, thought-out and established exit points that were defined in your Innovation War Room at the start. There are five disciplines of greatness to consider here in order to face fierce challenges in short time frames to flawlessly execute the exit strategy. This is the most critical part of developing your Battleplan and the one area that everyone gets wrong. Going back to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the tactics within the attack would have been flawless had they launched a third attack. The United States would have had to send its remaining carriers and battle group away from Pearl and the setback would have been at least a year before reaching the appropriate levels to manage an effective attack. But, with all great plans that are flawed, the execution within the exit strategy was not planned well and the U.S. emerged as sleeping giants often do. There are five disciplines of greatness that will help you to flawlessly execute the exit strategy you are planning for is: a positive attitude, an understanding that “power” is not “conformity,” influence, risk and luck.

A positive attitude; it is critically important that you achieve a winning and open minded positive attitude about yourself and those influenced by your behaviors, personality, and speak. What about an understanding that “power” is not “conformity;” you have to be discrete in you personal behavior to become great, but this does not mean that you must become a conformist! All ambitious people in history have had to take their share of hard knocks. If you are trying to go along with the flow within popular culture, you will be looked at as just another “Joe.” So, you might as well be the trail-blazer of a person and blaze new trails for others to follow – and be “you” along the way.

As for influence, at the end of the day, you should be able to do an audit of the day’s outcomes to see a lineage of successful outcomes that were partly influenced by your behaviors. Do what is important to be exposed to different things that can take you to higher levels of performance – increase the talent capital to market yourself into the future – and ensure that you are exposed to different disciplines. Contribute in new ways that allow others to become great because they attempt to emulate you as a significant influence in their life. Make sure that you do all that you can to prove yourself, and then make it known that you are willing to go the extra mile to achieve the future picture.

Risk; one of the most important adjustments for most people who are trying to accomplish greatness is their attitude to exercise fearlessness and take risk. This is tricky, as the outcomes are unknown in most cases. If you have played it safe thus far in your approach to life and in your career, understand that greatness does not allow for this approach – specifically, in the days ahead. To win big, you must play big! Greatness is all about handling risks responsibly, intelligently, and in a calculated manner. And finally, luck; in this world, there’s no such thing as a pure meritocracy. Nobody gets ahead in life without experiencing a little luck along the way. Luck happens to the most deserving of people and some of the most undeserving. The key to having luck come your way is to make your own luck happen. It’s that simple! These five disciplines of greatness might not deliver immediate results now, but you’ll be well-positioned for the future and a much better individual and organization in the end.

It is my belief that as people and organizations begin to reshape their inner circles, way of thinking and cultures; it’s not hard to recognize how the principles found within the military-style ideation and methodology of the Battleplan for Preemptive Strike apply to the many burning platforms people and organizations are facing today. Isn’t it time you subjected your own business model to some “creative reconstruction,” aimed at making it better suited to today’s shifting customer needs and new economic realities?

My hope for you is this; find what you want out of life, find what you are willing to leave behind in order to get it and then connect that purpose every single day with what you do and you just may actually catch a glimpse of the magic that owning a “win” and a “successful” future picture can bring. It is my wish that even the best of the best can open their eyes enough to understand and learn to apply these strategies that have been used throughout history in battle.

They offer transformative thinking that we can sure afford at the moment – strategy can be inexpensive, yet priceless when you know how to use it. If you want what you’ve never had, be willing to ethically do what you’ve never done to win without losing yourself and your soul along the way.

LeaderShaped by Christ: My Outward Reform Began My Inward Renewal!

2009-01-01T09:27:00.000-08:00

In 2005, I was faced with a personal dilemma that had frightening circumstances, which most of us have had in life at least once. I was driving the car of life over the speed limit – the same time that the rest of the vehicles in life were on the road – when a car came barreling out of a side street on my right, attempting to make a left hand turn straight into traffic. I slammed on the brakes, but it was clear to me that there was no way I could stop in time. I simply waited for the awful sound of crunching metal and the abusive shaking within my body to cause harm to my current disposition.

But it never came. I had stopped in time – yet, to this very day, I am convinced that the near missed collision was impossible. And for some reason, I was very calm in the awful mix of things. My heart wasn’t pounding like it should have been in a close call like that. I think that it was because the experience didn’t feel and/or seem quite real. I was so focused on thinking about the impossibility of what had just happened that I do not think the seriousness of it ever registered.

That’s exactly what it felt like to me on that day in Greensboro, NC – like an invisible angel had reached out with her hand and stopped my vehicle just inches from impact. I seriously doubt if an angel’s hand is any wider than a whisper, but apparently that’s wide enough to protect us from harm. As I drove away, my thoughts at the time were on the phrase, “the width of an angel’s hand.” One of the first times I was able to experience something of the sort was during my military tour in the United States Marine Corps, hearing the words “lock and load,” while on the firing range (preparation for war and the loss of life from weapons of destruction).

I believe that’s the kind of thing described in Psalm 91. It’s very possible that the author of this Psalm had a close call of his own and was so thankful for God’s protection that he was compelled to write about it. And, even though the dangers he talks about may be hard to relate to in this day and age (for some); I believe that we all understand what he is trying to say. Despite the poetic language, which does not always appeal to everyone, this Psalm has become an every day read, my absolute favorite, and the favorite for many. After all, who can say that they do not like the song, “On Eagle’s Wings,” which comes directly from the Psalm.

It certainly is an encouraging Psalm. It reminds us that God is watching over us and protecting us, and because of that, we shouldn’t be afraid. The Psalmist gives us quite a list of things that could harm or destroy us or cause us great fear – everything from a “fowler’s snare” to “pestilence, plague, disaster, and injury” – but, according to the Psalmist, we do not have to worry about these things as we make the most of our dwelling. If we rest in the shadow of the Almighty and make God our refuge and fortress and acknowledge the name of the Lord, we too will have little to worry. If we do this, then God will shelter us under his “wings” and keep trouble from our door. He will even send us angels to guard and protect us from harm. If we love God – truly from our hearts – He will rescue us and protect us. He will be with us in trouble, satisfy us with long prosperous life, and show us His salvation.

It sounds wonderful doesn’t it? But, do you believe all of it? Should we really believe all of this can happen for us? How can we possibly believe these things when each day, hour, and minute we are faced with the troubles along the road that we steer? We have all heard or personally know of someone who loves and trusts God’s word, but has not been satisfied with long life and possibly a prosperous one. Some have nothing but pain and suffering. Others are dealing with financial and health issues that seem so paramount that they are close to giving up all together. So, where are the angels of God at this juncture? No matter where we look in the world, bad things happen to God’s people. We would have to be blind not to see that real life does not match up with the promises in this Psalm.

For obvious reasons, we are not supposed to take this Psalm literally – or at least, not all of the time. Exaggeration is often used in Hebrew Scriptures – especially in poetry like the Psalms. From the very beginning, God has made it clear that faith and trust in Him are not an insurance policy against all adversity.

Abraham and Sarah ran into plenty of difficulties, many of them due to their own willfulness, and God’s people have struggled with serious challenges throughout the history of our faith. Satan is still (and will always remain) at work in the world. I have recently learned this to be known as the “Absalom and Jezebel Spirits” and until Christ returns, Satan will continue to do his work.

But sometimes, the kind of rescue, protection, and salvation that the Psalmist describes really does happen, and it happens in such a powerful way that there is no doubt that God has saved us. In some cases, by no more than a width of an angel’s hand. And when that does happen, we have an absolute duty to praise God, give Him thanks, and continue in His word into the future. We must emulate the actions of the Psalmist by blessing others from our blessings. These special supernatural events leave us with the overwhelming sense of gratitude for God’s unseen hand, which has protected us. They are reminders that God has not forgotten us. We are children of the Heavenly Father, safe in His arms, and our names are written in Heaven.

Yet, I wonder if we understand what a close call even that salvation can be? Do we realize that without God’s help, without the angel’s hand intervening on our behalf, we are headed for a deadly collision? I was faced with this in 2005 and only now, in 2008, do I get it! This is not what God wants for us. He is always trying to get our attention and we continually show the other cheek and in most cases, a deaf ear. He is always trying to save us from ourselves and our own love for things that we place in front of Him. He wants us to be saved for eternity to be with Him. Yet, how often has God provided for us or our protection and we have not even noticed? How often has there been nothing more than an angel’s hand between us and danger, or evil and death, and, we have not realized it? How often do we go on our merry way without acknowledging, accepting, and thanking Him for his strength and security in our lives? Is it possible that we have become dependant on worldly wisdom and security, which is temporary, instead of trusting in God’s shelter for eternity? I write in my work, “The Art of Detachment Project” the following:

“Success is based on the ability to achieve the “five transformative thoughts” to plan, brief, execute, debrief, and win your actions on the battlefield of life. These five thoughts are essential for individuals to gain the managing strategy that achieves personal transformation, both proactive and positive. They are: Simplicity, Alignment, People, Flexibility, and Towering Strengths. Learning to integrate these five thoughts into your life, you will begin to see a transition to your own pursuit of security. Men, governments, and nations continue to try and provide for every stage of life and to remove the causes of fear. They have failed miserably. The gain is wealth with little value, the development of technologies and weaponry for defense, but cities are destroyed overnight, and they progress in medicine and surgical skill only to be defeated by the increasing number of diseases in civilization. Not a single victory in the field, no success at the political booths, no ingenuity in technique can save the world. What is needed are the five thoughts to transform life through faith: simplicity allows learning to be easy, alignment keeps us in God’s likeness, people are the circle of oneness in Him, flexibility allows us to live through His word, and the towering strength provides the security and promise that all will be right in His kingdom.”

In other words, one will be able to connect application to a measurable difference in performance as the vehicle of life provides an assurance that through the chances and changes of life, there is a divine protector in whose wisdom and grace we may find peace.” As a United States Marine turned business professional, I have come to the realization that security is relative, whether for a military base, a home, or a business. Guaranteed security is impossible. There are steps that can be taken to increase or enhance the security around those things, but sooner or later, Tierney will find its way in to crush the defenses. Tierney will always find its way around the guard, the hidden key to the perceived lock, and the broken link through the firewall. A breach of this type to our security remains inevitable.

This is the reason that we need much more than worldly protection. We need the kind of protection only God can provide. And, you must do your part by learning, training, and teaching yourself and others for His Marine Corps. This is your way of putting on another piece of the uniform for battle. I believe that heaven’s angles can’t even give us that because it requires a choice - Actions carry a thought and shape a destiny – sure, they may save us from things like accidents and the dangers that lie waiting in life, but angels cannot save our souls. Only God can do that! Thankfully, He has provided a way for us to be saved, and that way is through his son Jesus. It cannot hurt if you have gained the knowledge of the “five transformative thoughts”- gaining this knowledge prepares you to acknowledge how “¹God made you from spare parts!”

It is important to know that Jesus will not only save our souls, but He has promised to resurrect our bodies upon His return to establish His kingdom. But, this is not something that comes easy for anyone. We must do our part long before that day is upon us – the time is now, the choice is yours, and the place is right where you are “now” sitting – only Jesus has the power to save and nothing is as important in the “knowing” as that.

Paul tells us that anyone can be saved, whether Jew or Gentile. Anyone is able to take advantage of God’s promised protection, and guess what; it only requires a “choice.” This is your absolute “Heavenly Insurance Policy,” the ultimate protection against the storms as they become prevalent in your life. The premium that you will be required to pay to take out your own personal policy has already been paid on your behalf by Jesus and, IT WAS NOT CHEAP! It was paid for with His life and therein lays your guarantee. A guarantee that has a check written to you with a figure that is so high, no bank can cash, but see the incredible value when presented at the teller window to one of His other warriors on the other side. You will know this person by a smile and a short statement to you, “God bless you on your journey. Hold this check until you arrive at the right bank to cash it. Its worth is greater than anything, as it is your eternal life.”

Know this, Jesus did the hard part. He did the work, and we get the reward. If you genuinely believe in your heart that Jesus died on the cross for your sins and rose from the dead, and if you can bring yourself to a quiet place to humbly acknowledge Him with a verbal response, then you will be saved and one day have an opportunity to cash your personal check of salvation. It is important to know that this does not mean He is to receive lip service. It doesn’t mean that we are only to call on Him when we are in danger, on our death bed, back against the wall with financial difficulties, or only attend service on the special holiday, or wear His name as the silver bullet to defeat the big bad monster.

No, it means that you are to be faithful in your followship to conquer each barrier that is placed in front of you throughout the journey. We must give our hearts, release control of our life, and make the Lord our fortress. Unless our hearts are truly transformed, leading us to act in keeping with what we say we believe, no amount of proclaiming that Jesus is Lord will be of any benefit.

Or to put it in a very positive way, we might remember the words written in Psalm 91: “…3 surely he will save you from the fowler's snare and from the deadly pestilence. 4 He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart. 5 You will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day, 6 nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the plague that destroys at midday. 7 A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you. 8 You will only observe with your eyes and see the punishment of the wicked. 9 If you make the Most High your dwelling – even the LORD, who is my refuge 10 then no harm will befall you; no disaster will come near your tent. 11 For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways; 12 they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone. 13 You will tread upon the lion and the cobra; you will trample the great lion and the serpent. 14 "Because he loves me," says the LORD, "I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name. 15 He will call upon me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him. 16 With long life will I satisfy him and show him my salvation..." (New International Version)

We must not wait to receive the opportunities that Jesus has for us. We must not wait until we find ourselves in a dangerous situation that requires an angel’s hand to wake us up and remind us that our only real security is God. We need to make sure that our hearts are right with God now. Knowing this will only provide the confidence and assurance to trust that nothing that happens in life’s vehicle will ultimately harm us. When the right choice is made, our vehicle will steer us to our destination in eternity. No harm will come against us. Like the Psalmist says, God will protect us and take care of us. Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ – not the terror of the night, not the arrows that flies by day, not the pestilence, plague, or sword. None of that, and for that matter, not even the very wonderful and welcome width of an angel’s hand.

My angel’s hand came in the form of a Godly woman, Katherine Harrelson, while in my darkest place, sleeping in my car for several weeks, blessed me with a gift that no money can measure – prayer – and a copy of the Holy Bible. Up to that moment, I did not have one of my own. She told me to read Psalm 91 every day of my life before leaving the house to start the day. That transitioning day for me was in 2005, and now that I have been blessed to continue my journey into the 21st century, I have found true love in Christ to protect me along my journey. I believe that I have my check to be cashed. Do you have yours?

My Outward Reform Began My Inward Renewal!

The reading of this text is my personal account of my changing experience that caused me to recognize the reasons for taking my own journey from ordinary to extraordinary. As you have seen, it required me to experience “47 Humbling Days to Christ.” Acknowledging my faults and challenges (outward reform) and accepting the honest perspective of my life at the time, I was then able to experience a breakthrough (inward renewal) that has positioned me to be in a better place to realize my future.

It is important to understand that you must be willing to do the unimaginable; push the start button to engage an “atom bomb” in your life – you will have to experience an implosion before you can receive an explosion. So, what about you? Are you willing to recognize the reasons for taking your own personal journey from ordinary to extraordinary? Are you will to humble yourself to receive Him into your life from a greater perspective than ever before? If you are, here are some steps that will assist you in achieving this objective:

The Journey

Using Christ-like Principles Learn To:

1. Acknowledge, using the “Mirror Effect,” a personal reflection.

2. Put-Away Personal Agendas: Read Mark 8: 34 – 38

3. Restore thru Process: Get LeaderShaped! Read 2 Kings 23:1 – 3

4. Achieve Glory thru Voice: Find your voice and assume the responsibility to help others to find theirs! – Read Ecclesiastes 2:10 – 18 & 3: 1 – 8

- The atomic bomb: Outward Reform Begins Inward Renewal
- Implode weaknesses before you explode GREATNESS!
- Personal Renewal – Personal Change – Public Change – Public Reform
- Change is an inside-out process

5. Understand how to Achieve the “Law of Process:” Goals of the Church!
Read 1 Corinthians 1: 18 – 25

- The church is a family: The Goal is to achieve maturity!
- The church is a field: The Goal is to plant and harvest fruitfulness!
- The church is a building: The Goal is to be strong in its foundation for growth and security of self!
- The permanence of God’s wisdom is infinite!

6. Work to Achieve the “Law of Victory!” Read 1 Corinthians 15:50 – 58

Close with a personal prayer and begin to read Psalms 91 each morning for the remainder of your life here on earth. Most importantly, begin to share your testimony with others. This is my lesson to each of you now that we've crossed into 2009. Promote yourself in His kingdom and watch the blessings begin to change you from the inside-out. Happy New Year in 2009.

ELECTRONIC VERSION AVAILABLE: For a PDF version of this Blog, please email our Executive Education Training Division at: solutions@thebisongroup.com.com and reference "LeaderShaped by Christ" in your headline.

Why Workplace Politics Charts the Path to Build GREAT Teams and Performance For Organizations – Successfully

2008-12-31T11:49:00.000-08:00

When most people hear the phrase “organizational politics,” they react very negatively. They see politics in the workplace as forming clicks and another way to keep those who go against the status quo labeled as an outsider. People also think that it’s a toxic dynamic that allows manipulative behaviors for people to get what they want by stepping on their co-workers' backs. But not every instance of workplace politicking is a selfish maneuver to win.

In his book, Building Great Teams: Charting the Path of Organizational Politics (Book Surge, 2007), U.S. Marine turned business professional and university instructor Damian D. “Skipper” Pitts takes you inside one of the greatest team building organizations in the world – the United States Marine Corps – to examine and discover the strategies that business leaders must be willing to learn, use and employ for building ordinary groups into extraordinary teams; leading the right team of commandos who understand what it takes to win on the business battlefield and defeat workplace politics using warfare as the key to experience a significant win. He defines workplace and office politics as “the path to smart growth…using the power to accelerate the careers of high potential future leaders and teams power in the workplace.” He implies that office politics are not always negative, but offer opportunities for greatness. And while workplace politics aren't necessarily avoidable, people can learn to understand their purpose, find their voice and understand how-to strengthen and build the teams dynamics and interpersonal communications skills – all while managing responsibilities with tact, poise, and polish. The game of politics, when understood how-to use it as a strategic weapon, helps to successfully chart the path of personal and professional growth as the essential task to achieve personal mastery from the results of peak performance. Organizational politics also offers the hidden treasures that allow people to stand-out from the crowd. They learn to demonstrate their ability to navigate the maze of successful team building – a task that is viewed as positive organizational behavior from the individual that is perceived as an extraordinary leader. This is the type of person that others seek to follow and emulate for the greatness they wish to develop for themselves.

Workplace Politics vs. The Battlefield Engagement

Just as in any military engagement, in order to win one must know the rules better than his/her competitor to outsmart them on the battlefield. It also is beneficial to be a part of the right team for controlling the elements of the battlefront. However, some might claim the workplace and the military are very different in many ways. Thinking from this approach causes significant missteps in organizational politics. There are significant issues that are similar in the workplace and on a military battlefield. For starters, the one constant is “people.” Any time that people are involved in a scenario, decision-making must play a role in the ability to win. Using the strategies from the United States Marine Corps, people are responsible for making critical decisions from the highest ranking officer down to the lowest ranking enlisted – and the decision could mean life or death. Well, the same goes for the workplace. People are responsible for making critical decisions that could mean that the organization acquires strategic assets (executive suite decisions) or that a customer is treated in a way that causes them to continue doing business with the organization. Both can be seen as life or death for the organization. As seen with Wachovia bank, a decision from the top level leadership was made to acquire Westgate Financial to boost their mortgage business. When the U.S. mortgage markets and industry imploded during the financial crisis, the organization was effected with incredible implications – it became the beginning of the end for one of the country’s largest banks and people lost careers and more. Similar to the likes of a military battlefield engagement and a series of wrong decisions made by leadership, loss of life was experienced.
But what most people fail to realize is that the workplace is too a battlefield. Business is warfare and those who understand how to navigate the politics always win. Consider the game of chess. Chess can be low-key and quiet, a friendly game between friends. Or it can be explosive and highly competitive, set amid a crowd of observers, where the ultimate winner reaps world-wide accolades. Consider the skill behind the game of chess. It requires well-planned strategy and a great deal of mental acuity and patience, not to mention years of practice to reach an elite status.

These are the same skills required by a great leader, one who has the ability to guide an organization and one who understands the world of workplace politics. On the other hand, while playing a game such as chess, there can only be a single winner where there often can be a more neutral outcome in the world of workplace politics. With the proper skills of negotiation and influence, savvy leadership might be able to create a win-win situation.

The Truth about Politics in the Workplace

Politics will always be part of an organization because people are people. The dynamic relationships of individuals who run a business enterprise play an important part in how the business operates: How the mission map, posture statements, vision, values and organizational culture is forged. And while the average Jane or Joe might feel like they are being run over by co-workers who manipulate the system, bully, gossip, backstab and brown nose to get what they want, there is more to workplace politics than those negative daily encounters. The quintessential aspect of organizational politics is the team. Building great teams’ hits at one of the most discussed topics in business media and the workplace: Organizational Behavior, transformational leadership, organizational renewal and inter-office politics. The day of the individual worker is over, as today’s business arena demands that workers possess the ability to effectively work as team units that consistently produce extraordinary outcomes from their performance. It is a scenario all top leaders and managers knows well: The organization, their people, and their systems all require efficient and effective processes to remain constant in its approach to move quickly toward new and innovative ways of reaching mission-critical objectives.

Good leaders are a thing of the past, as global economies now require more than good – they seek greatness and ordinary just does not fit the bill any longer. They now require the ordinary to be “extraordinary.” The new battlefield in the workplace requires the extraordinary leaders’ understanding of workplace politics and the accompanying landscape to be significant. They can no longer work in the old silos of the past that was developed by the silly political conflicts. No, these extraordinary leaders can no longer exhibit the behaviors that ultimately invite disaster. This is not to say that leaders of the past demonstrated the behaviors that put-up with negative politics that caused disastrous outcomes nor does it imply every good leader has found his/her way to the top of the heap by climbing over the bodies of crushed co-workers. It simply means that leadership understands workplace politics well enough to use them as “strategic weapons” to produce positive returns without the mud slinging and backsliding of unethical and immoral actions.

Understanding how-to chart the path of organizational politics means being able to maneuver using political warfare to enhance the organization's ability to rise to the top of its industry, without leaving one of its warriors lying wounded on the battlefield. It means having a well crafted Battleplan, understanding the players, building positive alliances and coalition of forces, using the art of war as a significant warfighting strategy that all stakeholders understand and buy-in to for winning, and finally, developing a compelling case study for the associates of the organization to understand the comprehensive approach for integrating strategic human capital and team development initiatives into the fold.
Convert Uniqueness into Ultimate Power

The best leaders are the people that understand the nature of warfare in dealing with and overcoming workplace politics. These are the men and women who have a tone on the pulse of the workplace – internal and external – and know what it takes to remain on task “ethically” to lead others into greatness. Here are five important things to know about politically savvy leaders:

° They understand the critical importance of the team associates to be “LeaderShaped” into GREATNESS. They understand the “what” and “how” in developing a GREAT team.
° They make decisive decisions for the benefit of the Future Picture
° They understand the “culture” in the system that the team must influence.
° They know what it take to strategically “execute” and win as a team.
° They know how-to use the “Six Political Signs of Business Leadership” to achieve professional mastery to the people and organization: 1. a clear “Vision” of issues. 2. Understand the “Value” drivers within the team. 3. “Behavioral” influence of leadership to the Future Picture. 4. “Strategy” Modeling (Enterprise Decision Making). 5. Strategic “Execution” (Governance). 6. “Duplication of Protocol” (learnable-teachable methods for future engagements).

Engaging the battlefield that is influenced by workplace politics, for many, may mean asserting their power, pushing and shoving like the elementary school bully until they get what they want. But that's really just the toxic behavior and conduct that eliminates the possibilities for leadership and the organization they influence to win. One of the best ways to lose power is to overtly use it. Instead, the best leaders know that power comes from influence – and influence is subjective to behavior, character and the value system that drives the people responsible for charting the pathway.

In this great read, Pitts also outlines how, in most cases, team leaders never hit their goals – not because they lack talent within the associate ranks, but because they are naïve to the complexities of team dynamics. He outlines the strategic-execution methods that smart leaders understand and use to determine what type of team model best suits their specific environment, what key skills to look for (and which to avoid), and how to coax top performances from everyone starting from day one.

Author Robert Dilenschneider explains in his book, Power and Influence: The Rules Have Changed: True power and influence means accepting responsibility, taking the heat and keeping your word. So even if someone supports the supposition that leadership is just another way of playing political games, it doesn’t necessarily mean this is a bad thing. When properly played, workplace politics can lead to great achievements and outcomes. Pitts believes that extraordinary teams that are great engage politics well. They are LeaderShaped and driven by extraordinary people who make a distinctive impact – they deliver significant and superior performance over a long period of time. There are some striking characteristics of great teams who achieve sustained success within their mission across its life cycle. They experience an increased level of professional mastery in developing and executing as great teams do. These teams have gone through a process; a process that is forged in a furnace of professional development, transformational thinking, and strategic-execution.

Workplace politics, good or evil, are a very real part of the work environment. Whether people subscribe to the belief that leadership is just another way of engaging the political battlefield or not, it is important to keep in mind that as long as there are people working together as great teams do, there will be politics, but the outcomes will be far different from the results of the past. Great teams are the way to successfully engage the battlefield – greatness from the team is how to engage politics well and win it using fair tactics.

For additional information, please email Dpitts@thebisongroup.com.

Front Line Leadership that Builds GREAT Teams

2008-12-31T11:26:00.000-08:00

So, a team is what you are hoping to build? But, what kind of team? A team who uses the academic approach to getting things done or one that brings real-world experience to the situation at hand? What criteria, then, do you use for choosing your teammates? Team building programs during the late 80's and throughout the 90's took place in the woods at the height of the now infamous ropes courses. These courses were designed to engage organizational groups in a series of team activities that voluntarily made people face self-imposed limitations while hanging from trees and cables. The next decade lead the way for classroom-based team building sessions that included behavioral profiles and performance assessments, such as the universal language of DISC and its model, along with the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.

To answer the questions in the opening of this text, we feel that organizations must build and develop the "GREAT" team. Building great teams hits at one of the most discussed topics within business media and the workplace: Organizational Behavior, leadership & process, and inter-office politics. The day of the individual worker is over, as today's corporate arena demands that workers possess the ability to effectively work as team-led associates within an organization. It is a scenario all top leaders and managers knows well: The organization, their people, and their systems all require efficient and effective processes to remain constant in its approach to move quickly toward new and innovative ways of reaching mission-critical objectives. This is a task that is directed by the senior officials within team environments that are lead by great initiatives. They must be committed to draft and manage the right team - a GREAT team - of commandos to lead the effort.

As we look forward to the next generation of team building programs, people will be coming out of the woods, out of the classrooms, and out of the convention centers. The question then is: Where will they be going? The answer; they'll be headed to learning environments with a sensory-rich atmosphere that enhances military training and simulation as the team building practices that increasingly requires experienced quality from the battlefield, in business, and across industry.

In April 2005, the Wharton School of Business students, staff, and sponsors traveled to the U.S. Marine Corps Officer Candidates School in Quantico, Virginia to learn what they were really made of. The venture, aptly titled "Learning Leadership and Decision Making Under Uncertainty and Complexity," sought to expose the future business leaders of the world, to the types of training exercises that have produced generations of successful military leaders. While there are obvious differences between battlefield leadership and corporate leadership, there are also many parallels that can be drawn - especially in the constantly evolving business landscape. We could be nimbler in our decision-making. We could be team players, even from the top. We could lead by example. And we could actively train our subordinates to eventually lead us. Sounds like hogwash? Don't forget that the U.S. Marines has a proven track record - 233 years and running. And by the way, this program at the Wharton School of Business lives on today.

Just as in the experiences at the Wharton School, live training continues to evolve from the military training paradigm toward new solutions that prepare warfighters (the title given to associates that are a part of a GREAT team environment) to fight against asymmetric enemies often embedded in civilian populations and organizations. Since 2005, the Bison Group has invested substantially in new live training solutions to counter challenges faced in the business marketplace, specifically Military Operations Counter-IED Devices: Decision-making, collective behaviors, and cultural influences.

However, the heavy financial burden of the U.S. economy, another form of conflict, "Domestic War on Terror (DWOT)," has taken valuable resources away from future planned training and simulation and instead toward extending the life cycle of organizations in trouble. Therefore, industries are being forced to deliver temporary solutions for less instead of future-oriented growth strategies. Future-oriented growth strategies for teams are designed to increase capacity to the individual and organizational system and building GREAT teams using military strategy and tactics that provide proven solutions where people and organizations achieve high levels of performance.

One way of ensuring that GREAT teams are developed for such a task lies in the adoption of “Business WARFIGHTING For GREAT Teams;” a high impact and hands-on curriculum that demonstrates how-to use the “Six Lenses of Innovation” for teams, also known as the “Preemptive Strike” measures: (1) Establish Achievable Aims; challenge deeply-held orthodoxies about who their customers are, how they interact with them, how they define their products or services, how they configure the value chain, and so on; (2) Identify Means; harness emergent trends and discontinuities to substantially change the way things are done in their industry; (3) Ensure Intelligence; leverage core competencies and strategic assets in novel ways to generate new growth; (4) Enforce Security; understand and address deep customer needs that are currently going unmet; (5) Engage the Strike; a deliberate Battleplan used by a strategic and numerically inferior power to head off a situation in which ultimate defeat would be inevitable; and lastly, (6) Flawlessly Execute the Exit Strategy; just as everything has a beginning, all things have an end. Leaders are instructed how-to establish exit points using 32 solution-centric precepts to face fierce challenges in short time frames using the process.

Team building programs, like this Next Generation program, are the start of a team development revolution and your team should follow close by. Don't consider becoming a GREAT team, simply learn to transform into one!

To learn more about Building GREAT teams using Business WARFIGHTING strategies, visit www.thebisongroup.com or email the author at: Dpitts@thebisongroup.com.

The “War Room” – When Innovation Intersects Strategy

2008-12-14T19:37:00.000-08:00

There are three ways to react to an organizational crisis. One way is to turn your head to ignore the situation and hope that it will fix itself (best of luck!). Another way is to run around in a panic-induced cost-cutting frenzy that could seriously impair the organization’s long-term growth potential and future state. The third and, of course, smartest method is to recognize the impending threat to both your top and bottom line, and quickly adapt the organization’s strategic outlook and business model to the new environmental conditions. So, the question to answer is this: “what are the decision makers within your organization currently doing? Are they connecting the organization’s strategy with its innovative approach to meet a successful Future Picture?” But what if you, as the leader, are having a difficult struggle to influence others to your point of view and get them to rethinking and reinventing the organization’s strategy forward as circumstances and economics rapidly change. If you are experiencing this challenge, here’s some advice to help your people to win the battlefield of transition.

I have continued to state enthusiastically over the last few years that, in a world where the pace of change has gone hypercritical, today’s most important race is the race for transformational leadership and organizational renewal. It is the race to change as fast as the environment is changing around you; the race to influence positive organizational behaviors and the race to reinvent your strategy and your business model before they become obsolete. When the economy is in a state in flux, most organizations tend to postpone their professional development efforts and favor cost cutting as the strategy that will preserve the future. This is a grave mistake that will affect the future of the organization in ways that will likely kill the very spirit the leadership teams are hoping to preserve. Their efforts during the challenging times will only prolong the inevitable; ultimate demise once the current crisis is diminished. The lesson here is this; a successful business model will break almost overnight when the waves of the ocean start crashing against the pillars of the pier if leadership does not remain on a continuous, yet discontinuous approach to train the organization’s greatest asset – the people.

So what exactly is Strategic Organizational Renewal (SOR)?

Organizations undergo change to enhance their productivity. Changes can be effected in several areas of the organization including culture, strategy, mission, teams and organizational structure. SOR is a framework that defines the role, responsibilities, and performance of human capital across the organization and the planning for it must only take place in the organizations “war room.” To explain the war room concept, leadership appoints a specific room that will be specified as the location where the organizations strategy is planned. This location must remain under lock and key to ensure the organization’s intellectual capital offers an uncompromised agenda that influences positive outcomes. SOR is the resulting effect that is birthed from the war room. This is only possible when those appointed to the war room each understands the importance of establishing the organization’s “Memorandum of Understanding” (MOU) – the principles to achieve professional mastery.

Establishing Principles to Achieve Personal Mastery – People First, then the Organization

You now have before you the opportunity to take the steps that achieve a high level of professional mastery that achieves organizational growth. It requires the adoption of a “code” as a living, breathing organism to each level of the organization. How can people build awareness, use their experiences to implement a new approach to deportment and develop a strategy, which includes resolve and ethical conduct? This is the task that lies before them.

It sounds like the normal work that we all know and do so well. But be cautioned, it is not! When individuals combine the code with rules and regulations, reporting and accountability to force conformity to standards, they will fail – to oppose change by way of fear is not what is required. Rather, achieving professional mastery is a continuous pursuit of ethical behavior that ultimately manifests into a quest of improving the human spirit; to pursue good, to do the right thing in across the workplace. The code says that who ever should adopt it into his/her life, will possess a level of courage – both physically and emotionally – to execute the necessary task that drives performance to exemplify the highest level of personal and professional conviction.

Why establish a code to live by? The answer is simple; establishing a code or set of principles ensures a level of conduct (code of conduct) that extends the life cycle of the organization. This code of conduct is what I have been referencing – the “Memorandum of Understanding.” As a code of conduct, the MOU provides a resource to assist people in their personal development, growth, guidance, and assessment in the leadership of self. The MOU establishes a strict perspective for instructing successful practices, theories, and beliefs that drives people to achieve a successful future (how you intend to conduct yourself into the future for others to emulate).

The Memorandum of Understanding is also designed for people to learn broadly; to inspire the service out of generosity for others; and to prepare them to lead systems courageously into the future. A MOU must encourage a perspective to become firmly grounded in the potential for successful growth using the following constructs:

- The Cardinal Rules
- The Guiding Precepts
- The Forms of Disposition
- The General Orders
- The Strategy Forward – Establishing Professional Mastery
- The Centers of Gravity

The Cardinal Rules. The Cardinal Rules are a set of guidelines that are invaluable for people and organizations to follow while planning and executing at the strategic or tactical level. These rules, once established by the individual(s) or teams are the rules that govern forward movement and must not change.

The Guiding Precepts. The Guiding Precepts are designed to inform people what they should and should not be doing in accordance with executing a well designed strategy to win. They also inform of the reasons “why” an action must occur and the repercussions should the individual and/or organization fail at meeting such a task.

The Forms of Disposition. The Forms of Disposition offer a substantive transformation in “thought” about how people achieve a perspective on things in life. It refers to an orchestrated, systemic and revolutionary new world-view resulting in a “change” of societies, cultures, and marketplaces due to behavioral perspective. This is today often called "systems theory," which sees a web of relationships coalescing to become something greater than the parts. Individuals must be able to look at things from a perspective that they are always changing and evolving into new forms – thinking “out-of-the-box!” We are doomed to a slow death unless radical change occurs in the way we think. Change your way of thinking or die a slow death.

The General Orders. The General Orders are broad, community-wide "need statements,” designed to encompass a variety of related issues in a person’s life or within the life cycle of an organization. These related issues are referred to as “Guiding Objectives,” which are specific items that need to be addressed. The Guiding Strategies (developed to fit current and future circumstance) are the methods identified for addressing the Guiding Objectives, and the Guiding Policies are the specific action steps that are recommended to implement the Guiding Strategies. The General Orders, all eleven of them, offer the ability to explore implications in an open and reflective manner and reinforce each other in providing a coherency and wholeness often lacking in life cycles.

The Strategy Forward – Establishing Professional Mastery. The traditional values are the foundation of the modern day; that was yesterday. Tomorrow, you have an opportunity to create commitment and the needed momentum to establish, publish, share, and teach a different set of life’s code, values, and ethics to journey into the future. After much hard work, you are prepared to develop a strategy to move forward and plan the next steps to target critical successes for winning the Future Picture. What a legacy you will leave when executed with personal and professional bearing for others to follow. This is the way of the future. This is a new chapter!

The Centers of Gravity. Just as time changes, so does the internal and external influence in your life and in the life cycle of an organization. The Centers of Gravity are the dynamics within a process that offer the greatest impact on the overall system when change happens. They offer a high level of “value” and return on your energy “investment.” When combined with the concept of parallel deposits (creating energy from various perspectives in a short period of time), the Centers of Gravity make possible the seemingly impossible task of realizing success in changing paradigms. The Centers of Gravity places significant influence on the five established epicenters of any changing system to receive desired effects: Leadership, Processes, Infrastructure, Population, and Action Units.

In summary, I see the Memorandum of Understanding (once established for the organization), as an opportunity to free up the actions of people as servants, but develop them as encouraged opportunists. It is empowering, it is enabling, and it grounds people in a public way on the fundamentals that they all must share to benefit the organization. There is no ethical malaise. It is important to realize that the new is not a finding from what has been lost. Rather, it is like the journey of the scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz in search of a brain (brain power in this context), the tin man in search of a heart, and the lion in search of courage. People’s value system is intact and in most cases, has been during the journey of personal growth. The MOU simply articulates and reaffirms the core value and behavioral perspective that already underlie their personal and professional appearance and conduct to achieve significant growth. And, all of this is stimulated from the affects of the war room; hence, the influences that lead to significant strategic organizational renewal in the end.

The Memorandum of Understanding is designed to help an organization answer four fundamental questions in order to develop and execute an effective strategy forward plan. These questions are:

- Where does the organization want to be in the future?
- What will the organization apply its resources against to achieve the Future Picture?
- How will the organization apply those resources?
- When and under what conditions will the organization exit from their current strategic plan?

It’s the act of dynamically adjusting business models and strategies to the deep changes at work in the external environment. Above all else, this requires innovation and the Memorandum of Understanding definitely offers an innovative perspective to most organizations. In a 2003 article in Harvard Business Review entitled “The Quest for Resilience,” Gary Hamel wrote, “Strategic renewal is creative reconstruction.” It’s all about dissecting the traditional business model and examining it for imaginative ways to reconstruct it to create significant intellectual and emotional thought space for value creation to positively influence the internal and external customers of the organization. This becomes all the more urgent in challenging times, when customer needs and market conditions swiftly and dramatically change.

As in the case of the New Covenant Church of Philadelphia organization, where the senior pastor and Chief Executive Officer Bishop C. Milton Grannum, set aside a specific room on the same floor of the building as his office for directing the organization’s strategic organizational renewal efforts. The organization’s new “war room” had the same critical importance as Winston Churchill’s cabinet war room in London, used to direct military strategy during World War II. Bishop Grannum’s Innovation War Room was a simple, but highly effective device that guided the New Covenant Church of Philadelphia’s appointed leadership team to focus on establishing the strategy forward to reinvent the business model and find bold, new growth opportunities. And, its impact on the organization’s strategies – and, ultimately, its performance – is still being felt today.

Late in the month of November 2008, even in the face of formidable pressures and economic challenges, New Covenant Church of Philadelphia braved the climate and made the decision to bring in yet another trainer, speaker and author Dr. David Ireland from the region only to learn that they were on the right path to extend the organization’s life cycle. The New Covenant Church of Philadelphia continues to be one of the most progressive thinking faith-based organizations in the region.

The reason; the CEO fully understands that the time to input integrated talent management to boost the organization’s human capital is when most organizations are calling on “cost cutting” as its strategy in the face of adverse conditions.
Very few organizations, for-profit and not-for-profit, can claim to have a specific innovation war room somewhere on location. But, what every organization can and should do – right now! – is organize a serious, high-level strategy forum (at least call it the “Innovation War Room” where innovation intersects strategy) to begin exercising transformative thinking and rethinking their business from the customer backward.

One of the fundamental questions the leadership team must ask is this: “how do we get the people to buy-into the organization’s new perspective of transformational thinking to experience upward movement in a market where people no longer have financial resources?” And, in a nutshell, it is my perspective that in answering the question, these people should take a look at the slogan of Royal Bank of Scotland: “Less Talk!” “Start engaging the necessary requirements to strategically execute flawlessly to influence the organizations Future Picture.” Innovation powers us out of everything and must be taken seriously as a strategy that wins.

The absolute worst thing any organization can do during the greatest of challenging times is to assume they can go on with “business as usual – and to go along with the status quo.” Instead, they must conduct themselves as great leaders do and get busy working to understand how organizational clients’ (internal and external) priorities may have changed and quickly realign the organizational business model to address their new needs. Reading through a past edition of the Wall Street Journal, most of the advertisements (for luxury watches, exorbitant real estate, and fabulous vacation resorts) looked embarrassingly inappropriate in view of the ongoing national economic crisis that the United States of America has been facing in the past few years and the next years to come.

One ad, from NOKIA, stood out in contrast. The headline: “Can anyone provide cost cutting solutions that work now? My answer is YES. Now, there’s an organization that seems to get it. But wait a minute. Didn’t that headline sound more than a little like Barack Obama? NOKIA seems to have understood the lesson from the past month’s U.S. election between President Elect Barack Obama and Senator John McCain: Whether you’re overcoming organizational politics or training people to remain on top in their careers, the winners will be those who recognize that the game has changed, and that “same old stuff” just does not cut it any longer. The world’s processes have changed in ways that the world looks much different than it did a year ago (unemployment is up 47% from 2007 – 2008, home ownership is down 26% and the statistics continue to get grim). The way to make effective decisions require innovative thought and those who miss the opportunity to change will be left behind. The best quote that I teach from fits great here: “If people seek to achieve what they have never had, they MUST be prepared to do what they have never done.”

As a U.S. Marine turned business professional, responsible for leading a dynamic team of specialist into the lion’s belly when the team engages a client who is seeking to overcome business and process challenges, innovation takes precedent as our strategic starting point. Our team defines the importance of the war room, helps to identify its location and then the work begins – in the newly organized Innovation War Room. Without this component added to the mix, there’s no need to start because without it, the potential for failure rises incredibly. As we establish these critical strategy rooms, we teach companies to unpack their business model into five Centers of Gravity: Leadership, Infrastructure, Processes, Populations and Action Units. These five are used to influence positive organizational behavior from the leadership who is responsible for making the decisions to drive momentum: who they serve, what service they provide how they provide it, how they generate revenue and how they differentiate and sustain a strategic advantage.

Then we demonstrate how the Centers of Gravity are used to radically rethink each component using the “Six Lenses of Innovation” – the cutting-edge military-style ideation and methodology, “Battleplan for Preemptive Strike,” outlined in my latest book “Business WARFIGHTING For GREAT Teams.” So, we get the strategy teams to (1) Establish Achievable Aims; challenge deeply-held orthodoxies about who their customers are, how they interact with them, how they define their products or services, how they configure the value chain, and so on; (2) Identify Means; harness emergent trends and discontinuities to substantially change the way things are done in their industry; (3) Ensure Intelligence; leverage core competencies and strategic assets in novel ways to generate new growth; (4) Enforce Security; understand and address deep customer needs that are currently going unmet; (5) Engage the Strike; a deliberate Battleplan used by a strategic and numerically inferior power to head off a situation in which ultimate defeat would be inevitable; and lastly, (6) Flawlessly Execute the Exit Strategy; just as everything has a beginning, all things have an end. Leaders are instructed how-to establish exit points using 32 solution-centric precepts to face fierce challenges in short time frames using the process.

We believe that as organizations begin to reshape their cultures; it’s not hard to recognize how the principles found within the military-style ideation and methodology of the Battleplan for Preemptive Strike apply to the many burning platforms organizations are facing today. Isn’t it time you subjected your own business model to some “creative reconstruction,” aimed at making it better suited to today’s shifting customer needs and new economic realities?

Damian D. “Skipper” Pitts, A United States Marine turned business professional is co-author of Business WARFIGHTING For GREAT Teams (Book Surge Publishing, 2009) and Founder and Chairman of the Bison Group Corporation, a management consulting and training firm. He is the author The Process of LeaderShaping, a cultural transformational program and university course of study and has consulted or presented to numerous leading U.S. and foreign corporations, helping them to realize increased integrated talent management strategies, team building maneuvers, and decision-making skills to compete in today’s highly uncertain business environments. He has also authored four additional publications with his most successful title, The Art of Detachment: Breakthrough Principles to Transformational Leadership (Kendall Hunt, 2007). His works allowed him to be chosen as the technical, military and development specialists by the U.S. film industry to the feature film “Stateside” that released in theaters in May 2004 where he trained and acted onscreen with “A-List” talents Val Kilmer and Jonathan Tucker along with 75 -other actors, teaching them the principles of leadership, team development, and influence for the production. He is now teaching his programs at Temple University.

Published on 12/15/2008

The Bison Group Appoints Business Development Specialist “Gordon Enterprises” to Head Reseller Recruitment in North America

2008-12-07T21:20:00.000-08:00

Philadelphia, PA. – 8 December 2008: The Bison Group ® Corporation, the world leader in military-style executive education and LeaderShaping Applications, today launched its Reseller Partner Program for the North American region. A major objective of the program will be to recruit strategic resellers that provide added value to The Bison Group through their business and executive education expertise, their application focus, and their ability to expand geographic coverage. The Reseller Partner Program combined with Bison’s emotional intelligence, organizational behavior, transformational leadership, performance management assessments, strategic-execution and team building maneuver applications, along with its committed customer base, is expected to accelerate Bison’s success within the executive education space. The Bison Group customers will benefit from the program through accelerated delivery of targeted business training applications and the expertise that each reseller will be able to provide. The new program will lay the platform for Bison to enhance its service offerings to benefit Bison’s resellers worldwide.

Bison’s Reseller Partner Program centers on providing resellers with effective sales and marketing support and online support programs, tools, training and support services needed to ensure their business success. The program delivers value to resellers’ by rewarding them for their commitment with a number of financial incentives for engaging with Bison on joint business opportunities. Resellers will receive program benefits, including marketing development resources for joint lead generation activities, sales training, discounts on developer certification classes and passes to Bison’s Annual User Conferences. In addition, resellers will be able to take advantage of qualified lead opportunities across the multi-disciplined business, university and non-profit sectors, discounts on the published list price of Bison publications and research applications, referral fee bonuses, and access to the Bison Partner Center, a secure portal providing partners with quick access to the latest news, events, sales productivity and marketing collateral, training courses, and product demos for maximizing revenue potential with Bison.

“We view resellers as extremely valuable in maintaining our market leadership in executive education,” said Damian D. “Skipper” Pitts, Founder and Chairman of The Bison Group. “We’re confident that building relationships with resellers in key areas through the Reseller Partner Program will contribute to our success and provide a win-win situation in which Bison, our customer base, and our resellers will flourish.”

The team at Gordon Enterprises, Bison’s newly appointed specialists for North American Operations will spearhead the Reseller Partner Program. Gordon Enterprises has almost 40 years of success in selling strategic and tactical enterprise learning products and services engagements.

“I am excited to build relationships with resellers because they are a key component to the success of Bison’s vision and will be treated as true extensions of The Bison Group’s sales force,” said Denise Headley, Director of Channels for North American Operations at the Gordon Enterprise Corporation. “Resellers will be empowered for success through access to the same programs, sales productivity tools, training, and marketing collateral as we provide for our own sales force. With this formula we are confident that we can leverage the reseller channel to expand Bison’s reach for maximum growth.”

About Bison’s Reseller Partner Program
To learn more about the Reseller Partner program, please visit http://www.thebisongroup.com, or email Dpitts@thebisongroup.com.

About The Bison Group ® Corporation
The Bison Group, a team of U.S. Marines turned business professionals, is a leader in military-style executive education and learning services for business, education, government, faith-based organizations and higher learning institutions. Bison’s consultancy boutique works to improve the clients’ business performance by redesigning how they behave, think, and train their associates using strategies from the U.S. Marine Corps. It is the goal of Bison’s teams to implement the rigor and discipline from its training designs, instruct the global marketplace how-to increase their HumanSigma, and increase performance and integrated talent management’s “best practices” to exceed the outcomes within the Future Picture that lie waiting around the immediate corner.

The Bison Group is dedicated to increasing the richness, interactivity and effectiveness of executive education programming for everyone, everywhere. Bison delivers the next generation Emotional Intelligence platform for both customer and employee-facing applications – and its platform boasts unmatched scalability, high-performance, reliability and security that achieves’ personal and professional mastery. The proven leadership, organizational behavior, strategic-execution, and team building maneuver capabilities and highly collaborative program development architecture provides the needed resources and tools for organizations in any industry to win on every competitive battlefield they engage.

Copyright © 2008 The Bison Group ® Corporation. All rights reserved. Bison’s logo is a registered trademark of The Bison Group Corporation.

Military Training and Simulation is Increasingly Required by Business & Industry

2008-08-21T02:29:00.000-07:00

The Bison Group ® Corporation has announced the integration of the “Process of LeaderShaping” initiative – a framework that identifies the behaviors (Organizational Behavior) and influences (Transformational Leadership) that drives performance. U.S. Military Training and Simulation for business and industry offers a future-oriented, "architectural" approach to developing and executing winning strategies that cover the life-cycle of people development, the organization’s future, and the processes within business units. The process is intended for those who want to create a better tomorrow for themselves and their organizations. The process establishes a series of Cardinal Rules and Guiding Precepts to guide organizations into greater paradigms using United States Marine Corps strategy to differentiate themselves from the status quo by thinking strategically. This is a process that integrates large scale planning and strategic execution methods; it aligns the lessons from the battlefields into the lives of people and into the boardrooms across the business marketplace. The Process of LeaderShaping accelerates the actions that are necessary for successful performance management initiatives that win.

In April 2005, the Wharton School of Business students, staff, and sponsors traveled to the U.S. Marine Corps Officer Candidates School in Quantico, Virginia to learn what they were really made of. The venture, aptly titled "Learning Leadership and Decision Making Under Uncertainty and Complexity," sought to expose the future business leaders of the world, to the types of training exercises that have produced generations of successful military leaders. While there are obvious differences between battlefield leadership and corporate leadership, there are also many parallels that can be drawn – especially in the constantly evolving business landscape. We could be nimbler in our decision-making. We could be team players, even from the top. We could lead by example. And we could actively train our subordinates to eventually lead us. Sounds like hogwash? Don't forget that the U.S. Marines has a proven track record – 226 years and running. This program at Wharton lives on today.

An extraordinary organization is one that is driven by extraordinary people who make a distinctive impact and deliver superior performance over a long period of time.
There are some striking characteristics of the leaders who achieve sustained success along their journey in life. They experience an increased level of personal mastery. These leaders have gone through a process. The process serves as a guiding framework, solely based on the inevitability for making significant change to influence greatness within an individual’s life and environment. This is a similar process used to indoctrinate people into the U.S. Marine Corps – an organization that experiences quality in its people who drives significant performance within its system.

The LeaderShaping framework is straightforward for successful application. It offers a significant leadership advantage that provides a philosophy, the experiential quality, and the strategic methodology to help users with successfully applying the inherent tools to achieve an increase in efficiency and effectiveness within their leadership capacity.

The framework’s construct combines the entire LeaderShaping process into a unique configuration that results significant performance management value: The Talent Strategy & Planning process, the Organizational Strategic Execution (OrgSx) process, and the disciplines used within the Team Building Maneuvers protocol. Used consciously, the entire process provides the lighthouse for personal mastery and professional development – cultural change, opportunity and process improvement at the individual, team and organization levels – the needed breakthrough for strategic execution.

The framework provides a foundation of cultural influences and the collective behaviors used to stimulate people to take the journey from ordinary to extraordinary. Its use allows them the confidence and courage to face the adverse realities of their current situation, to recognize what they can actually achieve given the powerful organizational and relationship dynamics without thinking that they can actually achieve success through their own will, and become more powerful than they are. And then, at the same time, while moving equal amounts of energy from the depths of their character, they decide who they want to be, so they can stand firm on personal conviction and the best practices of life that they believe most deeply in. They are able to accept criticism as the stratagem that brings them closer to achieving extraordinary results.

This is the beginning stage within an expected healthy debate about the nature and effectiveness of employing transformational thinking and change across organizations. These are the same organizations that are seeking to achieve a well planned Future Picture for generations to follow.

Summary

The United States continues to be the undisputed leader at providing professional development and training to increase levels of personal prosperity for business preparedness and readiness against conventional enemies.

Asymmetric warfare across the business marketplace, however, has increased the need for military training and simulation integration, thereby increasing market demand. It has also encouraged the development of new and non-traditional strategic and tactical solutions, which has saved numerous organizations from an ultimate demise.
As warfighters (leaders) are required to maintain the highest levels of operational readiness and excellence through training and simulation both at home and abroad, so should business & industry offer a vast array of cutting-edge solutions such as counter-improvised explosive device (IED) training, the behaviors that cause organizations and people to become casualties on the business battlefronts, and organizational behavioral simulations to prepare leaders and managers against the enemy. Furthermore, executive education is vital for business transformation as it will enable warfighters to leverage the latest advances in performance management knowledge and technologies.

The LeaderShaping framework, a warfighter’s body armor to protect against personal and professional failure, provides summary answers to key questions about why it is important for people to accept “change” using transformational thinking:

- What is it and how is it applied?
- Why is it critical to my current circumstance?
- How will it help me to respond to problems and challenges?
- Can it help me with influencing positive change within my point of view?
- How does it help me to respond to the pace of my changing environment?
- How does it help me to respond to rules and procedures set by others?

As it relates external organizational relationships, the framework prepares the individual’s voice to be heard at answering these key questions:

- Where does your organization want to be in the future?
- What will the organization apply its resources against to achieve the Future Picture?
- How will the organization apply those resources?
- When and under what conditions will the organization exit from its current strategic plan?

Ultimately, the framework provides a performance DNA to the individual and to the organization. Once this is achieved, a breakthrough is experienced and the performance management value and quality increases.

The framework achieves personal and professional mastery from the outcomes that help to understand talents from a warfighter’s three distinctive areas: Behaviors, motivators, and competencies. These are the strengths and weaknesses, or the “Strength Finders,” used to win in any situation.

Increasing Value Proposition and Cost Effectiveness Crucial To Market Success
Live training continues to evolve from the Cold War paradigm toward new solutions that prepare warfighters to fight against asymmetric enemies often embedded in civilian populations and organizations. Since 2005, the Bison Group has invested substantially in new live training solutions to counter challenges faced in the business marketplace, specifically Military Operations Counter-IED Devices: Decision-making, collective behaviors, and cultural influences.

However, the heavy financial burden of the U.S. economy, another form of conflict, “Domestic War on Terror (DWOT),” has taken valuable resources away from future planned training and simulation and instead toward extending the life cycle of organizations in trouble. Therefore, the industry is being forced to deliver temporary solutions for less instead of future-oriented growth strategies designed to increase capacity to the individual and system. To address this issue, training and simulation – the LeaderShaping framework – provides proven solutions where people and organizations achieve high levels of performance to result in extraordinary outcomes.

For more information visit http://www.thebisongroup.com

Organizations, People & Performance

2008-05-19T14:44:00.000-07:00

HumanSigma Ideation™

When an organization doesn't meet the stakeholders' needs and expectations, the cause is rarely a misguided posture, purpose, and alignment of strategy or vision. Instead, underperformance is more often the result of a misalignment of the organization's strategy and its many complexes and interacting parts.

To address such situations, The Bison Group’s “HumanSigma Ideation” platform integrates learning models to helps organizations with their HR functions and designs, based on market economics and customized to deliver against stakeholder expectations, customer needs, and the relationships among the constituencies in the organization's extended enterprise.

Tailored to meet an organization’s particular situation (people and systems), a Refreshed Operating Model typically includes any or all of the following elements:

- Enterprise People Solutions – Relationship Management Platform for allocating scarce resources to align people processes to organizational goals

- Organizational Execution (OrgEx) modeling used within change management processes in developing the learning organization and great teams

- A team maneuvers framework that clearly identifies and motivates individuals to work, individually and together, toward strategic objectives

- Profit-accountable business units formed around distinct value propositions

- Supply Chain Management that delivers a combination of innovative strategies with practical know-how to help organizations design, build, and operate new system models to dramatically improve competitive advantage

- Support services based on market models to serve internal clients responsively and competitively

- Innovative and strategically focused leadership teams

- Strategic-Execution that provides continuous exploration in new sources of shareholder value by delivering products and services more effectively and efficiently

- Alliances and partnerships – Enterprise Resource Planning with best-in-class providers to leverage scale, access expertise, and increase flexibility within people and organizational platforms

- Linkages among organizational elements that measure, inform, and motivate them to effectively work together to execute the firm's strategy – positive organizational behavior and transformational leadership

The Organizational Breakthrough TTI Simulation Experience

Learn about the OrgEx DNA Instrument™, a powerful web-based instrument and simulation for executives to experiment with decisions and view the resulting impact to their organizations. The power behind the simulation lies in empirical relationships identified in 100,000 observations from over 1,000 organizations, which reliably predict outcomes that apply to their own organizational environment.

To learn more about The Bison Group’s experience in helping organizations create Refreshed Operating Models to improve organizational effectiveness, request a copy of our “HumanSigma Ideation Series” today by email at: Sales@BisonGroupUS.com.

Start the evolution that begins a tactical-philosophy to win in your people today!

Change Management and Talent & Organizational Performance

2008-05-19T14:35:00.000-07:00

As we continue to look at ways of being effective within our productivity, it is important to understand that the workforce has to do much more than just “work harder” and increase throughput. The workforce must rapidly be introduced to innovation and strategy mapping to remain on a continuum for growth to its systems and people platforms. In some cases, this requires a series of tasks to ramp up new business processes and technologies; learn to think outside of the box – transformational thinking – adapt new skills that transition the minds and transform the hearts of the people responsible for turning the ignition on outputs and efficiency, and to continuously reduce operating costs along the way. At the same time, an organization must be able to manage and support that type of productivity across the enterprise. Asking for too much? This very question leads to inexcusable results within the organizations vision, mission, and tactical philosophy to execute flawlessly. However, removing this way of thinking from the start places people and organizations on a good to great path of success.

Change Management and Talent & Organizational Performance elicits the perspective that understands how-to maximize productivity as the result of complex, interrelated factors, ranging from people, technology and process, organizational behavior, culture, and incentives and reward systems. Change Management and Talent & Organizational Performance is used to help organizations with understanding the “why” of their actions, in addition to the “what” of their behaviors, developing the required capacity to continually change and compete within their respective industry. All the while, they need to do so without buckling under the pressure of new ways to work or distribute their ongoing business operations.

Change Management and Talent & Organizational Performance works to address these factors in an integrated fashion and within an added-valued effort to drive productivity. It demands that everyone involved in the process to have a significant voice in building the architecture of the enterprise (or work within the developed systems completed under the wings of colleagues). Once people have identified their place in the development and/or redevelopment of the planned future picture, the enterprise at that point, is able to ensure that the factors influencing the need for change must come together at all three levels of the organization – the enterprise, the workforce, and the individual! When this happens as a seamless application, the environment is then able to experience a complete productivity-enhancing experience with lessons learned for future transitions. There are a few ways of executing a successful Change Management and Talent & Organizational Performance initiative:

Enterprise People Solutions – Relationship Management Platform: Reengage customer management for the globalized, customer-centric, digital age that aligns people processes to organizational goals. “EPS” instructs how to LeaderShape people to cause transformational change! The “EPS” approach helps internal/external clients create a superior experience and enhances the value of the relationships by combining knowledge and expertise with the latest tools and technologies. It also helps organizations to understand the outputs of transformational leadership and organizational behavior as a companywide responsibility – aligned with the highest integrated principles to substantially increase productivity, person-to-person interactions, and overall performance – by maximizing the potential of the workforce. Reflection: EPS – People.

Organizational Execution (OrgEx): Achieve professional mastery and lead change into becoming a positive force! Change is inevitable, progress is not. When a transition is needed within an organizational system, in most cases, there seems to be a prevailing disconnect of the broader knowledge “why” new systems and constructs are needed. The “OrgEx” approach provides 25 focus-specific and integrated strategies to be used for change in developing the learning organization and great teams. The management techniques outline a comprehensive knowledge paradigm for leading and navigating through tough waters from a three-Phased approach: strategy execution, teams, and sales. The information and lessons are used as a strategic guide for refreshing, developing, and/or reengineering the focus of management principles for winning by making satisfying decisions that contribute to valuable “agents of change” in today’s rapidly changing marketplace. Reflection: OrgEx – The Organization.

Strategic–Execution: A continuous exploration in new sources of shareholder value for client relations by investigating new markets or examine opportunities to grow in existing markets. Overcoming roadblocks require the learning of proven project management techniques to discover a wealth of valuable and flexible tools to be integrated immediately to ensure the success of all types of projects – internally and externally. The name of the game is “execution” and managing a combined strategy provides for a sound foundation, set of skills and techniques, and tactical proactive approach to win over the “Fallacy of Motivation on Execution” as it relates to the overall mission. Strategic-Execution also helps with identifying ways to deliver products and services more effectively and efficiently. Reflection: SE – Execution and Project Management.

Supply Chain Management: A combination of innovative strategies with practical know-how to help organizations design, build, and operate new system models that deliver superior supply chain performance and dramatically improve competitive advantage. SCM works hand-in-hand with Strategic-Execution on any number of different projects from channel integration, public and private B2B exchanges, and electronic fulfillment to supply chain synchronization. Reflection: SCM – Process Improvement, Workflow.

Enabling Businesses to Perform Better: Enterprise Resource Planning “ERP”Organizations must understand the criticality for achieving a position that occupies a unique position at the intersection of business and technology. Becoming an industry leader can be cumbersome if the appropriate calibrations are not made to effectively design and implement flexible enterprise solutions. “ERP” offers a winning solution to allow the world’s leading companies with automating, integrating and synchronizing real time information across their business platforms. Reflection: ERP – Flexible Enterprise Solutions (People & OrgEx).

Using these approaches to build dynamic leaders in business and industry is the foundation that helps connect organizations to their employees, customers, and partners. An effective Change Management and Talent & Organizational Performance initiative prepares leaders responsible for facilitating or managing change and identifies essential key business drivers that typically underlie the need for organizational change. You’ll become proficient at managing change, learning how to effectively work with key stakeholders in ways that build trust and support, and ensure positive outcomes for your bottom line.

And we cannot forget the one additional benefit to adopting this initiative format, overcoming “competitive arousal.” What is competitive arousal? This is the term that defines an individual’s approach to beat his/her rivals at any cost. For these personality types, it they are not careful, this adrenaline-fueled state can and will lead to all kinds of expensive mistakes – mostly in the form of losing personal relationships and character desecration. Yet again, an effective Change Management and Talent & Organizational Performance initiative will keep your competitive spirit in check. To explain “competitive arousal” in detail (a must read), please take a look at the Harvard Business Review article by Deepak Malhotra, Gillian Ku, J. Keith Murnighan entitled, “When Winning Is Everything.”

This text is specific to change agents and organizations who are seeking to learn creative and innovative strategies within their systems. To read the full white paper version on Change Management and Talent & Organizational Performance, simply send an email to our team at: Sales@BisonGroupUS.com.

Please reference the "CMTOP" in your subject line in order for us to process your request and send your "white paper" as quickly as possible.

The Downside, a Tough Economy. The Upside, Opportunity Lies Within Us!

2008-04-21T20:20:00.000-07:00

The Building Great Teams Project. Here we are standing at the doorstep within the 2008 economy knocking hard to come inside. Only, the door remains shut with no answer. We continue to knock, and knock hoping that someone would open it for us to be let in. The problem with this scenario is one that has so many of us being brought to our wits end, presented with few options of achieving our goals. Not unless a door is opened for the entry to be achieved, or so you may think. What am I referring you may be asking? The answer to this question lies in a word and it is one that offers a change to your life – “opportunity.”

The scenario also lays the foundation for what most people in America may already be thinking, “we have gone from a first class country to a third rate community.” I know that it may sound harsh and might even upset some of you with the profound statement, but I am only telling the truth. The United States of America is a great nation; however, we are one that is on a slippery slope heading in the wrong direction FAST!

We are currently facing economic and political crisis at proportions that for most people alive, this is the absolute worst it has been. Just as common folk didn’t see the shock of September 11th coming that held most of us frozen in time, unless we understand how to identify with the word opportunity, we will again be frozen in shock when terror strikes – and for most working Americans, it is already upon us with sky rocketing fuel prices (planes, trains, and automobiles…oops, let’s add one more here and say, our homes).

With our failing banking institutions, busted brokerages, toppled corporate giants, bankrupt cities and school systems, states in default, the news of killer asteroids heading towards earth, and foreign creditors cashing out U.S. securities, it seems to me that the stage may already be set and the biggest scare yet is on its way.

I believe that we can, as the most resilient nation in the world, overcome the doom and gloom we are facing. We can head it off with persistence and opportunity and to do so, we must ban together as great teams do, look adversity in its face and smile, and win at all cost. That’s right; the opportunity that I am referring lies in our abilities to ban as one to build small pockets of great teams at every level of our society. If we look back to our earlier days, WWI and WWII, Americans banned together as a team and we became a nation that could not be beat during some of the toughest times we had to face in those times. We simply need to do it again, only this time, we must move our teams from being good to becoming great.

In building great teams, there are a few things to consider just to get started:

- Team Basics & A Team Defined!
- People and Champions of Change
- Perspective (Lessons from the Wizard of Oz)
- The Future Picture
- The Ninefold Earth

A lack of opportunity may be knocking and for some people, it goes by its original name, “tough times.” But, for those who have the know-how for making the absolute best of a tough situation, slamming the door in the face of tough times is not a problem. It requires us to ban together as one – in our homes, on the job, and across organizations at every level to become a GREAT team.

I know that you have heard the saying, “tough times don’t last, but tough people do.” The problem with this statement is that although you might be that tough person, even you will fall to the perils of life’s burdens. This is the reason for this text, to provide a means of not falling, but if you do, having a failsafe for getting up. This brings me to the first consideration: Team basics and what is a team? Building great teams hits at one of the most discussed topics within business media and the workplace: Organizational Behavior, leadership & process, and inter-office politics.

The day of the individual worker is over, as our life style in today's households and corporate arena demands that workers possess the ability to effectively work as team-led associates within an organization. Everyone needs someone. It is a scenario all top leaders and managers knows well: The organization, their people, and their systems all require efficient and effective processes to remain constant in its approach to move quickly toward new and innovative ways of reaching mission-critical objectives. This is a task that is directed by the senior leadership, and they must be committed to draft and manage the right team of commandos to lead the effort.

Yet, in most cases, team leaders never hit their goals – not because they lack talent within the associate ranks, but because they are naive to the complexities of team dynamics. Smart leaders and managers understand what type of team model best suits the task, what key skills to look for (and which to avoid), and how to coax top performances from everyone starting from day one.

This text is another part in my Building GREAT Teams project. If you would like to receive a full copy of the text, please send me an email at: Damian@BuildtheTeams.net. Also, please reference “The Guidebook” in your subject line in order for our team to process your request in a timely manner. You can also visit www.BuildtheTeams.net to learn more about the project.

The Building GREAT Teams project includes the publication bundle: “Building Great Teams: Charting the Path of Organizational Politics” (ISBN# 978-1-4196-7603), “The Monograph: How to Build and Manage the Process of Teams” (ISBN# 978-1-4196-9172-0), “The Guidebook: Essential Traits of a GRAET Team Player,” a series of performance management assessment instrument, 40-hours of instruction using strategies from the United States Marine Corps, and dynamic hands-on exercises. The project offers a systematic philosophy for excellence that achieves a philosophical paradigm for greatness; one offers liberation through process that ultimately leads to a reconciliation of practice. The publications area available at www.amazon.com, www.booksurge.com, or by emailing me at: Damian@BuildtheTeams.net.

Those who adopt the project are poised to learn how “not” to resist, but work with, the forces and paradigms of change, how to chart the path of organizational politics, how to build and manage the process of teams, and learn the essential traits of a GREAT team player!

The project offers an essential guidebook for building your team’s transformational resilience, providing the needed coaching to your team members, and driving performance management for optimal results.

In closing, I hope that you explore the many offerings from this project. Here’s a sampling from the project that is titled, “The Five Fundamentals.” There are Five Fundamentals – for this deliberation, for the making of comparisons and the assessing of conditions: the way, heaven, earth, command, discipline. I wish to explain only one; “the way,” causes men to be of one mind with their rulers, to live or die with them, and never to waver! (Definition) A team must stand firm on one vision with the ruler being the mission – to live by a creed and never falter and/or waiver on an issue that can stop the execution of the necessary steps within the established mission you are reaching.

Don’t ever fail within “the way!” This Guidebook helps you to define the other four for your life, team, and organization.

The Seven "T's" of Oz to Your Personal Transformation

2008-04-06T13:20:00.000-07:00

A Long Walk On A Short Path

Keeping in the tradition of providing clever and entertaining instruction for people to grow their lives, I have teamed up with a new author, Leslie Ann Smith, to help develop an outstanding leadership project based on one of our film classics, "The Wizard of Oz."

The film's plot is easily condensed and allows for an immediate organizational behavioral approach that anyone can identify with: lonely and sad Kansas farm girl Dorothy Gale (her complete name) dreams of a better place, without torment against her dog Toto from a hateful neighbor spinster, so she plans to run away. During a fierce tornado, Dorothy is struck on the head and transported to a land (Munchkin Land) "beyond the rainbow" where she meets magical characters from her Kansas life transformed within her unconscious dream state. After travels down a Yellow Brick Road to the Land of Oz (Emerald City), and the defeat of the Wicked Witch of the West, Dorothy and her friends (the Tin Woodman, the Scarecrow, and the Cowardly Lion) are rewarded by the great Wizard of Oz with their heart's desires - and Dorothy is enabled to return home to Kansas by locating the depths of her inner self. This brings me to our project and its valuable and entertaining perspective for us all to learn from the cast of characters.

When we think about the reasons that one must take better care of their life, it would be smart to begin thinking outside of the norm for your way of accepting the perceived. This is your first step to a new you - personal prosperity - and freedom from the chains of bondage. There are seven principles that each of us must take to begin the “long walk on a short path!” This text offers a transformation through my hunger for knowledge and my thirst for instruction. Yes, there is a difference between “hunger” and “thirst” and the seven inherent principles will not only define them for you, they will prepare you to accept your right to choose the future that is awaiting your new transformation into greatness.

The seven principles, if they were an apple, would allow me to take a bite to quench my hunger for change.

They are outlined as:

1. Think (the Future Picture)
2. Tongue (Words of Wisdom: Voice)
3. Transition the Mind (the Scarecrow)
4. Transform the Heart (the Tin Woodman)
5. Totality of Courage (the Cowardly Lion)
6. Tortuous (Full of Twists and Turns)
7. Toxic (Leadership, Behaviors, Values)

As we seek to experience change for our lives, we must first try to construct our future picture. This means that we must already know what we want our future to look like when we get there. This form of thinking allows each of us to examine a word that for some is the opposite of what they may be using (your actions) in life now; proactive, the opposite of procrastination. Being proactive places you on a path that limits negative things from happening.

Using the characters from the Wizard of Oz and over the next few weeks, Smith and I will use this Blog as a vehicle to outline the seven principles for change that anyone can use to make significant deposits in their life. You’ll see glaring similarities between your life experiences and those of Dorothy Gale from Kansas, the Cowardly Lion, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, Glenda -the Witch of the North, the Wicked Witch of the West, the Emerald City, and Munchkin Land. Your will be required to think “outside-the-box” for learning a new series of guiding principles.

Beginning with the first principle and throughout the entire text, it’s actually quiet simple. In order to plan a better future for yourself, like Dorothy Gale, all you have to do is think.

This text also offers a transformation that prepares you to accept your right to choose the necessary tools for finding your voice. It will inspire you to help others with finding theirs. The future awaits those who are proactive in their search for knowledge. Smith and I will attempt to entertain and prepare you for a significant walk into greatness.

Practicing her own principles, Smith released a “Monograph” version of her upcoming book, “A Long Walk On A Short Path,” for anyone who is seeking to make an immediate change. To get your copy, simply email me TODAY or contact Smith at lwsp@leslieasmith.com!

Publication Release Date: August 2008
Published by: Book Surge Publishing Company

Smith does an outstanding job and remains clever throughout her text keeping with the theme of Oz. Be prepared to learn, have fun, revisit your childhood, and GROW. This is one "NOT TO BE MISSED" and you will not be disappointed.

The Monkey Dance & Great Teams

2008-04-03T02:08:00.000-07:00

SATURDAY, MARCH 29, 2008
COOLEST BOOK TRAILER EVER!!

http://youtube.com/user/bisongroup

I’m not kidding. I’ve watched this book trailer at least a dozen times, and I still can’t get enough of it. The music is excellent. They video is simple and feels very organic. I love this thing! I have had the pleasure of speaking with the author, and I know a little bit about his passion and commitment to helping businesses building great teams, but who knew he could take that passion and make such a cool book trailer. If the video is this innovative and creative, it leads me to believe his book and concepts are equally as compelling. Nicely done and Semper Fi, Skipper. Kudos to your entire team. - R.W. RIDLEY, BLOG,
http://www.selfmarketingforbooks.com/

Building Great Teams: How to Manage the Process of Teams

2008-03-11T02:12:00.000-07:00

A Monograph to Accompany Building Great Teams (Paperback)
by Damian D. “Skipper” Pitts (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Book Description: Damian D. “Skipper” Pitts answers the “how-to” question for leaders across the business marketplace on building great teams with a Monograph to accompany “Building Great Teams: Charting the Path of Organizational Politics.”

This monograph is a response to questions raised by readers in the business sector. It is not a new book. Skipper wants to avoid any confusion about the monograph being a book by limiting its distribution to online retailers. Based on interviews and workshops with over 100+ business sector executive education participant leaders, the difference between successful organizations and those that are not is their ability to build and manage the process of great team work.

Abstract

How to Build and Manage the Process of Teams: Building great teams hits at one of the most discussed topics within business media and the workplace: Organizational Behavior, leadership & process, and inter-office politics. The day of the individual worker is over, as today's corporate arena demands that workers possess the ability to effectively work as team-led associates within an organization. It is a scenario all top leaders and managers knows well: The organization, their people, and their systems all require efficient and effective processes to remain constant in its approach to move quickly toward new and innovative ways of reaching mission-critical objectives. This is a task that is directed by the senior leadership, and they must be committed to draft and manage the right team of commandos to lead the effort.

Yet, in most cases, team leaders never hit their goals – not because they lack talent within the associate ranks, but because they are naive to the complexities of team dynamics. Smart leaders and managers understand what type of team model best suits the task, what key skills to look for (and which to avoid), and how to coax top performances from everyone starting from day one.

Product Details
Paperback: 40 pages
Publisher: BookSurge Publishing; 1 edition (2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1-4196-9172-4
ISBN-13: 978-1-4196-9172-0
Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.8 x 0.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces

9TH Floor Leadership

2008-02-24T00:34:00.000-08:00

Flexibility – What We Can Learn From “The Elevator”

Excerpt from “9TH Floor Leadership:”

The Strategy Of The Elevator That Some Executives Overlook And
Why It Matters Most! Transformational Leadership, People and Change

As in leadership, elevators are constantly moving. They remain constant, moving up and down, to transport individuals and items floor to floor. The ride never ends. It goes on and on, up and down, side to side until another person on a different floor pushes the button to call for the elevator.

Flexibility & the “Elevator” are defined as:

Moving up is said to be a promotion, a rise in status or success; Moving down a loss and sideways a lateral move, status quo. The elevator seems to indicate that you are on the go. You exceed your own expectations when you make wise decisions out of pure determination.

To learn more about “The Elevator” and the concept of “9TH Floor Leadership,” please contact me via email at: damian@buildtheteams.net. You will receive a complimentary “9TH Floor Leadership” framework and paradigm overview to your email within 3-business days. You will not be disappointed.

Stateside Movie cast Skipper - IMDB

2008-02-23T23:45:00.000-08:00

The film "Stateside" (2004) is a love story about two imperfect teenagers who find perfect love. The film follows the story of two teenagers from different worlds--Mark Deloach and Dori Lawrence--as their lives quickly spiral out of control. The rebellious but privileged Mark delves into dangerous antics resulting in a nearly fatal drunk driving accident, and Dori Lawrence, a wild actress and singer slowly loses touch with reality as she suffers from schizophrenia. Forced to straighten out their lives, Mark is sent to join the Marines and Dori is admitted into a mental hospital. In the midst of life's chaos, Mark and Dori are drawn to each other, recognizing their mutual desperation for love and understanding. Despite pressure from both their friends and family to keep their distance, they maintain their bond. While they fail to fix what's broken in each of their lives, they find comfort in each other's faults and have faith that their unconditional love will eventually heal their deep seeded wounds.

To learn more, visit http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0339727/combined

Enterprise People Solutions Suite

2008-02-11T16:41:00.000-08:00

Bison Group's Relationship Management Platform

The team here at The Bison Group helps organizations manage their most important asset – their people. We provide the leading platform of scalable leadership and organizational behavior solutions for enterprise learning, collaboration, performance management, and talent management, as well as implementation, training, and consulting services.

Unified People Management

Our Enterprise People Solutions (EPS) suite is a comprehensive relationship management platform designed to align people processes to organizational goals. Why Us? It is our mission to LeaderShape people to cause transformational change! It’s that simple. We understand that leadership development and Organizational Behavior is a companywide responsibility, stretching across all departments and functions. With this in mind during development and research, the team stands firm on our EPS business suite that is aligned with the highest integrated HumanSigma solutions with breakthrough principles to transformational leadership. Our platform delivers the greatest number of enterprise-wide implementations for learning and performance:

Shared-Platform, One Unified Solution!

Bison’s common platform simplifies the development of a comprehensive Human Capital Management solution by providing:

• A seamless user experience
• Simplified performance management reporting (assessment instruments)
• A common repository of people information, business objectives, and competencies

A common foundation means
• Easier deployment
• Lower implementation costs

Our Enterprise People Solutions (EPS) suite involves a rigorous certification process that is designed for anyone who is charged with developing talent, leading a team, or achieving growth – no matter what industry or discipline – integrating transformational leadership, HumanSigma & change, diversity education, team building maneuvers, strategic planning, project management, performance management assessment instruments, and Flawless Execution – and we’ll provide the lasting experience that grooms high potential leaders to blaze new trails into the future.

The LeaderShaping process improvement methods will help you focus value-based strategies to:

▪ Achieve personal-organizational mastery and rigor to win in competitive
environments
▪ Build your transformational resilience
▪ Improve customer satisfaction through effective coaching to your people
▪ Advance product and service quality
▪ Drive performance management for business results
▪ Develop environments of trust for improved command and control
▪ Reduce waste and costs
▪ Increase speed and efficiency

Our Enterprise People Solutions suite will also teach you to use execution methods from the United States Marine Corps in business, health, government and community relations, Not-for-Profit and faith-based organizations, and service-related industries to improve, redesign, and implement efficient, people-centric business processes. LeaderShaping strategic principles-based methods will change how you build relationships with your people and manage your business to sustain positive change into the future. Its structure drives how management will make reality-based decisions and requires a significant commitment from all levels within an organization, especially at the top. Take a look at the different suites.

1. The LeaderShaping Learning Suite
2. The LeaderShaping Performance Suite
3. The LeaderShaping Talent Management Suite
4. The LeaderShaping HumanSigma Suite

To learn more about our Relationship Management Platform, email us at:
Sales@BisonGroupUS.com.

LeaderShaping People and Transformational Change

2008-02-11T16:33:00.000-08:00

This "abstract" from the white paper introduces an essential guide for building your transformational resilience, providing the needed coaching to your people, and driving performance management for business results as we start a new year. As we begin to make our year’s resolutions, it might be wise to include one for your valued and trusted associates who are responsible for keeping the pistons firing in the organizational engine that drives performance.

There seems to be, with some of us, an erroneous perspective about how we look and think about the topic of leadership. As times change, shouldn’t the way people who are chosen as leaders tend to influence change? The misconception is that leadership changes independent of the people chosen to lead it. It does experience transition, whether we like it or not, whether we recognize it or not and whether we actively participate within that transition or not. It does not change on its own. As the individual’s perspective in life and reality take on new challenges – transition in ideation, transformative thought, the technology changes that drive our perspective on getting things done, and the changing environments reflective through the constant design and development of our ideals, values, and beliefs – so does the way of leadership.

We are aware of these huge incessant issues such as the Iraq war and the sectarian struggles that are causing human life to be lost, the environment, education, employment, politics, economics and such like and we drown in a sea of information about them, as they migrate like locust in our lives, day-in and day-out. The erroneous perspective extends on this tide until these problems and challenges seem so disconnected from each other and so alien to our personal circumstances that we think we are disadvantaged and too unimportant to make any difference.

We become ambivalent and detached from them, desensitized in a way that we begin to believe that we are all unable to overcome the challenges and enormous gravity of the situation. Moreover, we think we have no responsibility for them. But it is just that: an erroneous perspective! We think that to change the organizations with which we work, we must change the organization that resides around us. Nothing else makes any difference. However, as the title of this text suggests, change comes from within, not without. It is powered by the minds of each of us. It is engineered by the words from your mouth and the actions of your behaviors. It is constructed by your hands, as we are all responsible for it and influenced by it, whether directly or indirectly. It is so very clear to me that to change our environments – business, personal, relationships, etc – we must begin by changing ourselves.

The challenges and problems that face us in life’s journey do not exist within the depths of our media; they lie within each of us. They are created by us and we must be prepared to accept the “truth” delivered by our own level of influence and the consequences of our actions – our behaviors and our means to deliver the expected performance within the environment that we are a part of. “Your actions carry a thought and shape a destiny!” Simply, there is a reciprocal relationship between environments and behaviors and to achieve a successful transformational change medium, people must remain on a continuum of being “LeaderShaped!” This leads me to an all too familiar statement within my executive team; many, most, and some: “Many have wanted it; most think they have it, and some will actually get it.” Despite our perceptions to the contrary, the three perspectives are either a result of our passive acceptance that we can do nothing about them or our active role in encouraging them, or we can acknowledge our current place and decide to make a change for the better.

So, we have a choice. You have a choice. Accept the reality that we have made for what it is and allow change to occur with you as a passive participant in it, or look at your life and begin wondering: It is what it is? Does it get any better? Is this the best my reality and the reality of the world can be? “LeaderShaping People and Transformational Change” is my way of answering these very pointed questions for my own existence. My answer is absolutely, and without any doubt, NO!

This text is the starting point for you to begin the path of change for you and the people influenced by you and within your environment of trust. To get a full copy of the white paper, "LeaderShaping People and Transformational Change," email us at Sales@BisonGroupUS.com.

Team Intelligence

2008-02-11T16:30:00.000-08:00

Is there such a thing as team intelligence? If there was, it would revolutionize the study and the practice of business. Our research shows that there is such a thing, that we can identify, describe, measure and develop it and that this has measurable business outcomes in terms of enterprise profitability, growth, and development. This has major implications for leadership development and talent management, to mention just two areas.

Idiots Savants and PhDs?

Traditionally psychologists defined intelligence as IQ, the intelligence quotient notably popularized by Binet and others. These days it is recognized that IQ is but one measure of intelligence, broadly defined. The working theory is that there are multiple intelligences, each of which is separate and defines a different form of cognitive performance. Thus we can talk about emotional, artistic, and kinesthetic intelligence. But no-one has even identified an entity such as team intelligence? Yet if these others exist, why should not team intelligence?

Popular culture identifies and discusses capabilities that could well be seen as direct reflections of team intelligence. These include business acumen and a nose for driving people, process, profit, and profitability. We sometimes talk of people being a “leadership genius.” Thus the popular wisdom acknowledges something that would be like team intelligence. It’s just that the academics and psychologists haven’t caught up yet since they are usually not in a position to have direct, as distinct from indirect, experience of it in the field in a real business. Simply, team intelligence should be constructed as a significant discipline in our business schools and development programs.

Another IQ! But Why?

That is where the work of The Bison Group comes in – a team of United States Marines turned business professionals and industry specialists, providing business acumen assessment and development program that focuses on people, process, and the disciplines of transformational leadership and organizational behavior. Our research shows that we can identify specific team intelligence at the level of the individual, which encapsulates successful environments at the organizational level. We can formally model that intelligence, measure it, and show what its impacts are on the team performance aspect of the individual and organization they are a part. Some of this work is introduced in the release of our latest book, “Building Great Teams: Charting the Path of Organizational Politics” (BookSurge, 2008), see www.amazon.com and our essential guidebook for building your transformational resilience, providing the needed coaching to your people, and driving performance management for business results – HumanSigma.Net.

Rather than use the all too familiar term IQ, we approach this discipline with another term, LeaderShaping People and Transformational Change. With the current economic downturn and its impact on leadership development practices and programs, organizations must remain on task with developing their people and systems and there’s no better time than now to get it done. The book and white paper combined examines people and organizational leadership using business acumen and United States Marine Corps strategy and tactical-philosophy as a multi-dimensional approach to creating an environment with significant HumanSigma to effect proactive change. Together, they argue that while recessions typically bring discouragement and fear to the workplace at all levels, there are good reasons for it to be different this time, as long as HR and leadership development professionals take the initiative.

Essentially, they examine, explain, and introduce strategy-execution and team intelligence.

Our definition of team intelligence, however, is not just or even mainly about team building. It is really about value creation in people. We identify the criticality of an individual or team to create capital, and that means in any level of an organization and system. In its specific implementation currently it uses organizational behavior as the lead stimulus that seeks to understand, explain, and improve human behavior in organizations. Team Intelligence using organizational behavior identifies profit intelligence, the propensity to create human capital as measured in successful workplace behaviors and environments.

Leaders Today

Who is better to train future leaders than the leaders of today? The business world is quickly realizing potential leaders are a major asset – the drivers of systems, management, and business process. Taking that potential and developing it is highly desirable. Team Intelligence is the tool that must be integrated if to achieve the difference between winning or losing in competitive situations. Using it wisely and as a significant applicable resource, Team Intelligence becomes the stimulus to initiate and maintain the relationship necessary to create leaders from leaders. With dedication from both the mentor and the protégé, the discipline guides participants through various steps to ensure it follows the right path that will benefit all parties. Team Intelligence models a value-add and results-oriented perspective that will help the leaders of today develop the leaders of tomorrow.

Most organizations focus their efforts on improving two aspects of human behavior:

 Job performance: the degree to which individuals perform the behaviors needed for the organization to achieve its goals; and
 Organizational commitment: the degree to which employees remain loyal to the organization rather than withdrawing from their work.

Using Team Intelligence, you can learn how to guide the integration of an adaptable model that seeks to explain these two areas of organizational behavior. That model is shown below, and will serve as the organizing framework for integrating Team Intelligence into any existing system and/or organization.

Team Intelligence is measured using online assessment instruments. The instruments also measure the actual behavior of an individual and show how this differs from their values and workplace motivators. These show whether the individual or team is likely to under- or out-perform other people in terms of creating profitable environments to their organizations (and higher market value). Our instruments also measure the leadership signature or culture of an organization and reveal what the type of team culture means for the ultimate market value of the company.

Recessions and economic downturns normally see a reduction in transformational leadership and development program spending since companies typically do not have confidence that these programs can provide short-term solutions to the financial issues that must be addressed. This is a significant misnomer and can produce a detachment for employing creative and innovative ways of achieving significant growth.

However, companies have an unparalleled opportunity to transform both leadership development programs and the way that they introduce creative programs to modify the financial behavior of their organization, including business acumen programs. These have the potential for rapid financial impacts to help in the short and long-term and to position them better as they come out of the stalling economy.

LeaderShaping the Future

Our work comes up with some surprising and, for many, counter-intuitive conclusions. Being one of the best leader types does not correlate with having the best team intelligence; in fact the reverse is more likely to be the case. The possession of a higher degree or an MBA is not correlated with high team intelligence. In fact, business outcomes may be worse with an MBA because the holder incorrectly assumes that they have the right business acumen for the assigned task. This over-confidence leads to rash decisions based on a lack of real-world experience – a model that the U.S. Armed Forces learned the hard way during the Vietnam War.

Simply placing new officers in command of troops already in country caused discontent, disharmony, and loss of life. They quickly learned that creative methods and a non-traditional approach was necessary as a model within itself to overcome the challenges faced by following the traditions that worked in the past. Just as time changes, so should the ways in traditional thinking.

The concept of team intelligence has some revolutionary implications for business. If it is correct, we are routinely selecting the wrong types of people as leaders and managers, which is probably why we get recurrent business and organizational crises such as the current sub-prime crisis in our financial communities.

Secondly we have completely the wrong development regimes and programs for managers and emerging leaders, since we might be measuring and managing the wrong things.

Third, our business education both at university and in business is based on the wrong skills since we are confusing business literacy and business acumen, which are completely different things. We routinely select for business literacy, which is not the same thing as business acumen and therefore suffer the consequences when holders of these often-atmospheric qualifications, apparently unaccountably, fail to deliver the right P&L results. This is where we come in again. A great way to learn the discipline of team intelligence, individuals must employ our program, “LeaderShaping the Future – Organizational Behavior: Harness the Potential of Tomorrow’s Leaders Today!”

This is a 40-hour intense business program that introduces “The Five Paragraph Order” concept as a significant tool within team intelligence. The Five Paragraph Order, otherwise known by its short name and acronym “SMEAC,” follows a set of well disciplined campaign precepts to build the foundation for integrating team intelligence. If these campaign precepts are followed correctly (they are applicable to any situation in any industry), your chances of success will gain valuable resources to win in any environment.

 Situation (Manage by mind, lead by heart),
 Mission (See what all see; think what no other thinks),
 Execution (Master transition; develop the discipline of managing the unexpected),
 Administration/ Logistics (Link leadership to legacy! Exploit the dynamic within, develop it without), and
 Command and Signal (Hunt for great behavior; become a teacher of dignified coaches – ensure progression of authority)

Counting on the Multiples

So what does this all mean for the theory of multiple intelligence? Well, our work supports and extends it even further. As outlined in our first book, “The Art of Detachment: Breakthrough Principles to Transformational Leadership” (Kendall Hunt Publishing Co, 2007) see www.amazon.com, team intelligence is aligned with the art of employing democracy in leadership. Team intelligence most importantly demonstrates an understanding of excellence thru performance management that realizes a state where people come into a single way of thinking, without losing their individuality, creating a “shared-vision” that achieves a predetermined objective.

It shows that glorious entity called the human psyche and how it is even more multi-faceted and powerful than we had imagined. In doing so, team intelligence deconstructs types of influence, stratagem, and execution that require a response to the demand contribution and persuasion on policy and practice. It eliminates opportunities of enlisting archaic perspectives, offering a body of knowledge that channels enthusiastic initiatives without stifling potential for greater human and operational endeavors. It offers a collective commitment for winning, using educational leadership as an everyday event; a state with “fluidity,” ongoing and always in motion and the “vitality” within a system through its vision (and common orientation point) that finds a “voice.”

Not only does it have some far reaching capabilities in the analytical, emotional, artistic and kinesthetic areas, but it also has unsuspected abilities in the strictly financial area that also differentiate us as beings and people. It emphasizes the criticality of strategic leadership, strategy formulation and implementation, technology management and innovation. It helps individuals to drive fundamental change, achieving communal commitment, and unified frameworks that employs an intense, custom learning experience for enabling team leaders and their associates to increase their leadership ability – personally and professionally. It is at that point that they are equipped to apply the knowledge paradigms and tools across team-centric environments to win. Team intelligence is definitely, “not” business as usual and once we harness the abilities comprehended in this newest form of intelligence, we can leverage people to improve as human beings – the journey from ordinary people to extraordinary individuals.

But first we must recognize the existence of this new set of capabilities. It is important that we do not pass it off as a fad that will come and go. It is critical that we do not ignore this intelligence, but recognize that we have identified yet another facet of human ingenuity and power and, moreover, that it is unlikely to be the last.

Transition: Your Paradigm of Choice must Influence Your Paradigm of Change – Leadership that Is

The theory of team intelligence has far-reaching implications for talent management, leadership development and HR in companies everywhere. For a start, it implies that in using traditional personality and competency assessments to improve business outcomes and results, they have been barking up the wrong tree.

Traditional personality and competency assessments are simply measuring the wrong things so they cannot help improve business outcomes from a strictly team-centric perspective that immediately impacts the workplace. That is not to say they might not improve other outcomes such as the quality of leadership and project functioning.

But we cannot confuse leadership with business outcome, as is usually the case right now in most leadership development and talent management programs. This implies that most leadership development programs are simply not using their money wisely, or at the very least, claiming wrongly that they lead to results that they simply are not capable of.

Recommendations

 Using leadership and performance principles from the U.S. Marine Corps, explore what it takes to become a great leader in the workplace.
 Integrate business acumen and talent management protocol to overcome organizational and inter-office politics, outlining the six aspects of thinking politically in the exercise of leadership, team building and business.
 Demonstrates how ordinary women can move up in the corporate world by shaping their own attitudes about success, prejudice, oppression, equality, business and leadership.
 Educate C-Level executives, management and project teams in the discipline of team intelligence.

Winning in business, the Marine Corps way

2008-02-11T16:22:00.000-08:00

Former Marine-turned-businessman takes Corps principles corporate

PHILADELPHIA — United States Marines go through the toughest training of any of the armed forces, shaping some of the country’s most celebrated leaders. Since 1775, countless governors, senators, athletes, entertainers and business executives have served in this elite branch of the military. Many former Marines have realized that Marine-style leadership and teamwork are equally useful in civilian life, helping them advance in their personal and professional lives. Damian D. “Skipper” Pitts is one such former Marine.

Pitts, who served in the Marines, is the founder and CEO of The Bison Group, Inc., a national leadership development and consulting firm comprised of a team of U.S. Marines-turned-business professionals and industry leaders. Through his speaking engagements, training programs and consulting services, Pitts teaches others how to apply Marine Corps leadership principles and tactical philosophy to promote optimal performance in their daily lives.

His new book, The Art of Detachment: Breakthrough Principles to Transformational Leadership (Kendall Hunt Publishers, September 2007) uses leadership and performance principles from the U.S. Marine Corps to help readers become great leaders in the workplace. Pitts also explores organizational and inter-office politics in Building Great Teams: Charting the Path of Organizational Politics (Book Surge Publishers, December 2007), which outlines six aspects of thinking politically in the exercise of leadership, team building and business.

“There is one thing worse than an overstressed organization or community; that is an overstressed and defeated feeling among the organization’s leaders,” says Pitts, who has gone by the nickname “Skipper” ever since his stint in the Marines. “The “I can’t—we can’t” approach among team members are responsible for tearing at the fabric of excellence. The leadership techniques displayed by the U.S. Marine Corps have proven themselves time and time again, and they can successfully be applied to the board room to help anyone excel in business.”

In an interview, Pitts can discuss topics such as:

- Tips for being a good team member in a high-stress environment
- How leaders can diffuse inter-office politics
- How to avoid office politics and succeed in today’s team-based workplace
- Why understanding organizational dynamics is the key to building better teams
- How leaders can build quality teams in unique work environments (virtual
workplace, etc.)

Pitts currently resides in Philadelphia, PA where he serves as President and CEO of The Bison Group. For more information, please visit www.BisonGroupsUS.com or send an email to: Sales@BisonGroupUS.com.

The Art of Detachment Project

2007-12-24T05:16:00.000-08:00

A United States Marine turned business professional, Damian D. “Skipper” Pitts, President-CEO at The Bison Group Corporation, has been inspiring professionals in the business marketplace on the topics of leadership, organizational behavior, strategic planning, project management, team building, performance management, and Flawless Execution for more than 10 years. Throughout his professional career, he experienced his share of business failures, disappointments, dysfunctional behaviors, and frustrations as he struggled to find purpose in developing his personal leadership signature and voice.

To help others in similar situations, Pitts developed a project that has become a life within itself. The project’s design is to inspire and encourage individuals in leadership to step away from popular culture, face the challenges of leadership and organizational behavior, and convincingly acknowledge that many of their personal and professional problems exist because they simply do not adapt well to the changing circumstances of modern day strategies and best practices to become a Champion of Change.

The constructs of the project includes the following:

Publications

▪ The Art of Detachment: Breakthrough Principles to Transformational Leadership
▪ Building Great Teams: Charting the Path of Organizational Politics
▪ The Art of Detachment: 25 Strategies for Organizational Effectiveness (Jan 2008)
▪ The Elevator of Achievement: Determination Requires a “Choice” with author Renee’
Amoore (For Women, By Women)
▪ The Quilt: Cultural Voices with authors Patterson, Silverthorne, and Shird
(Contributing Author, Chapter 2 Transformative Education: Diversity Management:
Facing a Giant!)
▪ The Art of War & Business: Four Laws to HumanSigma (2008)
▪ Flawless Execution: Project Management the Marine Corps Way (2008)

White Papers

▪ Diversity Management: Facing a Giant!
▪ Building Great Teams: Charting the Path of Organizational Politics
▪ Conflict Management: LeaderShaping Open Doors
▪ The Art of War & Business: Four Laws to HumanSigma (2008)

Training (Personal & Professional Development)

The LeaderShaping Executive Development Program (Includes 35 different program topics in the areas of leadership, organizational behavior, transformative education, strategic planning, project management, Flawless Execution, diversity education, and team building maneuvers)

Performance Management Assessments

The Breakthrough TTI Performance Management Assessment Protocol (Includes 40 assessment instruments in the areas of executive & management coaching: leadership-organizational behavior, behavior and values, staff development, sales development, team building, customer relationship management, time management, communications development, tasking: maximizing workplace performance and best job, career planning, transformative education: administrator, teacher and student versions, family relationships: adult and young adult versions, organizational development and effectiveness: 180° & 360° view, organizational development, organizational health check: “BTO Proprietary Instrument,” general employment, health care management, emotional intelligence, and personalized coaching).

Keynotes

▪ The Art of Detachment: Breakthrough Principles to Transformational Leadership
▪ Building Great Teams: Charting the Path of Organizational Politics
▪ The Art of War & Business: Four Laws to HumanSigma
▪ The Art of Detachment: 25 Strategies for Organizational Effectiveness
▪ Workplace Motivators: Six Value Categories that Influences Greatness within your
Environment
▪ The Elevator of Achievement (with author Renee’ Amoore: For Women, By Women)
▪ Dynamic Communications with Style

The Project Benefits

▪ Tips for being a good team member in a high-stress environment
▪ How leaders can diffuse inter-office politics
▪ How to avoid office politics and succeed in today's team-based workplace
▪ Why understanding organizational dynamics is the key to building better teams
▪ How leaders can build quality teams in unique work environments (virtual
workplace, etc.)
▪ What the Elevator of Achievement means for women in the workplace
▪ How to head up a few floors on the Elevator of Achievement
▪ How to set business resolutions and become an achiever into the future
▪ Ten tips for getting the promotion you have been seeking
▪ How to incorporate positive self-talk into your workplace
▪ How workplace conflict is created and how it prevents the elevator from heading up
▪ Quiz: Are you toxic or nourishing in your work environment?

Understanding the criticality of performance management, The Art of Detachment Project engages participants with leadership and organizational behavior skills training and reward leaders who can improvise skillfully, rather than follow out-dated routines that deliver the same results. The program instructs through a nontraditional approach to learning strategy-execution. The project is committed to provide the tools to help participants with learning the outlined strategies, principles, tactical-philosophy, and application: Leadership Development & Organizational Behavior, which is grounded in the rigors of the United States Marine Corps discipline and training ethos.

The time has come for you and your organization to “conquer” challenges with a refreshed perspective to win in all you set out to achieve. The Art of Detachment Project offers an extensive bridge between the “what-is” (theory) and the “how-to” (practice) for immediate application – at a pricing point that limits your risk, but increases your abilities to begin a process improvement strategy.

The Art of Detachment Project and its “LeaderShaping Guiding Precepts” are “not” business as usual and offers one of the most stimulating “leader-to-leader” forums in the marketplace. Contact us by email today at: Tools@ArtofDetachment.com to sign up and/or to sign your organization up and become a proactive “Champion of Change” for every voice across your organization, community, and household!

Media Contact: Amber Childres, Publicists

Phenix & Phenix Literary Publicists
2100 Kramer Lane, Suite 300
Austin, Texas 78758 (512) 478 – 2028 x203

Refresh Your Leadership Signature as a New Year's Resolution

2007-12-24T02:45:00.000-08:00

“LeaderShaping the Leader in You!”
The Bison Group’s Executive Education Programs
Executive Education Training Division
11 February 2008 – 1 May 2008
Philadelphia, PA

Leadership and organizational behavior can be a key differentiator of successful individuals and organizations. This program explores the personal leadership journey and the role that leadership plays in sustained growth, enabling you to rethink your approach to management, leadership, and leadership development. By examining and comparing leadership practices across a range of complex issues, you will acquire the tools and techniques to realize your leadership potential, establish your leadership signature, and drive measurable growth within your personal and professional lifestyle.

LeaderShaping is “not” business as usual and offers one of the most stimulating “leader-to-leader” forums in the marketplace. Send us an email today at: Sales@BisonGroupUS.com to sign up and/or to sign your organization up and become a proactive “Champion of Change” for every voice across your organization. You will not be disappointed!

Press Release Info!

2007-06-21T06:49:00.000-07:00

The Art of Detachment: Breakthrough Principles to Transformational Leadership
By Damian D. "Skipper" Pitts

Posted: Friday, 18 June 2007
PRESS RELEASES
The Bison Group Inc
Publication Date: August 2007

"There is one thing worse than an overstressed organization or community; that is an overstressed and defeated feeling expressed within the ranks of leadership, responsible for being flexible in its approach for successfully influencing choice and change. "I can't – we can't" present pessimistic views that tear at the fabric of excellence." Your Paradigm of Choice influences your Paradigm of Change; an unspoken counseling to cynicism." – Damian D. "Skipper" Pitts, Author

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Monday, 18 June 2007
Proceeds from this project will be donated to the families of fallen U.S. Marines in Iraq – www.FallenHeroesFund.com

Leadership development and Organizational Behavior is a companywide responsibility, stretching across all departments and functions. Damian D. "Skipper" Pitts, entrepreneur, executive trainer, and author of The Art of Detachment steps away from popular culture to face the challenges of organizational leadership and convincingly asserts that many of their problems exist because organizations simply do not adapt well to changing circumstances. This publication is designed for anyone who is charged with developing talent, leading a team, or achieving growth – no matter what industry or discipline. It bridges the gap between the "what-is" (theory) and the "how-to" (practice) in transformational thinking and cutting-edge research delivered through a nontraditional approach to learning strategy-execution.

The author describes a discipline of leadership that removes the harness away from performance management. The discipline helps its reader to gain a full understanding on how to realize a state where people come into a single way of thinking, without losing their individuality, creating a "shared-vision" that achieves a predetermined objective. In doing so, deconstructing types of influence, stratagem, and execution requires a level of leadership far above current reality and a way of thinking within popular culture. The end result remains on a continuum that instructs a systematic approach to acknowledging the multiple dimensions of process improvement: people, process, product, and productivity – how to integrate educational leadership as an everyday event; a journey that finds a "voice" and influences people to find theirs.

Throughout the book, Pitts demonstrates the value and importance of implementing democracy, organizational behavior, and leadership, the same amount moving in the same direction at one time, which articulates a journey that achieves an end-state of flawlessness. He also shows how to accomplish team building using strategies derived from the United States Marine Corps. But the linkages between those components, which are arguably as important as the components themselves, are sometimes left for the reader to discern.

Leadership on every level will have an opportunity to look through a lens of executive education unlike anything before. The discipline is used to increase value, strategy, principle, and trust that captures the essence of team learning to organizations seeking to: detach from negative behaviors and habits; create new paradigms; overcome resistance to change; and control outcomes within the future picture. This is achieved from a three-tiered approach; the individual, the team, and the organization. The "art" lies in the ability to instruct on the "whys" of the individual and organizations approach for reaching peak performance while integrating the tools used to optimize results. Pitts offers an examination into the many segments that births the constructs for building a Democratic Leadership society. The inherent conceptualized modeling is designed for overcoming the sectarian struggles of life and organizational development as a prescription to failure.

The publication also looks through a difficult lens of diversity and tackles the topic as a prominent disposition for leadership prospects to promote healthy environments of positive organizational behaviors. The discipline of Democratic Leadership integrates Flawless Meritocratic Systems, Microinequities -VS- Social Intelligence: inherited social systems which unfairly advantage some, and limits others (progress based on ability and talent rather than class privilege or wealth).

Throughout the book, Pitts demonstrates the critical importance of achieving personal mastery as the most sustainable means for achieving superior performance management. He also shows how to LEAD an organization with strength and confidence; THRIVE as a team across units and departments; THINK creatively, strategically, and with transformative thought; MEASURE an organization's determination, commitment, and innovation; and CONQUER challenges with a refreshed perspective to win as individuals and organizations build the components of a Democratic Leadership environment.

Indeed, the reader must work hard in other places, too, to make conceptual modeling and gaming theory the central focus for integrating solutions across the multidisciplinary approaches. In addition, the text helps its reader to UNCOVER the secrets of today's future leaders; learn to NETWORK with peers across various disciplines; how to INTERACT with small dynamic teams for tailored take-aways; HEAR personal accounts of what works and what does not; and RETURN to the workplace motivated, inspired, and transformed in thought to LEAD into greatness by finding a voice – and help others to find theirs! Media InquiriesDamian D. "Skipper" PittsThe Bison Group CorporationPhone: (610) 809 – 6909