LEADERSHIP Series: Planning. Collaboration. Prosperity.

Leaders plan: one could probably posit that planning is elemental to leadership.

I like Philip Crosby’s definition (The Absolutes of Leadership):

“Leadership is deliberately causing people-driven actions in a planned fashion [emphasis mine] for the purpose of accomplishing the leader’s agenda….planned fashion means actually laying out a sequence of events that lets people know what is going to happen and what they are supposed to do.”

One way to “let people know” is to clearly express your vision – then share it; publish your mission (which includes your reason for existence - what you do, why you do it and for whom); and promote the values that give shape and meaning to the way you do it.

Leaders build all of this (and more) into planning – note: it is not The Plan – but planning – a dynamic, collaborative process that includes measuring the results, comparing them to the plan and evaluating the variance from the “plan.”

Good planning, in other words, takes hard, collaborative work. The focus is always on results. Shortcuts most often focus on a declaration of success or failure. Remember, you ALWAYS succeed…in producing a result. That success-failure-get-it-now attitude leads to disaster.

What kind of results are you producing? What do those results say about your planning, and work?

Proverbs 21:5 Good planning and hard work lead to prosperity, but hasty shortcuts lead to poverty.


Copyright ©2009 by P. Griffith Lindell

LEADERSHIP Series: The Power of Collaboration

Collaboration is a key to effective strategy development. Insights from all categories of stakeholders are valuable. No stakeholder should be deemed “insignificant” or “incompetent” to provide insights to the external and internal factors shaping your strategy.

Leaders in new organizations benefit from the current team’s corporate knowledge, even if it is based on an “old” paradigm and is not in sync with the leader’s new vision. Their current understanding of customers, competitors and the company (the important three “C’s” in business) provide valuable insights in a current-state analysis. As one of my colleagues once put it: you must understand your customers intimately, your competitors thoroughly and your firm brutally.

The same may be said for living a significant life at work, at play and at home. There exists a spiritual battle for the Christian leader. You are not warring against flesh and blood, but principalities, powers and rulers of darkness whose aim it to keep you from achieving significance – especially significance that counts for eternity,

Understanding the three “C’s” above can well drive your product introduction battles. They also drive your life battles (think customers as those you serve as a leader; competitors as Satan and his minions; company as you, and your family). Understanding for both “battles” cannot be done in a vacuum. Personal and corporate “victories” result when you have wise counsel from wise people.

Have you “wised” up?

Proverbs 24:6 (MSG) Strategic planning [wise guidance (NLT)] is the key to warfare; to win, you need a lot of good counsel.


Copyright © 2009 by P. Griffith Lindell