Today’s writing is from the Walt Disney World Disney Springs entrance.
Why would you settle when it’s not necessary?
The only limitations you have are those you impose upon yourself.
Struggling to become a better leader?
Challenged to create a vibrant leadership culture where at least 80% of your leaders are rated by employees as very good or excellent?
Challenged to create a vibrant leadership culture where at least 51% of your leaders are rated by employees as excellent?
Do you have a personal conviction that good and very good aren’t good enough?
Do you understand the dramatic difference between an excellent leader’s ability to get excellent results, a very good leader getting very good results and a good leader getting good results?
Can you articulate the difference between a good leader and an excellent leader; and the difference between a very good leader and an excellent leader?
If you can, and i’m assuming you can, why would you settle?
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This website is about our MIND. To read today’s post about our BODY, click here.
The Walt Disney Pavilion at Advent Health hospital, downtown Orlando.
Busy Doing Nothing
Being good at doing things well is often seen as success.
Really?
Think about it.
Yes, we are good at things.
But are we good at the right things?
Who’s coaching us about leadership priorities?
Who’s holding us accountable?
And what if our boss is the same boat as us?
What if our boss has leadership priorities that we are good at delivering on, but what if all of us are focused on lower level priorities?
What if we are the boss? What if we’re passing this on down to our direct reports?
The leadership mission critical stuff, often the soft stuff, is left alone because it’s too hard to see and measure improvement.
It’s analogous to trying to lose weight instead of trying to lower our resting heart rate, our cholesterol, BMI, and triglycerides.
There are a lot of fake leadership problems in business. Fake problems are issues we spend time managing that have disproportionate value to more important priorities.
Fake problems are convenient for medicating our lack of a clear, concise, and compelling vision.
Organizational health (and personal health) is priority one.
Never get bored with the basics.
Spend time doing nothing.
Quiet time, void of distractions, void of deadlines, meetings, initiatives.
Spend time there and you’ll be astonished, if you really open your heart, at what you can accomplish when you’re busy doing nothing.
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This website is about our MIND. To read today’s post about our BODY, click here.
Today’s writing is from Disney’s Wilderness Lodge Resort.
Leaders
Let’s review the suggested cultural blueprints implementation plan.
The Building owner is the CEO.
Deliverables from Leader Champions are “blueprints, site prep, and foundation”.
Vision: You need an aspirational and inspirational vision statement (official corporate, ‘wordsmithed’ collection of words) from which a clear, concise, compelling vision (a picture of the future) can be articulated at will. The vision (picture of the future) is lofty, challenging to articulate to outsiders, you are unlikely to say it the exact way twice, and it may even be impossible. Your unifying goal (common purpose) will be born from the vision statement and vision, and will be a simple, key, repeatable “operational” message.
Involvement: A tool box with at least 100 no-cost to low-cost examples to use to develop others. Development is exponentially different from training. Training is highly structured (budgeted and timed) for compliance. Conversely, development is unstructured, often spontaneous, relatively small and easy to execute, and is literally the only path to commitment. Development takes many forms (literally limitless) and can happen with as few as two honest, generous, and sincere sentences; something the recipient has never heard before that is positive and reinforcing.
Accountability: World-class organizations function best when accountability is crystal clear, leaving no room for assumption or interpretation. Your top three organizational priorities for each of the balanced three-legged stools: employee-customer-business as well as technical-managerial-behavioral. Important: these are not priorities driven by urgent business disruptions, these are foundational/cultural priorities. Example: List top 3 priorities for Employees, top 3 for Customers, top 3 for Business. Same with the other 3-legged stool.
Commitment: The key outcome here is to align leadership behaviors with organizational values. Remember, we judge ourselves on our intentions, others judge us on our behaviors. This is were every leader is telling a story by what they do, not by what they say. Short list (7 or less) of internal values for how leaders must treat each other and their employees. Create tool kit with values defined (to avoid ambiguity and assumptions), and provide six behavioral examples for each value. For example, Definition: Integrity means doing what you say you are going to do. Scenario: You say, “Timely communication is a must.” Behavioral example: Respond to email, text, and phone messages within 24 hours.
All collaborative efforts by executive leaders and the cross-functional teams should revolve around simple, focused, energetic, creative, visionary, and scalable outcomes – blueprints for an organizationally vibrant culture.
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This website is about our MIND. To read today’s post about our BODY, click here.
Writing at Disney’s Typhoon Lagoon Water Park today.
How to execute next steps to convert theory into reality
Big picture involvement:
Five foundational ownership tracts; 19 total blueprints.
One owner of everything, the CEO.
Up to ten Champions selected from CEO Cabinet; two Champions for each of the five ownership tracts (Leaders, Employees, Customers, Reputation, Improve). Some Cabinet members may be responsible for two ownership tracts.
Ten assistant champions selected from your best, most passionate leaders in Human Resources, Labor Relations, Employee Relations, Compliance, Employment, Marketing, Public Relations, Communications. Assistant Champions should only focus on one ownership tract.
From 15-30 advocate teams selected from every employee, at every level, in every department. This is three to five team advocates per ownership tract.
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Owner
CEO
Champions
C-Level Executive (always have two, to solve for unexpected absences)
Provides vision, inspiration, commitment
Assistant Champions
Cross-functional pair from Human Resources, Labor Relations, Employee Relations, Compliance, Employment, Marketing, Public Relations, Communications.
Always have two, to solve for unexpected absences
Provides involvement, accountability, commitment
For unexpected absences, always be grooming the replacement from the Advocate Team.
Advocate Teams
Created from any employee, at any level, in every department
3-6 total per team recommended
Cross-functional
Provides energy, enthusiasm, effort, commitment
Final blueprint
Create action steps
Review, organize notes
Create plan
Discuss
Summarize
Create final blueprint
Present to CEO and Cabinet
Develop and deliver campaign
Goals/deliverables
Assign roles
Timeline
Accountability
Misc
Manage project scope creep
Prepare contingency plans for project disruptions
Always be grooming replacement/succession
Continuous Improvement
Manage health of all teams
Grow team bench
Measure
Celebrate
Share
Historian documents growth, change, transformation
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This website is about our MIND. To read today’s post about our BODY, click here.
