Active Leadership

What’s the Return on the Leadership Investment?

Time is the one constant in the world. Each day has 24 hours or if you prefer, 1440 minutes or 86,400 seconds. Since we could all probably agree on that basic premise as well as agreeing that if everyone played by the same rules, time would be a level playing field regardless of the competitive scenario.

The challenge with this premise is that when in competition, strategists don’t want to play by the same set of rules. In fact, they seek to establish the rules by which the game is played. Their goal is to shape the competitive metrics so that their strengths may clearly be positioned against a competitor’s weakness. And with the dramatic change occurring in the healthcare marketplace, the metrics by which providers, payers, and patients select suppliers and business partners are constantly evolving.

Legendary US Air Force fighter pilot and strategist John Boyd (infamous because he was brilliant, yet brashly opinionated and not aligned with Air Force thinking at the time) first realized that time was not a level playing field during air-to-air engagements. He realized that even against a superior competitive aircraft he could achieve victory by controlling the tempo of the decisions made and in effect, use that compression of time to confuse a competitor to the point that they either gave up, or made a very serious and fatal mistake. It was many years later that Boyd put what he learned about fighter aircraft into practical strategic language, but the message was the same.

Every competitor has a decision cycle time and the crucial fact that’s important is this: Either your decision cycle is faster than your competitor’s, or you are reacting to a competitor who is controlling the situation with a faster decision cycle.

John Boyd defined and characterized the decision cycle time with the acronym, "OODA Loop" (Observe, Orient, Decide and Act). The OODA loop has been written about by Robert Coram in a biography entitled Boyd and by Chet Richards in his book, Certain to Win.

Usually when the subject of retention comes up in Corporate America, it is talked about in terms of direct costs and impact to customer relationships. Rarely is it talked about in terms of time as a strategic advantage. Many organizations are still relying on the old ideals that their people can be linked directly to the soul of an organization through the old means of retirement and healthcare benefits. The reality is that long-term annuity retirements and lifetime healthcare benefits are both things of the past and even if they weren’t, most folks are going to change employers several times in their lifetime. So if your employees cannot be linked directly to the soul of your organization, what role does their leader play in the ability of your organization to retain and develop your best and brightest talent? The answer is that your front line leaders are almost exclusively responsible for their people’s decision to stay or leave your organization. How prepared are they for that responsibility?

Leading in the Healthcare environment is challenging during the best of times and downright frightening in the most challenging times, especially if the leader is not executing a plan with a clear leadership objective, strategy and tactics. Fortunately, Stovall Grainger & Modleski Inc. (SGM) works exclusively in the healthcare industry, and our expertise lies in the areas of strategy and leadership.

Objectives and Outcomes for Active Leadership® Phase I

1. Participants will have a strategic approach to leadership that includes a leadership objective, strategy and tactics.
2. Participants will be able to obtain the Critical Success Factors/Beam Priorities SM of the people they lead and demonstrate strong commitment to those priorities
3. Participants will be focused on developing the strengths of their people and they’ll know why and how to connect their peoples development to their long-term goals and dreams
4. Participants will be able to execute "perpetual 360 degree feedback" with their people and they’ll know why that feedback is critical to their leadership success
5. Participants will see the value of retention in terms of "speed to execute" in the marketplace
6. Participants will have a common leadership language and a strategic plan to lead

Active Leadership® (Phase I) Introduction

Each of us has our own idea of what constitutes superb leadership. The hard part is that none of our descriptions are exactly the same. Don’t look for help in the dictionary. The definition there violates everything we were taught in grammar school by utilizing the root word "lead" in describing "leadership." Our goal at Stovall Grainger & Modleski Inc. is to give you a strategy to lead people. Before we start talking about a strategy to lead, we need a clearly defined objective. The objective I’d like us to agree to as our measure of leadership success is simple, its loyal followers.

The exciting part about Active Leadership® is that it’s not about theories or textbook hunches; it’s a compilation of 26 years worth of our observations and experiences in the Air Force and Corporate America, watching leaders of all qualities succeed and fail. Active Leadership® is a unique approach to leading people with its focus clearly on the people who we are going to lead, armed with both a strategy and tactics that get results, leadership results.

By the time we’re minutes into any program on leadership we’re hearing the word manager being used as a synonym for a leader, and we know we’re headed down a familiar path. If we mix management and leadership, it’s very difficult to get a clear leadership strategy because the two sets of objectives will be very different. The death of strategy in any endeavor can be guaranteed by mixed or unclear objectives, and that’s where Active Leadership® is very different from the "leadership" content you’ve been exposed to previously.

Our objective as leaders indeed might be "loyal followers". Our objective is clear, loyal followers. Consequently our strategy is clear as well. Leadership is a "soft" subject because it involves people and their unique talents as well as their unique critical success factors. Therefore, when we look at leadership through a strategic lens, it will make a seemingly complex issue easier to attack with confidence.

What do you do for a living? Please answer that question in your mind before progressing. Why do you think leadership is so difficult? Please answer that question before reading on. Now, we think we can find the answer to the second question in your response to the first. How many people answered the first question with "I lead people?"

Leadership is a job, it isn’t a passive part of some other job; it’s an active job in and of itself and therefore deserves its own strategy for success. All the successful leaders we’ve met have been very active leaders. We don’t mean they’re doing jumping jacks, we mean they’re actively pursuing their jobs as leaders. In other words, we’re not the Vice President of Sales and as such have to do some leadership stuff. We lead the people in our company, and oh by the way, we happen to be the VP of Sales.

We might be Regional Managers in the healthcare industry, but as active leaders we will lead the people who work in our region as well as manage the business conducted there. We will accept the fact that we really have two jobs and therefore we must have a leadership strategy and tactics as well as our management objectives, strategies and tactics. Leadership is a job and there are tactics that absolutely must be accomplished in order to meet your leadership objective.

Ask your leaders these simple questions: What is your leadership objective? What is your leadership strategy and how will you execute it? If the answers don’t give you the confidence you’d like to have, please call us at Stovall Grainger & Modleski (630-222-2837) or email us by clicking on the "Contact Us" button at the top or bottom of this page.

We have two phases of Active Leadership®; Phase I is focused on leading the individuals on your team. Phase II is focused on leading your team to high performance. Let us help you put some substance into that ever present Performance Appraisal rating called "Leadership".

Objectives and Outcomes for Active Leadership® Phase II

1. Participants will understand the key traits that make up a team; Team Values, Team Elements and Team Characteristics
2. Participants will assess their current team in a workshop format for gaps in the traits identified in #1 above
3. Participants will understand the key role that a team’s "Common Purpose" plays in the team’s performance
4. Participants will assess their teams current "Common Purpose" and work on refining it in a workshop format
5. Participants will learn how to improve their team’s Decision Cycle Speed through continually improved implicit guidance and control. They will also see how critical retaining an intact team is to this Decision Cycle Speed

Active Leadership® (Phase II) Introduction

In Active Leadership®, Phase I, we explore the idea that each of us has our own idea of what constitutes superb leadership and the hard part is that none of our descriptions are exactly the same. In Phase I we apply the strategic process to leadership and begin with a: 1.clear objective, 2. a focused strategy and then 3. execute tactics that allow us to earn the respect of our followers. We learned that our ability to lead others really begins with a clearer picture of ourselves through the eyes of those we lead and we learned that we had to earn the respect of those individuals before we could go on and accomplish a team mission That brings us to Active Leadership®, Phase II; maximizing team performance in the accomplishment of your team’s mission or objective.

Like leadership, the concept of teamwork and how it is applied in corporate America is non-strategic, and unclear. Many times the incentives for a "team" are actually incentives not to help one another at all. For example, how many of us work in an organization that has a sales incentive comp plan that only rewards the top 10-20% of the sales team? We have effectively set up a plan that rewards beating ourselves so we shouldn’t be surprised when our "team" doesn’t maximize its performance.

Active Leadership® Phase II applies the strategic process to accomplishing your objectives, builds off what is learned in Phase I, and completely focuses your team on the essence of teamwork, their "common purpose." All great teams know what their common purpose is and they are committed to it. The NY Yankees, the New England Patriots, the USAF Thunderbirds; they are all great teams that are known for their focus and execution in achieving their "Common Purpose."

We begin with understanding 1.Team Values, 2.Team Elements, and 3. Team Characteristics. We also force the discussion on the "common purpose" of your team because without a clear definition of the team’s common purpose, success and true teamwork will remain elusive.1

Finally, Active Leadership®, Phase II looks at how great strategic leaders consistently seek to enhance the decision cycle speed of their team through the growth of implicit guidance and control John Boyd, infamous Air Force Colonel first wrote about the use of time as a strategic advantage as he captured the lessons he learned during aerial engagements while an Air Force Instructor Pilot. He discovered that even with an inferior airplane, if he controlled the element of time during the engagement he could win. His description of the decision cycle was captured by the acronym OODA for Observe, Orient, Decide and Act. Since this was a continuous process, he described it as an "OODA Loop."

In Active Leadership®, Phase II, we encourage leaders to actively engage their teams with real world scenarios that enhance the implicit guidance and control of their teams, thereby improving their decision cycle speed. The simple fact is that your team is operating inside your competition’s decision cycle speed, or they’re operating inside of yours. The use of time as a strategic advantage should not be left to chance, and it can be improved.

In Phase I we show leaders how to inspire their followers and engage them on an individual basis. In Phase II we show you how those same individuals will contribute mightily to the success of your team’s mission.

Leadership can be philosophically discussed forever. When your organization wants to meaningfully change what is expected of its leaders and give them the tools to deliver that change, please give us a call. We know you won’t be disappointed.