All the Way In

Not long ago, I was asked to implement a major organizational adjustment. The Army was changing and the team I led at the Army’s National Training Center needed to change along with it. It was time for a course correction and I was asked to make it happen.

Only problem was…I didn’t want to change. I was perfectly comfortable with the way things were. I was happy and my team was happy. The reasons may sound familiar:

-- This would be bad for morale for my team.
-- The skills which we had labored long and hard to develop would rapidly erode in the new organization.
-- We would not have the opportunities for growth and development in this mixed matrix sort of organization that we had in our current little stove-pipe.

So, I did what many of us do. I dragged my feet. I fought the change. I held on to the old way of doing business and did all I could to resist implementing the badly needed change to my team’s organizational structure. I held my ground.

But did you see anything missing from my reasoning above? How about the words…"customer" and…"mission?" That’s right…I had allowed myself to become focused inward and forgotten what we were all about. It wasn’t supposed to be what was good for me and my team but about our customer (in this case those we trained). Even worse, I had infected my team with a belief that we were more important than those we served, that the mission somehow revolved around us.

It was then that I learned that when it comes to major change, you must be “all the way in.” You cannot just dip your little pinky toe into the “change pool” and think that you are doing anyone any favors. This sort of go-slow approach only weakens the team and misses the mark regarding the bigger picture. Worse still, you can’t hide your attitude when resisting change. Your team will follow you – for better or for worse. You must be all the way in:

-- New hardware, software, or business processes? All the Way In!
-- Reshaping your organization? All the Way In!
-- Going after new customers or modifying your business model? All the Way In!
-- Some other change (and I hope you will share with me what that might be)? All the Way In!

(Now, lest you think that I am saying that leaders must be robots and never raise objections, stay tuned. We’ll cover that next!)

This may be hard for some of us to swallow. It certainly was for me. And I can assure you my team looked at me like I was crazy when I came into the office one morning singing a completely revolutionary new tune. But as their leader, it was the right thing to do. And from that moment, we were an improved team. More importantly, our customers, our mission, were instantly better for the shift as well.

And just like that…I was…all the way in. And that was good leadership. That made it…Leader Business.

Know your enemy

Sun Tzu, a Chinese general whose words of wisdom still serve as guiding lights for military leaders, challenged us to "know our enemy:"

So it is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will fight without danger in battles.

If you only know yourself, but not your opponent, you may win or may lose.

If you know neither yourself nor your enemy, you will always endanger yourself.

I was reminded of this when I came across a blog post from author/blogger Thom Singer. He has some interesting thoughts in, Warning: Your Competition is Calling Your Clients:

"But with the focus on new relationships it is imperative that your company not forget your existing customers. While your sales team is hitting the street chasing new business, you must remember that those prospects are you competitions current clients. While you pounce on their customers and referral sources, do not forget that they are doing the same thing. The difference is that their prospects are YOUR customers. All customers are going to be interested in listening to any vendor who can save them money in this environment, so be clear that they are inviting your competitors into their offices to hear their proposals right this very moment."

Know your enemy. Know their strengths and weaknesses. Understand their strategic plans and how it will affect you and your business. Know what products they have now and those they are pursuing in the future. And as Thom has pointed out above, know your competition's customers while recognizing that they are coming after yours.

When we don't do this, we run the risk of irrelevancy. We can find our products don't matter, our services are not valued, and our customers have moved somewhere else.

So who does this sort of analysis in your outfit? Army units have an intelligence officer whose mission in life is to think like the enemy. They are tasked with providing updates to the commander on emerging capabilities and vulnerabilities. They role play as the enemy in wargames and try to point out how they might take advantage of our perceived weaknesses. They are constantly studying enemy tactics and trends to help the commander understand current and future threats and how they might be defeated.

Maybe it is time to dedicate some time and resources to the study of your opposition. You better believe...he is studying you! That...is Leader Business!

Customer Service

I write this after a rough week of customer service lessons learned.

- Our newspaper was not delivered 4 of 7 days this week. We called...it picked back up...and then it stopped again.

- Our mail is now going to someone else with the same name here in my town. That cannot be good!

- It took me two hours to work through the "language barrier" to get my wireless router fixed on the Linksys customer service Hot Line. The only thing hot after that...was me.

- I was standing at the door of the gym yesterday morning at 0500. At 0520 the guy showed to open up. No apologies...nothing.

And I know I am not unique. If you've done much air travel, you may sense, as I have, that we matter less and less. No peanuts...no smiles...no "bending over backwards because I know you are the customer and you are paying for this and I know you have a choice and how may I serve you!" Same thing in so many other industries. And we won't even talk about the post office, the DMV, or the cable company. I'm on "Customer Service Alert Level 9!"

But before I get too spun up, I needed to examine my own customer service. And therein lies the leadership lesson. True leadership is about the service of others. So I need to constantly assess how I am doing in these areas:

- Do we promptly return phone calls and emails. Even a short acknowledgement lets others know that their contribution matters.

- Do our products and services give the customers what they want? Or do we give them what we want, what makes us comfortable? So often, especially in government, we have a "here it is...take it or leave it" view of our services.

- Do we place the needs of our internal customers (our employees) above our own? Are we sensitive to their issues, their needs for growth, their input on problems? Or are we focused on ourselves?

- Organizationally, do we handle correspondence in an appropriate way. This is a big problem for government. We get dozens of requests for information every day. I handled one recently that was a response to a request for information from a local municipality. It was several months old. I had my staff go back and rewrite my response with the following opening statement: "Please accept my apologies for this slow response. We are better than this and you should fully expect more timely communication from us. It is my goal to be more transparent and more responsive. Please hold me accountable as we strive to improve. This delinquency is unacceptable...even in government!"

You get the picture. We all can do better in this area. To lead is to serve. I'm learning this lesson every day. But man...it can be painful!

That's Leader Business.

P.S. For those of you not on my mailing list for the Leader Business Newsletter, here is a link to the August newsletter, a summary of our discussion on a leadership philosophy, what I call "The 7 BEs of a Leader." Enjoy! Hooah!