Dan flew in from Lake Tahoe for 5 Vistage workshops to over 100 Vistage members and guests in 3 days. His goal for the week was to raise the level of play with discussions around one’s “make or break” activity needed for you as a leader to become happy with your teams results. He reinforced the importance of forward facing dashboards focused on measurable activity. Tracking and holding individuals accountable to delivering their promise. “Can I count on you” comes to mine, a take-away from author and Vistage Speaker Bob Prosen’s workshop “The Five Attributes of Highly Successful Companies”.
With over 30 years leading successful companies, Dan shared his core beliefs and “Best of Best” leadership traits.
1. Having the courage to fail, we all have to chose between doing something “about right” now vs. waiting for “just right” later. Do you have clear direction?
2. Integrity builds trust and you need trust to have your employees follow you.
3. 1st things first and 2nd things never is a powerful daily affirmation for us all to remember. Who’s job am I doing is always my concern for business executives.
4. Focusing on commitment vs. agreement , agreement will slow you down.
5. Size doesn’t matter, yet execution and accountability does matter.
6. Jim Collins book “Good To Great” and his Level 5 leadership, being or becoming a servant leader is critical to one’s success.
One of Barnett’s IMPORTANT questions – are you moving toward your vision at the pace you want?
• If no – look for your #1 weakness and fix it
• If yes – look for your #1 strength and focus on it
Having a crystal clear vision and getting others to see your rightness is essential. Getting others to want to be part of the solution is critical. Spending time on what matters most to your employees and to your clients and customers will drive extraordinary results.
Dan shared poor execution will eat good strategy for lunch every day. Creating and understanding your value chain is critical to meeting and exceeding your top line and profit goals. Dan shared “…know what needs to be done with head in and arms out involvement” with your key direct reports and enable them to own the results so measure their activity. Weekly report out 30 minute meetings sends the message this is important and we will measure activity.
In closing, this is my/our vision “____________”and this is my/our “make or break” “______________” with less is more as your baseline.
Austin Vistage | Ed Stillman 