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CONTENTS 0) Introduction
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Home > Leadership > Articles on Leadership> Successful Habits of Outstanding Organisms Successful Habits
& Traits of Outstanding Organisms
Since organizations consist of people, usually highly influenced by one or several leaders, i.e. people, one may wonder, are there certain success habits common to both people and organizations? My research and experience clearly say, yes, there are! In fact, more than that, alignment of these common success habits of top leaders and their organizations assure their continuous outstanding results.
Organisms is a term widely used in biology, for example defined as An individual form of life, such as a plant, animal, bacterium, protist, or fungus; a body made up of organs, organelles, or other parts that work together to carry on the various processes of life. 1) Another definition is: A system regarded as analogous in its structure or functions to a living body: the social organism. 2) I decided to use the term Organism for both individuals and organizations in order to highlight that both are "living bodies" and that certain "natural rules" are applicable not only to individuals but also to organizations consisting of people.
The success (and failure) of any organization is most influenced
by the leader(s) of the organization, hence when talking about successful
organisms, I relate more to the leaders of the organization, bearing
in mind that of course, all members of any organization influence
its success to a certain extent. Every sensible leader knows that
without his/her people the leader is nothing and the art of leading
is to influence people in a way that the individuals effectively and
efficiently contribute to the success of the organization. 2.1) Establish a Vision which is simple, clear and straightforward - keep communicating it A global medium sized company X has a vision that they aim to become a leading supplier of product A in the Asian market. Their market share worldwide is approx. 5%, in Asia below 2%. The no. 1 in the market accounts for 35% worldwide and 25% in Asia. No. 2 and 3 are both in the range of 20% worldwide and 15% in Asia. X is no. 7 worldwide and no. 8 in Asia. Three years after stating that vision, the position of X has hardly improved. What went wrong? I talked to several second line executives of X and made the following findings:
2.2) Develop a Mission aligned to your Values - take it seriously What is a mission? I like the definition of a mission being the constitution of an organism. The characteristics of a constitution:
It's easy to conclude that before making a mission statement, it is crucial to get a clear understanding of the organism's core values and most basic rules. This is a process that usually takes several weeks to several months. However, it is possible to speed this up by using effective assessment methods such as the PIA&V3) or the Harrison method 4). Creating a mission statement is one thing, living it is another. Living up to your own mission statement is a matter of integrity. It is always interesting to compare the mission of an organism with the way it is carried out. One could say that it should be easier for an individual to follow his own personal mission statement than for an organization where there are different people with different individual sets of values. This is of course true and yet I have seen successful companies who reached an extremely high level of compliance to their mission statement. What made these companies so outstanding? I discovered some very basic key elements common to these companies:
The most crucial element however, is the behavior of the CEO and
his top management team. For example, if the leadership preaches fairness
as one of the core values but then fires employees in economically
difficult times and increases their own salaries, how do they ever
expect the lower ranks to ever develop a strong sense of fairness?? 2.3) Create a Culture of Progress and Growth… relentlessly Company Y experiences 3 years of healthy growth in a positive economic environment. In year 4 the economy becomes weaker, but is still growing slightly. However, the business of company Y starts shrinking. And it continues to shrink, at best remaining stagnant for the following years even though the economy picked up again. What went wrong? I had the chance to experience very closely what happened there and I know that this is a quite common case. When the management of Y realized that the business is shrinking, they showed the typical reflex: sales down à cost down! We can't afford to run losses. Fair enough. Yet, what is the consequence? At first, a small number of staff is laid off and expenses deemed unnecessary by the management were frozen or completely cut. How do you think this affects the remaining staff? Working is not enjoyable anymore when necessary expenses are being frozen. And worse, fear is spreading among a large number of employees that they could be the next to be fired. How does that affect running the business? Less people with less
motivation definitely means less output. Of cour This puts further pressure on the margins (as if the slower economy is not already tough enough), and that leads to further cost-cutting and so on. The deadly spiral is in full gear! Why do many companies still survive in spite of this? Because the economy eventually gets better, pressure from the market decreases, confidence of the management increases which leads to expansion of the organization in order to be able to grab a piece of the growing cake. However, survival depends on the duration of the economic crisis and the financial strength of the organization. Have you noticed that there are some companies who don't have reduced sales in a slower economy and instead are growing even further? How does that happen? I was equally lucky to experience exactly that, too. In fact, at the time of the Asian crisis in the late nineties, as International Sales Director, I was responsible for sales and marketing in this region. When the first strong signs of the crisis emerged in 1997, I realized that there might be tough times ahead. However, I had no idea how tough it would get… Anyway, for me it was clear that our sales in the region would not go down, that we would grow further despite the crisis. And we did. The key to success was the mindset of the organisms. I gathered the managers of the Asian sales organization in Seoul in early 1998 and we performed a workshop on how to keep our growth up in these difficult times. Before doing so, I made sure that everybody was ready to believe that it is possible to grow. From there, together we discovered the possibilities and implemented an action plan. Again, the key to our success was communication. I did not stop repeating that the crisis won't harm us, that we would grow further and that we don't care whether the business of other companies go down. 2.4) Leave the beaten track - those who copy, lose There are tons of books and articles available about successful companies and outstanding leaders. There have also been some ambitious attempts to find the common characteristics of these organisms. Unfortunately, most of these publications focus on organisms which have been extremely successful in recent years. The downside of this is that if you look into books like "In Search of Excellence" written by Tom Peters and Robert H. Waterman Jr., 10 years or so after the appearance of these books, only a small number of the stars of that time are still successful. Some of the companies even totally disappeared. So-called hidden champions, i.e. organisms which have been producing consistently positive results and growth over several decades are hardly known in the public despite their continuous outstanding performance. They teach us a different lesson: "Be different, or die". They realized that it's not possible to overtake competitors by copying them. There are also some well-known examples of companies with successful business development over several decades: Microsoft, Cisco, SAP, Intel, Toyota and others. Who did they copy? They became strong and big because they did NOT copy anyone, but developed a very unique corporate culture. This took years to develop and seems to remain the basis of their continuous success. Why are certain business leaders successful for many years despite the fact that they don't follow the popular leadership principles? Think of Larry Ellison, the CEO of ORACLE, for example. His leadership style is for sure not in line with popular teachings. Yet, if anyone would want to copy his style, a failure would be almost certain. It can be concluded that it is a strong and unique personality that make people like him successful. Competition is a process of continuous discovery of new possibilities to market products and services. According to Schumpeter5), the entrepreneur is a pioneer who revolutionizes the market. It's the entrepreneur who is ready to develop new ideas and to accept that they may fail when implementing them. There are many organisms out there that try to copy successful pioneers. It is a strategy that certainly will not lead to the top. Copying the behavior of a successful individual will not necessarily lead to the same success because of different personalities. For companies it will only lead to a decrease of profit margins, hence pushing the successful pioneers to further innovations in order to stay ahead of their peers. Innovation is hard work and you better don't trust anyone who says that they can do it for you. 2.5) Be prepared to fail - learn from it rapidly What do outstanding companies and very successful individuals have in common? They are prepared to take risks and by doing so, they are equally prepared to fail. For sure, not every organism- that takes risks and is ready to fail will be successful. Hence there must be more to it. First of all, outstanding organisms are not taking foolish risks, which means that before making any major decision, they make themselves aware of the risks involved. They project worst-case scenarios and evaluate them with the most realistic and also with the best case they can imagine. Based on this, there are two main considerations: a) Will the failure "break my neck", or will I have a chance
to overcome the consequences and move forward to a more successful
future? These considerations help to avoid foolish risks. Many organisms do exactly that and still, they are not outstandingly successful. I found that the key to extraordinary success after a failure is to i) Make errors faster than your peers iii) Have an unwavering belief in success If you make mistakes faster than your competitors, then you have the chance to learn quickly and win. What does it mean to learn quickly? First of all, it is necessary to have a culture that does not penalize making mistakes but is instead supportive. It requires a certain level of error tolerance and processes that lead to an analysis of the mistake - only then learning happens. Even little mistake can yield big insights! Finally, the most important for success - be it for individuals or organizations - is to believe in it, no matter how badly or how often one fails. This is nothing new (Napoleon Hill stressed this factor already over 40 years ago in his book "Think and Grow Rich") and yet, it is still very true. Let me give you a popular example where all of these three factors have been accomplished. Amazon was a pioneer in online bookshops. They were one of the first to try to sell books on the internet. As you may know, in the first years Amazon burned millions and millions of dollars, yet today they are one of the few profitable and by far the largest online retailer worldwide. Many other dotcoms and traditional companies like Bertelsmann tried to follow the example of Amazon. Today, most of them either completely disappeared or moved out of this business. Why did Amazon succeed while the others failed? Because they started early and made their mistakes quickly. They learned from their errors at a fast pace and eventually realized that the key to success for their business is logistics, logistics and again, logistics. Today they have mastered their logistics almost perfectly in the US. At the end of the dotcom boom, Amazon was thought to be dead soon like other money-burning New Market companies. However, it was their leadership's firm belief that they will finally succeed that kept them going, despite huge debts and great difficulties to get further funding. Their CEO and his team followed the old saying: "If there is a will, there is a way" - and found it. I want to go even a step further: it is necessary to make mistakes. Let me give you an example which is totally unrelated to business but can be applied to professional organisms. While learning downhill skiing, there is a risk of falling down, which is certainly painful. When I started skiing at the age of 10, I could see exactly the difference between those who fell frequently and those who hardly ever fell down. First, those who fell down frequently a) progressed much faster, because they took risks to try out new
styles Those who tried to play it very safe did not only progress much slower, but worse, in the rare cases that they did fall down, their injuries were more severe and more painful. As James Joyce said, "Mistakes are the portal of discovery." 2.6) Keep reviewing and aligning - stay flexible Do you sometimes catch yourself running on a treadmill that goes nowhere? Do you sometimes wonder why, despite your hard work and great efforts, things seem not to progress the way you wanted? I think that this happens to most of us once in a while, even to the most successful people and organizations. There are certain downtimes and that is good. Downtimes are there to make us aware that we might be running in the wrong direction, that we need to review and align the way we are working, thinking, acting, moving, etc. It was a downtime in my career that led me to a complete career transition. For several years I was working successfully in general management in an international setting. All of a sudden, things became tougher and tougher, the success was not so great as it used to be, and the abundant energy I used to derive from my successes was suddenly missing - I was having a downtime. Since I have a strong belief that every thing happens for a good reason, I started reflecting on the way I was working. Did I miss something? Did I get into an unhealthy routine? I analyzed my work style, my strategy and so on, but I couldn't find anything drastically wrong. I made some small adjustments here and there but that did not considerably change how things were going. So I went deeper and started to analyze whether this job was still right for me, whether my motivation was still appropriate for the great challenges of my job. I found that there were a number of requirements in that job which I could fulfill but which - if I were true to myself - I really did not enjoy. I realized that my personality, needs and wants have changed over the years and that my current position would not cater sufficiently for those. It was a long and painful process and looking back, I wish I had a support system at that time which would have helped me to come to these realizations faster and which would have assisted me in my career transition. There was one positive side-effect of this process, especially from the time I realized what went wrong and what I would do in the near future. I regained my full motivation to bring the business for which I was responsible back on track before finally leaving for my new professional choice. You certainly know enough cases of organisms in which the importance of review and alignment was forgotten. In a world of fast changes, the best strategy may need a total shift when there is a drastic change in the parameters on which the strategy was based. Strong leadership is marked by increased awareness, great flexibility and forward thinking.
The habits and traits described above are rather basic and certainly no rocket science. The important point is to make them suitable for you and your organization and then implement them properly. We are now at the point where the work starts, whether for yourself or as a leader of an organization. I suggest that you start with yourself and use the outcome as a basis for your reflections regarding the organization. The more you can align your values, needs and wants with those of your organization, the more likely you will succeed with the implementation of these success habits. Every organism is unique; hence, the final look of success habits will be unique, too. There is no single solution to success. It takes your efforts and brains to discover the best fit between habits you want to develop and what presently exists. Before mirroring where you and your organization are now, and where you want to be, get rid of limiting beliefs. Otherwise you may miss out on exceptional possibilities and opportunities. First think of the ideal and then compromise only if there is absolutely no way to overcome obstacles. I found it much more effective to go through this reflection process with the help of a neutral person who understands the subject matter and knows how to structure the process. This person can be a mentor, a coach or a good friend who possesses these skills and who is at the same time able to keep a neutral position. Only then will it be possible to discover blind spots and alternative possibilities one would not have discovered alone.
How
many books do we read about things we want to learn? How many times
do we undergo training? Aren't we aware of all the good things we
read and learn? How much of that do we actually implement in our life,
professional or otherwise? Don't
get me wrong, I find reading and training to be important in the development
of organisms. However, I also find that the effectiveness of reading
and training is determined by the degree of implementation. I
have read much and attended a lot of training but was often disappointed
with myself after a few weeks or months because of how little I was
able to implement from what I learned. And then I found that it was
somewhat a waste of time and money despite the little good things
I actually put into action. Since
then I have been working with a professional mentor coach on a regular
basis. I feel that I've become much more focused and action-orientated.
This helps me progress faster and at the same time gives me a deep
feeling of satisfaction. Remember,
reflection without subsequent action is a waste of time. 5)
Evaluation
of Support Systems for organisms Our
world is growing more and more complex. We never had so much data
available. The speed of development has never been so overwhelming.
I personally think that it is foolish to believe that we can keep
up with all that just by ourselves. Great
leaders are aware of that so they create a support system that helps
them make the right decisions and brings the best out of them. The
more complex our world becomes, the more dedicated and tailor-made
our support system needs to be. Typically there are three major areas
where adequate support is crucial: a)
provision of expertise b)
development of skills c)
development of habits and traits It is almost impossible for an organism to develop all areas of expertise; it may not even be desirable to attempt it. Of course, an organism must decide which are the core competencies that need to be developed in order to be ahead of the game. But there are other areas that might be necessary but are not crucial. Dedicated consultants who are specialized in these areas can cover these more effectively. The development of core competencies can be done in several ways: an organization can employ people with such competencies; acquire other companies specialized in the desired area; or, use training in order to develop certain skills and competencies. While consulting and training are generally accepted methods to support the success of an organism, the development of success habits is an area not often given the necessary attention. Worse, top leaders often believe that it would be a sign of weakness to engage someone for the development of soft factors such as improving habits or understanding better how others experience their leadership. Why is that so? The main reason for this reluctance is the image most senior executives think they must project. They believe that it would be a sign of weakness if they solicited support for the development of soft skills. Consider this: we are ready to accept consulting and training in order to achieve excellence but are too proud to seek help to develop the most important area in our life: ourselves. Why do sport stars like Tiger Woods employ coaches? He plays better golf than his coach, no doubt about that. The coach is not a consultant and the coach is not a trainer. A professional executive coach is the executive's partner specialized in establishing a process of creative discovery, ambitious goal-setting and meaningful action. The coach is able to help the client to develop habits and soft skills to reach outstanding success.
More than ever, outstanding success is determined by doing a lot of things right while being ready to accept failure and to learn from it quickly. You can make it a habit to be successful by implementing success habits. Done correctly, success seems to be almost effortless. Remember when you started to learn how to drive a car? How confusing was it in the beginning to know when to press which pedal for acceleration, which pedal for brakes, and how to put the right gear? It required a lot of effort and training, but eventually you developed a habit to do it all right. How effortless is this very same process today? Unfortunately, successful leadership is not as easy as driving a car. However, the same principles apply. Shape your habits and establish them. Take the necessary support to allow you to do so. It is hard work, but a very rewarding one. __________________________________________________________________________ 1), 2) 3) 4) 5)
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