provide a vision

In every successful transformation effort that I have seen, the guiding coalition develops a picture of the future that is relatively easy to communicate and appeals to customers, stockholders, and employees. A vision always goes beyond the numbers that are typically found in five-year plans. A vision says something that helps clarify the direction in which an organization needs to move.... A useful rule of thumb: if you can’t communicate the vision to someone in five minutes or less and get a reaction that signifies both understanding and interest, you are not yet done with this phase of the transformation process.

John P. Kotter

"Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail" Harvard Business Review. May-June 1995

a sense of urgency

Most successful change efforts begin when some individuals or some groups start to look hard at a company’s competitive situation, market position, technological trends, and financial performance. They focus on the potential revenue drop when an important patent expires, the five-year trend in declining margins in a core business, or an emerging market that everyone seems to be ignoring. They then find ways to communicate this information broadly and dramatically, especially with respect to crises, potential crises, or great opportunities that are very timely. This first step is essential because just getting a transformation program started requires the aggressive cooperation of many individuals. Without motivation, people won’t help and the effort goes nowhere....

A paralyzed senior management often comes from having too many managers and not enough leaders. Management’s mandate is to minimize risk and to keep the current system operating. Change, by definition, requires creating a new system, which in turn always demands leadership. Phase one in a renewal process typically goes nowhere until enough real leaders are promoted or hired into senior-level jobs....

In a few of the most successful cases, a group has manufactured a crisis. One CEO deliberately engineered the largest accounting loss in the company’s history, creating huge pressures from Wall Street in the process. One division president commissioned first-ever customer-satisfaction surveys, knowing full well that the results would be terrible. He then made these findings public. On the surface, such moves can look unduly risky. But there is also risk in playing it too safe: when the urgency rate is not pumped up enough, the transformation process cannot succeed and the long-term future of the organization is put in jeopardy.

When is the urgency rate high enough? From what I have seen, the answer is when about 75% of a company’s management is honestly convinced that business-as-usual is totally unacceptable. Anything less can produce very serious problems later on in the process.

John P. Kotter

"Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail" Harvard Business Review. May-June 1995

the beauty of metaphor

[Warren] Buffett is frequently asked why 90% of his investments are made in the U.S. He answers in metaphor: “America’s economic soil remains fertile.” Buffett’s explanation could fill books, but in five words a metaphor allows him to communicate complexity, simply. And that’s the beauty of metaphor.

A metaphor is a literary device by which we describe one thing in terms of another, replacing the meaning of one word with another. Aristotle promoted the use of metaphor as an element of persuasion more than 2,000 years ago in his work called The Rhetoric. Buffett is a big fan of the technique because it still works. We are hardwired to process our world in metaphor. In a few short words, an appropriate metaphor can teach us volumes about an event or situation....

One of my favorite Buffett metaphors that he’s used recently—although it didn’t make an appearance in his letter—is his description of America’s challenged healthcare system. In January, Berkshire joined Amazon and JPMorgan to create a program to reduce healthcare costs for employees. Buffett called soaring health costs “A hungry tapeworm on the American economy.”

What could be more evocative than a hungry tapeworm eating away at the inside of a system? It’s memorable and attention-grabbing. The Wall Street Journal used the metaphor as its headline to the story: “Healthcare Tapeworm Faces New Threat.”

Buffett has used unusual analogies in the past; unusual because they are unexpected in a financial report. But they serve their purpose—to explain and grab attention. 

Carmine Gallo

"Warren Buffett Loves This Ancient Tool Of Persuasion To Enliven His Annual Letters" Forbes. Feb 25, 2018

leaving gracefully

There comes a time in jobs, life phases, or relationships where you know an arc has reached its end. Knowing when it is time to end — and ending well — will become an increasingly valuable skill as lives lengthen and transitions become multiple across both personal and professional lives. Ends can come from within, the result of burn out or boredom, depression or exhaustion. Or they can come from without, the land of restructurings and layoffs, divorce or other major life shifts. They are the prequel to re-creation. It is not always an easy time — for anyone involved, at work or at home. We can spend quite a lot of it loitering unproductively, wondering whether we should stay or go. But good endings are the best building blocks to good beginnings.

Choosing to choose gives you agency. The choice itself, sometimes made years before you actually move, is the first, and often the biggest, step.

• Ask yourself if you are staying where you are out of love, or out of fear. Do you love where you are, or do you fear leaving it for a murky unknown? The latter is a lousy place from which to live, but many of us stay stuck here. Who would I be without this title, this salary, or this position? It can be an exciting question, not a scary one.
• Embrace confusion, ambiguity, and questions. There re-definition lies. And remember, you don’t have to face them alone.

Avivah Wittenberg-Cox

"Learn to Get Better at Transitions" Harvard Bsiness Review. July 5, 2018

look after your staff

Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don't want to.

If You Look After Your Staff, They'll Look After Your Customers. It's That Simple.

Richard Branson

"Look After Your Staff" Virgin.com. Mar. 27, 2014