HOW DO I SCREW UP? LET ME COUNT THE WAYS.

HOW HAVE I SCREWED UP?  LET ME COUNT THE WAYS.


Cringe.  Cringe.  Cringe.  I hope you know that feeling.
How do I know when I have messed up or am about to mess up or am in the middle of messing up?
I CRINGE!  Inside and out.   I hope you have a good cringe mechanism.  It provides a signal to course correct or at the very least to learn from your own cringing.  If you've lost all cringe ability, then you have lost your internal bearings to your power role and will need to be hit over the head by someone else.

All this to say is that I was beginning to cringe as I started to write.  Here's why.  I want to talk directly to "you".   I want to be a little blunt and provocative so that the message hits a target.  But the "you" was feeling a little accusatory.  And "we" feels presumptuous.  So what's with my cringing?

Here it is:  I am you.  Have been you.  We have met the enemy and it is us.  These are not theoretical observations.  They are not only what I have learned by watching top leaders work.  They are a dairy of my own screw-ups.

I have been blind in all the ways I talk about--even while not wanting to be.
I have fired too late.
I have been seduced by people who worked for me into thinking I was better than I was.
I have hinted to people about promotions and then not come through.
I have created pain through neglect of projects or people or casual words in a formal situation.
I have assumed people could read my mind.
I have changed my mind without being clear about it to the company.
I have been soothed by people agreeing with me when I should have been looking for disagreement.
I have pushed an idea when the time was wrong.
I have used too many words when I shouldn't have and too few when I should.
I have overloaded a system with too much change too fast and vice-versa.
I have protected my own role or budget by swallowing an opinion I should have given.
I have underestimated the pressure my strategy put on people when it came to execution
I have lost touch with the business because my office became too comfortable
I have muffed presentations to the Board or my EC colleagues and to analysts. (Talk about cringe!)

And I have very funny stories to back up these screw-ups.  That's one of the best parts about working with colleagues who get the humor of mistakes  and have the awareness that big fat mess-ups are part of being the CEO or a top executive.  And so is trying to minimize them.

So I write to "you" from "me".  Sharing from my own cringe moments not from my pristine observation post.  I am you

CORPORATE CULTURE IS CONTAGIOUS--CHOOSE IT CONSCIOUSLY, MAKE IT CLEAR!

CORPORATE CULTURE IS CONTAGIOUS--CHOOSE IT CONSCIOUSLY, MAKE IT CLEAR.

Headquarters is too old fashioned a word for what I'm talking about.  So is the Puzzle palace.
Central staff function is too sterile.  But you know what I mean.  That group of  people who don't make any money for the company and who either grease the skids for the operating units or who create friction, barriers, confusion and, actually, a kind of organizational despair for  the front line business units trying to please customers.

It's shocking how often the corporate core is either neglected or thrown into chaos  spending time re-inventing itself, changing structure,  and shifting its role in the company.   A little long lasting alignment would help.  Alignment within the Corporate Core and between it and the operating, everyday, money making, taking care of business-unit.  Take a two sentence survey of the people in your corporate core whether that is 3 people or 300.  Ask: l.  What's is our number one job in relationship to operating units?  2. Tell me what you spent time on last week?

Simple but not simple minded.  First you can see if the individual is aligned with their purpose and their action.  But most importantly do your people who make up the corporate core agree about what their role is?  How distant is it from the operating unit? Portfolio management?  Strategy only?  Advising, serving as expert support?  Dipping deep into the action of operations to oversee and correct?  If your 3 or 300 people have different ideas of their role, there will be lots of gridlock, action without forward movement  and slow decision making as they all play the game differently.

Get your corporate role clear and then tackle the bigger alignment.  That of your Corporate Core with the rest of the company.   Who can dip into whose world for what purpose?   What are the boundaries for decisions and action?   Perhaps the most fruitful question is:  Who or what is driving you crazy and making it impossible to do your job well? ( That, by the way, goes both ways between Corporate Core and Operations.  There is no monopoly on being the victim)  And do they have defined permission to do so?

Top leaders can forget that the Corporate Core needs attention to who it is and how it is doing--both its philosophy and working rules but also its well being.  Especially in these days of turmoil.  Clarity of  purpose and method for the Corporate Core  can provide huge relief to all and grease the skids for easier, better performance of the operating units.  And provide a little compassion and collaboration for Corporate Core folks trying to do their best to support the company.

I'M WRITING TO YOU SPECIFICALLY

People who read this CEO Note to Self  I write often talk as if I 'm writing it for everyone but themselves.

"THEY need it.  THEY just don't get this.  THEY would never understand this.  THEY are too old, too young, too crusty dusty, too hip and trendy, too old school, too gen x, millenials, whatever.   THEY run big companies--corporate America (whatever that is). THEY run small start-up companies.  THEY are publicly held.   THEY are privately owned.  THEY are global.  THEY are domestic.  THEY are logistics driven.  THEY are product driven.  Cost.  Sales.  Vertical.  Horizontal.  

I honestly wish it made a difference.

The dynamics I see cut across all of this.

Whether five associates or 15000 associates,  you still have to talk and tell and listen and sell and co-create your message constantly.

You still have to be ahead of your market and help the organization to see the/a future worth working toward.

You still have to test and trust your talent and grow them or help them move on.

You still have to  do good executive delegation--giving the job not the task.

You sill have to create enough collaboration to get that something extra from a team while letting individuals push boundaries.

You still have to guard your integrity and that of your company.

You still have to hold the core business while innovating the next iteration.

On and on.

A top leader is a top leader is a top leader is a top leader.

I'm writing to you.

THE DEVIL IS IN THE DEADLINE--BEWARE.

I do love a good deadline.  It snaps me into focus and action and urgency. Pretty darned good thing for an organization.   Budgets, store openings. product unveiling.  Good stakes to put stakes in the ground.

 But here's the deal.  You, who are top leaders have a very different sense of time and orientation from the rest of  the organization.  Your work is made up of  thickets with surprises in them. Complexities bumping into complexities.  This is where the art of intuition helps you know  an optimal moment to act--which may or may not match a declared deadline.  You have many constituents wanting competing things.   And sometimes you stew.   In fact your action may involve quite a bit of thinking and talking and musing and  before action.  So it is understandable that your deadlines may have to be flexible and a moving target.

 Therefore watch your mouth.  Don't fall into the trap of trying to show movement or force movement by making a tight deadline.   Don't let your Board or your colleagues  or your own sense of embarrassment (if we tell the truth) move you to declare an uncertain deadline.  Keep your mouth shut unless you are willing to stake your job on the deadline.  Dead lines that are met build trust and reliability.  They activate energy that you can't afford to waste by wobbling.  Missed deadlines build distrust in your word and frankly your competence in people who don't "get" your vantage point.

Here are some deadline land mines:

*Your direct reports count on that deadline when you casually mention about promotion or a raise.  Even if it is approximate. Waiting too long for a promotion or a raise or  spoils the huge X-factor of motivation and energy that comes from a deadline met or the surprise of an unexpected career boost.

*Boards feel relieved to see a million milestones but don't use them to  assuage its members.

*Downsizing and acquisition are a horror of faulty deadlines that keep an organization anxious and drain talent  prematurely as well as taking people's eye off the business.  Don't use them to give false closure and certainty to your associates.

I've seen sliding deadlines kill a healthy culture in a company.
I've seen tight, well kept deadlines rebuild trust and certainty in an unstable company.

Use your deadlines well.  They are an Executive tool.

YOU MATTER.  YOU MATTER.  YOU MATTER.

When you are the very top leader of a company, the refinements in your development can be
pretty darn discrete.  Fine tuning.  Especially if you are good at leading.  Because then your good skill can become invisible or taken for granted.  Not necessarily a bad thing.

I just don't want it to be invisible to you.
You matter.  Perhaps too much because of the power you carry.
That's a different topic--how to disperse your power so it isn't too much about  you.

But you can do so much good (and bad) if you remember YOU MATTER.
You can be sincerely humble.  Or sincerely arrogant.

The point is "YOU MATTER".
Leadership is not esoteric or theoretical.
It's tangible.  You create the flavor, the smell, the hope, the despair, the energy, the lethargy, the commitment, the cynicism, the determination or your company.  I said "your company not the company"  You imprint it.

YOU MATTER.  Remember this.