Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field.  I will meet you there. ~Jalal ad-Din Rumi (Persian Poet and Mystic, 1207-1273)

I heard this quote recently stated in a slightly different way: “Between right and wrong there is a field, meet me there.”  Maybe that’s the 21^st century version.  When I heard this quote, I not only intellectually resonated with the sentiment; I had a physical reaction.  I felt a sense of release and calmness.  This is something we’ve lost at all levels: countries, religions, organizations, co-workers, and dare I say, families.

A few examples come to mind.

Not long ago I heard that one of the large international law firms here in Chicago had a dean from Harvard visit their offices to better understand how to recruit law school graduates.  When the dean was asked, “What is the greatest challenge for law students today”?  She replied, “Learning how to disagree with one another.”  I’m not sure what I expected the answer to be, but certainly not that.

Between right and wrong there is a field, meet me there.

In Brene’ Brown’s now infamous 2010 TED Talk about vulnerability, she says “we now make everything that’s uncertain certain.  Religion has gone from a belief in faith and mystery to certainty.  I’m right, you’re wrong.  Shut up.  That’s it.  Just certain.”

Between right and wrong there is a field, meet me there.

I’ve met with a number of organizational leaders about their employee survey results.  When the results are not flattering to them personally or to their position, they sometimes get defensive.  They do everything they can to discredit the process; therefore, the results must also be invalid or wrong.  Thus far, I haven’t come across a scenario like this that ends well for the leader.

Between right and wrong there is a field, meet me there.

William Ury, author of Getting to Yes, describes a scenario among the Bushmen in Africa.  “Everyone sits around in a circle and they talk, and they talk.  It may take two days, three days, four days, but they don’t rest until they find a resolution, or better yet, a reconciliation.”  Sounds like we Americans could learn from the Bushmen of Africa.

Between right and wrong there is a field, meet me there.

Imagine for a moment how your organization might change if when leaders disagree, they lived by Rumi’s perspective.

Between right and wrong there is a field, meet me there.

Deep, broad reading habits are often a defining characteristic of our greatest leaders and can catalyze insight, innovation, empathy, and personal effectiveness.  ~ John Coleman

I was eavesdropping in the grocery store.  This is not something I do on a regular basis, but I had just turned to go down a new aisle when I overheard someone in the previous aisle (who was speaking quite loudly) say, “I can remember the last book I read, cover to cover.”  So I paused because I was curious if he was going to reveal just how long ago it was that he read a book, cover to cover.  I then heard the answer: the sixth grade!  He almost seemed proud of his response, or maybe he was just proud of the fact that he could remember that long ago.  Based on his voice, he was clearly in his adult years.

Unfortunately, this young man is not alone.  The number of non-book-readers has nearly tripled since 1978.  According to Pew Research it’s gone from 8% in 1978 to 23% in 2014.  That means nearly one out of four adults has not read a single book in the last year.

What’s that got to do with leadership?  It has everything to do with leadership!  John Coleman, author of For Those Who Want to Lead, Read, said:

Reading increases verbal intelligence, making a leader a more adept and articulate communicator.  Reading novels can improve empathy and understanding of social cues, allowing a leader to better work with and understand others — traits that author Anne Kreamer persuasively linked to increased organizational effectiveness, and to pay raises and promotions for the leaders who possessed these qualities. And any business person understands that heightened emotional intelligence will improve his or her leadership and management ability.

Finally, an active literary life can make you more personally effective by keeping you relaxed and improving health. For stressed executives, reading is the best way to relax, as reading for six minutes can reduce stress by 68%, and some studies suggest reading may even fend off Alzheimer’s, extending the longevity of the mind.

In Forbes.com, Kelesy Meyer recently said, “If you are a leader, you should be striving to develop knowledge to improve yourself, your company and the people who work for you.  To do anything less is to shortchange your ability to lead.”

I’ve had leaders say to me, “I just don’t have time to read.”  Right now, I can’t think of a single leader who has said that to me who’s leading a thriving organization.

Speaking for myself, I know that when I’m reading my creativity is enhanced, I can grab examples from my mental library to help both clients and friends identify more options to their challenges.  I think more optimistically and I have more energy when I’m reading.

Leadership author, Bill Hybels, said, “I have little patience with leaders who get themselves into leadership binds and then confess that they haven’t read a leadership book in years.  If you’re a serious-minded leader, you will read.  You will read all you can.”

Leaders create bad strategy by mistakenly treating strategy work as an exercise in goal setting rather than problem solving.  ~Richard P. Rumelt

Here’s where I see a lot of organizations getting stuck when trying to create a strategy.  They start the strategic planning process with a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats).  They typically have no problem identifying their strengths.  However, I’ve found it helpful to push back on their strengths and ask on which of those strengths are they out-performing their competition.  Now we’re really zeroing in on where they might have an advantage (it takes an advantage to truly be strategic).  Suddenly, the list of strengths narrows fairly quickly.

The next place they get stuck is on the opportunities.  Their first inclination is to try and turn fixing every weakness into an opportunity and that’s missing the point.  Weaknesses are internal to the organization; opportunities are external.  What’s happening external, which in many cases is a problem that needs to be solved?

Once opportunities have been identified, how can you take the most promising opportunity (i.e., problem to be solved) and leverage your strengths (advantages) to solve the problem?  Now we’re talking strategy.

The weaknesses (internal) and threats (internal) need to be addressed; most specifically those that could be barriers to executing the strategy, but they likely aren’t going to be the core of the strategy.

Richard P. Rumelt, author of Good Strategy Bad Strategy says:

A good strategy does more than urge us forward toward a goal or vision.  A good strategy honestly acknowledges the challenges being faced and provides an approach to overcoming them.  And the greater the challenge, the more a good strategy focuses and coordinates efforts to achieve a powerful competitive punch or problem-solving effect.

A good strategy has an essential logical structure that I call the kernel.  The kernel of a strategy contains three elements: a diagnosis, a guiding policy, and a coherent action.

Here’s an example using Rumelt’s kernel to describe Southwest Airline’s strategy.

1. Diagnosis (why it’s important, the problem you are going to solve, the most promising opportunity)

Air travel was mostly for the wealthy and business travelers.  Southwest Airlines was going to democratize air travel so families could use air travel as an option.

2. A guiding policy (how you are going to solve the problem, strengths or advantage)                                                                                                                                                                    Always have the lowest fare, the most on-time flights, and make air travel fun.

3. A coherent action (what, specifically, you are going to do to solve the problem)

No seat assignments                                                                                                                         Bags fly free                                                                                                                                             Hire only employees who are the right personality fit                                                                     Be the first to offer profit sharing for employees                                                                               Etc.

With that example and using Rumelt’s definition—”A good strategy honestly acknowledges the challenges being faced and provides an approach to overcoming them”— does your organization have a good strategy or a bad strategy?

Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.  ~Warren Bennis

I’ve noticed lately that a lot of organizational visions don’t seem all that visionary.  A vision that focuses solely on size (i.e., supersizing) is turning a means into an end.  For example, “Our vision is to be a $200 million organization by 2016.”  What’s visionary about that?  If that organization truly had a vision, then the outcome of that vision could result in increased revenues.  Size is an outcome of a vision; it’s a means not an end.

Three very different publications provide surprisingly similar definitions of a vision.  From Fast Company, Daniel Rasmus writes, “Visions should provide a sense of aspiration, they should stretch imagination.  They should describe the state of the organization, across its functions, not rush to summary.”  In Harvard Business Review, Jim Collins and Jerry Porras stated, “A well-conceived vision consists of two major components: core ideology and envisioned future.”  Psychology Today blogger Jennell Evans says, “A vision statement defines the optimal desired future state – the mental picture – of what an organization wants to achieve over time.”

I’m not suggesting that visions can’t “dream big.”  In fact, they really should dream big.  However, increased revenues or sales, without substance, isn’t aspirational, it’s egotistical.

Here’s an example how a vision statement can dream big, be aspirational, and revenues become a consequence instead of an end goal.  Zappos.com has grown exponentially, but their vision has never been to increase revenues.  Their current vision statement is: “One day, 30% of all retail transactions in the US will be online.  People will buy from the company with the best service and best selection.  Zappos.com will be that online store.”

Zappos.com also puts a tremendous amount of effort into managing its culture and the outcomes are staggering.  They have just over 1,200 US employees and in 2013 their voluntary turnover was 0%.  That’s not a typo, yes, really zero percent.  I believe that having a clear, aspirational, mental picture of the future plays a role in that level of employee retention.

David “Doc” Vik was a successful chiropractor before he started working with Zappos.  He now works with companies to help them build effective and motivational company environments.  He says there are five key components to building an empowering company culture.  First on his list: Define Your Vision.

Is your organization’s vision nothing more than supersizing your revenues?  Then dig deeper; find something aspirational that will drive you and your employees to achieve more than you thought possible.