I learned to drive in an automatic V8 Holden in the early 90’s, it was a powerful and thirsty beast with a novice at the helm. One day as I was driving with my Dad I approached an intersection and at the last moment the light turned orange. I should have kept going, but instead I jumped on the brakes. And then something strange happened; we didn’t stop. We slowed down, but the harder I braked the louder the engine roared. Instead of sailing easily through we crawled across the intersection after the red light, cars honking around me with Dad pleading “Go mate, just go!” It was then that I looked down and saw the problem. In the rush I had put my foot across both pedals… I was braking and accelerating at the same time.

Often leaders do the same thing. They brake and accelerate at the same time. On the one hand they say to their teams “We need to increase new business” but then the marketing budget is the first one to get slashed. They talk about growth but their actions tell their team another story. I wonder if you’ve done that lately? Have you run a muddled strategy that’s neither offence nor defence and ended up crawling through the intersection with everybody frustrated?

Instead of pressing even harder on the accelerator maybe it’s time to check if your foot is also on the brake-

• What are you saying, doing or believing that is slowing your team down? Think about that, honestly.
• To what extent is your own leadership creating obstacles to your team’s momentum?
• Perhaps the breakthrough you’ve been hoping for is less about increasing results, and more about decreasing inertia.

So if acceleration is what you really want, remove whatever you can that works against it.

• Make it your mission to remove the obstacles to faster decision making, initiative and progress.
• Get ruthless with the burdens of bureaucracy that punish those who try to move things forward.
• Be clear on your strategy – are we on the offence or the defence right now? There are times for both, but running them both at once doesn’t work any better in business than it does in sport.

The rabbit in the headlights only has so much time to choose left or right before either option would have been better than indecision. At the end of the day it’s the leaders role to choose the strategy. Sometimes you’ve just got to make the decision and then back yourself.

“Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision” Peter F Drucker

Please add your comments…

I’d love to know what you’re reading. What books have you read lately that have impacted your leadership or thinking?

Right now I’m enjoying The Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss, and Tribes by Seth Godin

Add your comments below to tell us what you recommend…

My friend Mark is an Optical Engineer in the Australian Army and amongst other things he calibrates scopes for snipers. You know you’re passionate about leadership when even talking about weapon calibration gets you thinking about leadership principles! One statement he made really stuck with me “Just a 1mm adjustment of a screw slightly bigger than a pinhead can cause the firer to miss their target by more than 2 metres when firing from the common distance of one kilometre. Such a small change made in the wrong direction can have catastrophic consequences”.

So when did you last fine tune your vision as a leader? In the long run maintaining the right strategic focus for you and your business will be the difference between hitting your target or experiencing potentially catastrophic consequences.

Every leader must master three aspects of visionary sight –
1.    Hindsight: The ability to reflect and learn from the past
2.    Insight: The ability to interpret and respond to the present
3.    Foresight: The ability to predict and prepare for the future

But while every leader must operate in all three aspects of vision, which focus they rely on most will have far-reaching implications for the organisations they build.

Which focus do you favour?

Hindsight Leadership: Tends to emphasise the value of experience and evidence. They look at the future through the eyes of the past. Like a lawyer they tend to look for a precedent for every decision. They’re hoping it’s true that “history repeats itself”. Although we absolutely must reflect on the past and learn the lessons it offers us, we cannot afford to become overly focused on the past in our leadership any more than we can afford to drive whilst staring in the rear vision mirror.

Insight Leadership: Tends to emphasise the value of tactics and reality. They look at the future as an extrapolation of current events and trends. Finely tuned to what is happening around them, they hope that by responding correctly now they will experience success in the future. Although they’re not spending a lot of time looking backwards, they’re also not spending much time looking ahead. The focus becomes about where we are now and what step we could take next. For this leader the old adage not to “climb the ladder only to find it’s leaning across the wrong wall” contains an important warning.

Foresight Leadership: Tends to emphasise possibilities and innovation. They look at the future as uncharted territory or a clean slate. Although they reflect on the past and respond to the present, they are much more concerned with preparing for the future. They drive their organisations with glances in the rear vision mirror and awareness of their surroundings but more than anything else they have clear focus on where they are going and what’s coming up on the road ahead.

Leaders should consider what Mark reminds himself every time he checks a weapon, “In my line of work, making fine adjustments to a sniper’s sighting system can either improve their accuracy or severely hamper them from achieving their mission”.

•    So is it time to readjust your focus or recalibrate your team’s vision?
•    Or is your leadership allowing a “Ready… Fire… Aim” approach?
•    It’s mission critical to maintain the right direction and a future focus, especially in challenging economic times.

Your comments and feedback are appreciated
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I’m writing a project about the vital differences between ordinary companies and those that become ‘something more’. Inspired by the legendary likes of Apple, Google, Harley Davidson and those rare businesses that somehow seem to transcend being just a product or a service and instead engender raw energy and deep loyalty from those that connect with them.

So what you believe makes the difference between companies and movements? If you had one chance to inspire a business leader to create something truly extraordinary what would you say?

PLEASE ADD COMMENTS WITH YOUR THOUGHTS

Here are a few that came in via Twitter @paulwandrew & Facebook

“Movement = where people are people, not a resource; where integrity & truth are inherent; vision is the culture, not a memo” Matthew D

“Movements are built by passionate people who have been empowered to believe and strive for more” John B

“Company is about infrastructure … movement is about people who take ownership of an effort” Penny H

“A company moves forward together with great momentum when everyone speaks a common language” Rebecca F

“It’s about buy-in / vision and purpose / innovation / ease of communication and interaction / future focussed / integrity” Gabriel K

“A movement is a business that puts people and their values before profit” Tom G