CREATING COMMITMENTS THAT RE-INVENT US

In this third and final part of this series, we'll look at creating new, transformational, and revitalising commitments. We've already seen how core commitments define us, describe both where we are and why we are. We then looked at the impediments to seeing our own outdated commitments, even when they clearly constrain both our prospects and our growth. Now, it's time to make the ultimate New Year's resolution: re-invent, renew, recreate.

The commitments we are speaking about here, as Donald Sull identified them for all of us are those that remake our organisational success formula. In other words, they make the status quo less possible and certainly far more costly to adhere to. They impose both a centrifugal as well as a centripetal force for inventing a new reality.

So the Swiss watch industry as it lost the efficiency and 'engineering' argument to digitals, re-invented by focusing on being in the jewelry and 'cache' business. Design had to rival if not transcend technical prowess. All bets had to be placed on this as the defining proposition.

NEW COMMITMENTS

So how is this done? Surely more than by just having a blinding insight and asserting it? Absolutely, despite flimsy management tones intoning this with a bit of mystical flourish. It's far more substantive than that.

First and foremost, we need to find a new North Star, a new rallying cry, a new central purpose. Sull calls these 'anchors'. I find this attractive because of my early involvement in Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). In NLP, an anchor is any stimulus that triggers an automatic response -- say an anthem, a smell associated with a loved one or conversely with a hated food, a certain touch, a visual symbol or colours (as on a flag). When we experience the stimulus, we are triggered into a certain associated state. When my wife calls my name in a certain tone of voice, all tension melts and I'm one with the Gods. When my father used to call it in a slightly different tone, pitch and volume, I devolved into a 'circle the wagons' defensive posture of quite impressive militancy and insecurity.

Here, Sull means to drop an anchor. To create a new reference point, but one with consistency, credibility and power. Either way or both, selecting a new redefining anchor is needed to generate a fresh transforming commitment.

Examples abound. Lou Gerstner saying IBM was going to provide integrated solutions to customers rather than being in the mainframe or technology business per se. Jack Welch proclaiming that all GE businesses had to be number 1 or 2 in the marketplace or else fixed, sold or closed. Microsoft in the early Apple-wars defining itself by ubiquity of operating system. And so on.

Once an anchor is created (more on this below), it must be secured and made meaningful. Lou Gerstner did this by repeating the core message and new direction incessantly, with passion and unflinching commitment. He also ensured IBM wasn't broken up into parts, 'Baby Blues'. Before his advent that was the plan and it was assumed he had been brought in to preside over it. People soon realised otherwise.

Finally, Gerstner gave reality to the anchor by the ultimate demonstration of personal values that exists for any leader: by how he spent his time. Consult your calendar. In there are your real priorities, as opposed to your asserted ones. He was saying customer solutions trumped just more hardware sales, and 40% of his time was spent visiting customers, even in the midst of all the tumult and change.

Jack Welch spent between 60-70% of his time on people issues: reviewing talent, replenishing the leadership pipe-line, personally coaching and challenging, etc. I write this from the legendary Oriental Hotel in Bangkok, overlooking the mighty Chao Praya, the River of Kings. The almost equally legendary GM here, Kurt Wachtveitl told me once that he highly admired the George V in Paris, now run by the Four Seasons group. When he inquired how they managed to run both so sophisticated and yet so friendly a hotel in a city known for the first but not as typically for the second, the answer was: people selection. Four Seasons conduct 5 interviews for every hire, irrespective of the job or level. 5 different people interview the candidate, and one interview is always by the GM, even if the job is for a dishwasher or flower arranger. It is by expending the time and energy that this particular anchor (providing extraordinary service through extraordinary people and service mindset) is brought to life.

And then, once we have a clearly stated, energising, relevant, catalytic new commitment, once it is invested in through our own persistence, our bold actions and our personal time and attention, it must then be 'operationalized', actualized, and brought vividly through life through an almost manic execution focus. Details need to be attended to, work groups have to be reorganised, new tracking systems and dashboards have to be created and given 'teeth', performance management has to shift, every leader has to become a 'rep' of this new reality, and business opportunities have to be redefined in this context. In other words, we have to decide all the things that have to evolve and shift for the commitment to truly become REAL.

Think the above through for sure, but also ask your people what needs to change for this to happen. As ever, they'll know, and if they sense you are really asking, they'll tell you.

HOW NOT TO CHOOSE AN ANCHOR

Ancient philosophers realised that it was virtually impossible to define things that are bigger than we are: love, truth, justice, honour, virtue, etc. However, they realised that we could come 'closer' to understanding by describing what such things are not. So love is not opportunism, manipulation, control, violence, insensitivity, etc. We therefore get closer to love's neighborhood.

In the same way, selecting a winning anchor, a truly transforming ideal and conviction, is as much art as it is science. In order to do it right we have to deeply understand our company's competitive context, its history, its most recent successes and failures, the market alternatives currently visible and just around the corner. It is a way to raise the bar AND plug key holes at the same time.

Hard as it is to say exactly how you can pick one, there are numerous ways not to. Understanding these will bring us again at least into the right neighborhood.

Don't pick an anchor because it worked in the past -- either for this company or for you in your last job. When James McNerney went on from GE to head up 3M, people expected him to apply the 'GE Way' right away. After all he was being paid a hefty amount to lead a renewal of this venerable but, at that time, somewhat underperforming company.

I asked friends within 3M after 6 months of McNerney's tenure, 'So, what's he been doing?' The answer was reassuring. They said: 'Listening.'

That's how you begin to move towards an anchor, rather than just play out the paradigms and 'old cheese' of the past with fresh make-up.

Also, don't pick a new commitment based on some new consultancy theory du jour or because it worked for your competition, or even because it worked at the holy of holies, GE.

On the first one above, many things sound great on paper that fall emotionally flat with the market as well as our own people. On the second, for example, HP tried to go for integrated solutions -- they worked for IBM. But HP/Compaq couldn't find this in their genes as IBM did (see the earlier articles in this series), the merger had created distinctive problems that required a more expansive re-invention and probably a more soul-searching challenge. Re the final one, no one can do your push-ups for you, not even GE.

There is probably one other way 'not' to proceed here. We said in the first article that core commitments can be linked to strategic frames, processes, resource commitments, relationships, values and more. Of all of these, often the most potentially dangerous is process. The reason is that while process improvement done right can help virtually any business, by itself it is not re-invention, unless the primary problem of the business is disciplined execution in clearly identified practise areas.

Xerox had a fabled quality improvement programme in the 80's that allowed it to match and even beat back its Japanese competitors. It was rightly hailed as a powerful corporate reformation. However their excessive internal focus also led them to ignore the fact that their research lab had essentially invented the Personal Computer. The fruit of their findings were well exploited instead by Apple, Microsoft, et al.

Even at GE, where six sigma has been such a towering success (in part due to GE's superlative ability to execute initiatives), Jeff Immelt has realised that improving operational excellence can only take GE so far. The focus has shifted back to world-beating innovation, (GE's heritage) and helping their customers invent the future they want...together.

HOW TO ENSURE THE ANCHOR LIVES

This is straightforward, if not easy. Link people's careers, progress, success, performance reviews, to the real-time implementation of this. When Gerstner tackled a past star and offered him an option to 'align or get out' the first time he didn't come through fully (the executive chose to head out), the organisation woke up. When Welch sacked some of the most senior people when they tried to stall Work-Out (the employee involvement programme where real-time suggestions were debated and selected for immediate application), everyone realised this wasn't another corporate fad.

CORE COMMITMENTS IN THE MIDDLE?

Suppose you're not Welch or Gerstner or Gates or Grove or Branson or Roddick. You're not the CEO. Can any of this help YOU?

The answer is a resounding "yes" IF:

1. You are senior enough that you run some division, team, part of the company, that produces a key deliverable that adds some distinctive value to the organisation.

2. You have some key area of autonomy where you can seek to improve the value you provide.

3. The improvement you seek is broadly compatible with the overall philosophy and direction of your company.

4. You have the budget, or can get it, to fund this area of focus and re-invention.

5. You have a real fighting shot to be able to stay in this role long enough to see this through. Otherwise, you'll have no credibility.

PERSUADING OTHERS

Marvin Bower's ability to bring professional values into McKinsey partly derived from his credibility from his time in law firms. Lou Gerstner had been a former IBM customer and therfore knew whereof he spoke.

Ancient orators broke down persuasion into three aspects: logos, pathos and ethos. Logos relates to logic. Pathos refers to our ability to appeal to common feelings. And Ethos has to do with our own personal congruence and credibility. Only then does our communication hit that elusive but needed 'sweet spot'.

Why do we constantly review what Jack Welch said? Well, it made a lot of sense and delivered unprecedented value. But he excelled at the above. In communicating with power, even with his almost endearing stammer, Welch was a Jedi Master.

Speaking of the need to move faster at GE, he often quantified the advantages of doing so. Rather than elaborate analysis, he presented hard-hitting facts, for logos. Shortening the gap between customer orders and delivery helped GE boost inventory turns from less than 5 to nearly 8. He explained that every single digit improvement in inventory turns, freed up roughly $1 billion in cash!!! No one had to appease his audience's intellect on this any further.

Work-Out, which we've referred to above, was about wide-scale involvement in key issues. People identifying problems, recommending solutions, and getting virtually immediate management feedback and commitment. Cross-sections of people were brought together as a way to ventilate hierarchy and overturn bureaucracy. A tough union leader pre-Work Out used to say he had three enemies: the Russians, the GE Management and the Internal Revenue Service. Down came the Berlin Wall, along came Work-Out, and he admitted ruefully that the IRS was now his only nemesis left! Welch could tell this and similar stories as a way of stirring legitimate pathos.

Even the imagery he used, bureaucracy being like layers of extra clothing that kept you personally warm, but dangerously insulated from the conditions around you, derived from his Massachusetts upbringing. His hard-charging approach was consistent with both his hockey-playing youth and the way he had come up as a little-known underdog to taking the top job in GE. Therefore, his style got high scores for ethos. It was credible, it was real, it was him.

Two out of three of these just won't do. In an overused but almost heart-breaking example, Bill Clinton's capacity to wield logos (insight and analysis) with uncanny pathos (emotional connection with his audience) was truly spellbinding. Alas, when ethos crumbled, when there seemed to be a disconnect between who he was being and what he was saying, he lost tremendous credibility. In his time since his Presidency, his global activism, his work against AIDS in Africa, his statesmanlike engagement with key issues and people, show that he knows where he has to fortify himself to make a real impact.

MAKING IT HAPPEN

In the late 1980's when Oticon, a past global leader in hearing aids, was virtually bankrupt, a new CEO was brought in, Lars Kolind. After stemming the financial bleeding (layoffs, tight budget approval etc.), he looked towards re-invention. He selected product development as the area for the core commitment. After all, that's where they once led, and this is where, due to the arrogant inertia of infatuation with their past product, they had just gotten trounced. But the capacity for innovation was very much there.

Removing silos in almost one fell sweep, Lars committed to cross functional teams of R&D, manufacturing, sales, customer service, co-developing new products. Projects could be started as long as there were three champions: someone from management, someone from the top executive team for funding, and cross-functional employees willing to staff the team.

For two months Lars drove the message home, 'change or be changed.' He publicized what was happening to the outside world, and moved the company into a new office building, with an open plan to encourage collaboration, sold off their furniture business and re-invested in mobile desks and chairs (to allow buzz groups to form and reform). These moves were all covered in the press and created their own pressure to perform upon the employees. Finally Lars acquired about 17 percent of Oticon stock with his own savings, putting himself also on the line.

Oticon in the 90's went on to produce the first microprocessor-based hearing aid that adjusts sound automatically to the hearing range of the user. They won the European Design Prize in 1996, cut time to market by nearly 50% and increased revenues three-fold within an eight year period.

THE TYPE OF TRANSFORMING COMMITMENTS THAT WORK

As we see from the above: Pick the right commitment, that's paramount. Ensure it's credible, make it clear and unambiguous (drive it home often), make sure it's courageous and game-changing, calibrate it and measure ongoing progress and course-correct while taking ongoing action.

Realign the organisation, burn the boats, aim for the future, enroll others. Thus we escape from the swamp of yesterday's mistakes and go boldly out to claim the opportunities and successes of tomorrow.

That's Leadership!

END OF YEAR MUSINGS: MAKING LIFE EASIER

To close out the year, I thought I would share some tips and ideas for making life easier, richer, more fun, even more productive. I hope you accept these as an additional seasonal gift and that they might add some value to you and those you love.

You know many people you consider 'Class Acts' as my friends in The Strategic Coach would call them. These are people who uplift you, whom you respect, who are standard-setters, and who you believe make the world a little brighter. They may be colleagues, parents, children, friends, whoever. Take a few minutes to let them know you consider them a Class-Act. It may be too hokey just to say it. But use your imagination. A card, an unexpected gift, an invitation to lunch, a toast at a party, a private 'thank you.' Help Class-Acts throughout your life 'win.' Help them get publicity. Help enrich their self-esteem. What goes around in this regard, definitely comes around.

To rediscover something, introduce it to someone else. A favourite book which you discuss with a loved one will sparkle as if brand new. Taking someone to a week-end in a city you adore and they don't know, will help you discover its charms all over again. Bringing people together who you believe will click and stimulate each other, will broaden and deepen your own friendships. Inviting someone to a restaurant that is special to you, will make it glow ever more brightly as you create a new occasion and memory there. We revitalize and enhance life by sharing it with others.

If you travel frequently as I do, invest in a subscription to OAG (_www.oag.com_ (http://www.oag.com) ). This is an online listing of all the available flights from anywhere to anywhere. It helps to be able to change an itinerary, figure out how best to get from point A to point B, to challenge and guide your travel agent, and essentially know all your options both when planning, and in response when something goes wrong. The time this has saved me and the clarity it provides is exceptional.

Build proactive credibility with people. At the Ritz-Carlton if you make a request or complaint, they are trained to say, "Please allow me 15 minutes to get back to you on this." They may not be able to solve it in 15 minutes, but they will get back to you with an assessment, a next step, whatever. This removes your anxiety of wondering exactly 'when' someone will 'get back to you.' In the same way, when someone makes a request of you, insert a time period even if they're not asking for it. Then, come through on it. They'll sleep easier and your own brand value will go up.

Your boss: So, can I get that report next week?

You: Sure, how about by Tuesday 5 p.m.?

This also serves to align expectations.

Your spouse: Honey, can we go and visit that store sometime?

You: Okay, Thursday or Friday this week after work?

A friend: Let's go out to dinner sometime this month.

You: This week or next? I'll book at a great new restaurant I've been meaning to have you try with me.

Make it specific, set a time, come through. People will know you mean what you say. You couldn't ask for a better reputation.

Become a regular at any fabled restaurant, any superlative store, virtually anywhere simply by making eye contact with key personnel, introducing yourself warmly, saying "thank you", inquiring about their services, stopping by soon after the first introduction and giving them some more business, leaving your business card and allowing them to fulfill a special (but sensible) request. People remember what's memorable. Choosing to be can be both fun and rewarding and it makes the interaction fascinating for those on the other side as well.

Apply the general to the specific. When you next hear sage advice about not thinking you're the center of the universe or not getting aggravated over what you just can't control, apply that general maxim to the particular situation of you frothing at the mouth when you have to drive to the ATM machine because you forgot cash, or to clamp down on your outrage when someone cuts you off on the highway, or even to mellow your outburst when you singe your tongue on the coffee-cup. Down with the blood pressure, up with the enlightenment, but only when you realise that the great advice actually applies to you too and usually when you'd least like it to.

Pick a mess in your life, a recurring aggravation, frustration-inducing commitment or meltdown, and eliminate it in the next month, or the next quarter. Make a "transforming commitment" to everyone on that front and take some action TODAY. One less of those will gift you with a remarkable surge of creativity, energy and hopefulness. What could be better than to free some of this trio up for the things that really count in your life?

Richard Quest, the quirky CNN presenter, signed up for a comedy class in the US. Part of the class was to deliver a 5 minute comedy routine at a real club. He had the crowd rolling in the aisle as he said: 'You call these suspenders. In England, suspenders are frilly women's underwear. We call these braces. Now you put that in your mouth. Imagine the fun we could have with that! However, before this poised entree into the world of stand-up comedy, Richard was quaking with understandable dread. His comedy teacher gave him wonderful advice which we all could use: 'Remember, it's not about you, it's about them, the audience. This isn't a referendum on your value. You're here to connect with them. Help them have a great night. They WANT you to be funny. Nobody comes here hoping to be bored. Converse with them, make it easy for them. Have a good time together. Applied slightly, I can't imagine any context where this wouldn't apply to all of us as we interact and offer value.

Finally, let's practise some civility with each other. We all are suspicious on etiquette guide-lines. Some of them are just foppery. Others just nice to know. Like the precise salutation to use for thank you cards, or the quality of the watermark on the stationery, the position of your little finger when raising a tea cup if wishing to appear dainty, the number of cheek kisses on the continent when saying "hello," or the appropriate honorific to use with an Ambassador as opposed to a Bishop.

Beyond manners, there are matters of elegance and taste. For example, which fork to use with which course, and not to pile plates on top of each other in a fine restaurant. Or not yawning with mouth wide open as if doing a public viewing of your tonsils. Or trying not to marry a traditional motif with minimalist furniture. Or not playing "Bad Moon Rising" when people want to slow dance or "Moonlight Sonata" when they want to cut loose.

But beyond mannerisms, and matters of style, there are what may be called quotidian ethics. The way we treat each other each day. Less loftily, it is called civility. Being aware of each other and our impact on each other. Trying to help where we can and ease the way whenever possible. And certainly to realise the Hippocratic oath applies to us all. We have to reclaim civility. It is the glue that holds our smaller worlds together.Who knows, as that grows, so may we as human beings grow in our ability to co-exist and collaborate and co-create, even on the larger world stage.

Merry Xmas, happy holidays and have a wonderful New Year everyone!

Omar Khan and the Sensei International team

IN MEMORIAM

M. Scott Peck passed away this last year. He was a world renowned best-selling author of THE ROAD LESS TRAVELLED, PEOPLE OF THE LIE, THE DIFFERENT DRUM and many other ground-breaking works. Scotty was the recipient of numerous peace prizes, founded FCE (The Foundation for Community Encouragement) and helped so many millions discover the discipline, love and grace needed for spiritual growth.

He was my mentor well before we met (thanks to his books). I worked with FCE and thanks to Scotty met so many wonderful people associated with FCE that Leslie and I have come to care for. We came to know each other personally and deeply in the last several years. I will glory in that time every day of my life. We co-authored a book, which we just finished prior to this death, and which I hope to publish in the coming year.

I loved Scotty and always will treasure his life, love, spirit, example, and our time together. His entire life was one of extraordinary generosity. He literally 'spent' himself sharing inspiration. This caused considerable pain in his personal life. But that was his sacrifice, that was him placing himself on the Cross.

The best way to honour Scotty is to partake of the inspiration to which he dedicated himself. I can imagine no better holiday gift you can give yourself than to either discover or rediscover the life-giving gifts of THE ROAD LESS TRAVELLED. And if you can, delve at least also into THE DIFFERENT DRUM. It's a vision of how we humans coming together in authenticity and community can become more than the sum of our failings, maybe even more than the sum of our individual gifts. It's an extraordinary opportunity and challenge, one we need today more than ever.

We all leave the world better or worse for our having passed through it. Thank you dearest Scotty. You've enriched me so very much with your wisdom and love. It's time for me to get back out there and try my best to do my part in carrying that torch that you handed to us burning so bright with illumination.

God Bless you.

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