Category Archives: Leadership

#132 Lessons from a 4-Star General

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Listening to a 4-star general speak can be an awesome experience. After all, he has more experience, more courage, more accomplishments than a lot of us mere mortals. More important, he has lived to tell the tale. Thus it was no surprise that General Stan McChrystal had a few leadership nuggets to share in a keynote address that I had the honor of attending:

  • We are surrounded by uncertainty. It can be stressful or depressing. Whether you act out of faith, or just act, it is your duty to get out there and deal with it.
  • A focused and disciplined approach is needed to understanding and appreciating the need to change.
  • Responsibility is a burden. You have to bear it, not avoid it.

Here is my favorite:

  • The more different you are from another person, the more time you need to spend understanding this other person.

This last advice solved a puzzle for me. Some relationships are like oil and water (think “bad marriage” or a “bad boss”). While it is easy to abandon the relationship, or escalate the conflict, or just give up, knowing it is not meant to be, a more challenging endeavor is to spend time understanding the other person. Difficulties will arise because you don’t have knowledge or information, or because you have trouble seeing the world differently.

Don’t go overboard to follow this guidance and don’t stress out when you face hardship. Show focus and discipline, and the common sense to take frequent breaks to recharge your batteries.

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#130 Setting Goals

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Setting goals is important. If you don’t know what you want, you won’t know when you get there. There are other cliches to describe goals and goal setting, but what we need is something actionable. Keep the following in mind as you set goals:

  • I am still ambivalent on whether goals are invented or discovered. My bias is “discovered” but you also have to adjust to circumstances, so do both and converge towards a set of goals that are meaningful for you.
  • Goals evolve from your sense of purpose (vision and mission) and is a deep reflection of who you are (values). Hence my bias towards “discovery” of goals. If these elements are missing, make sure they are in place so you have an “anchor” to validate and explain your goals.
  • Goals will give you (need to give you) a competitive advantage, hence you need an idea of your competitive advantage and position in the marketplace. Industry benchmarks are useful to know how others are looking at “performance” in your industry. This is the “invention” part of the goals.
  • Goals may not have anything to do with your current capabilities. Hence the need for a big, hairy, audacious goal. In fact, the more audacious, the better.
  • Goals will help you build capabilities. I should say, build “targeted” capabilities. This will focus and prioritize your scarce resources on what’s important.
  • Goals will help you take better and faster decisions. No more dilly dallying!
  • Goals must degenerate into targets, a more tactical and tangible measure of progress.
  • Goals evolve and get refined over time. Clarity is cool, so don’t hesitate to clarify goals. It is productive as well.

Goals will energize the team and bring unity and cohesion. A sense of purpose will draw people into work and invigorate them when the going is tough. Having “meaning” in what you do is really important. Especially if you are a knowledge worker.

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