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Author: Edward Brzychcy

Ed Brzychcy
Growing and Developing core leaders in business
Ed Brzychcy is former U.S. Army Infantry Staff-Sergeant with service across three combat deployments to Iraq. After his time in the military, he received his MBA from Babson College and now coaches organizational leadership and growth through his consultancy, Blue Cord Management.
Blue Cord Management provides three essential services to organizations.

Training - our robust Lead from the Front training programs provide new and established leaders key insights into leadership strategy, skills, and behaviors.
Coaching - our coaching program helps to build fundamental leadership competencies through robust one-on-one coaching designed to help develop long-term skills and habits.
Consulting - we work with organizations on developing the core leadership throughout their business, helping to increase retention, engagement, and productivity at all levels. We work on providing a cultural shift toward a more dynamic, empowered, and proactive leadership structure for all organizational levels

Located in Boston, MA, reach us at 617-936-2765 and our website, bluecordmgmt.com. |Ed Brzychcy
Growing and Developing core leaders in business
Ed Brzychcy is former U.S. Army Infantry Staff-Sergeant with service across three combat deployments to Iraq. After his time in the military, he received his MBA from Babson College and now coaches organizational leadership and growth through his consultancy, Blue Cord Management.
Blue Cord Management provides three essential services to organizations.

Training - our robust Lead from the Front training programs provide new and established leaders key insights into leadership strategy, skills, and behaviors.
Coaching - our coaching program helps to build fundamental leadership competencies through robust one-on-one coaching designed to help develop long-term skills and habits.
Consulting - we work with organizations on developing the core leadership throughout their business, helping to increase retention, engagement, and productivity at all levels. We work on providing a cultural shift toward a more dynamic, empowered, and proactive leadership structure for all organizational levels

Located in Boston, MA, reach us at 617-936-2765 and our website, bluecordmgmt.com. |Ed Brzychcy
Growing and Developing core leaders in business
Ed Brzychcy is former U.S. Army Infantry Staff-Sergeant with service across three combat deployments to Iraq. After his time in the military, he received his MBA from Babson College and now coaches organizational leadership and growth through his consultancy, Blue Cord Management.
Blue Cord Management provides three essential services to organizations.

Training - our robust Lead from the Front training programs provide new and established leaders key insights into leadership strategy, skills, and behaviors.
Coaching - our coaching program helps to build fundamental leadership competencies through robust one-on-one coaching designed to help develop long-term skills and habits.
Consulting - we work with organizations on developing the core leadership throughout their business, helping to increase retention, engagement, and productivity at all levels. We work on providing a cultural shift toward a more dynamic, empowered, and proactive leadership structure for all organizational levels

Located in Boston, MA, reach us at 617-936-2765 and our website, bluecordmgmt.com. 

Categories
Best Practices Growth Management Personal Development

Work-Life Balance in 2020

 

As we move forward to the summer months in 2020, finding work-life balance is more complicated than ever. While many of us ordinarily struggle with this concept, it becomes even more prominent as we find ourselves in situations where we are working from home. Our home offices have become a shared space for all of our daily activities. The challenge becomes maintaining balance and separation, while finding ways to achieve your goals, both personally and professionally. Here are three ideas as we move forward into this time of an increasingly uncertain summer.

First, ask yourself, why do you do what you do? What do you enjoy? What’s great about your job? What don’t you like? Get back in touch with your passions. Understand all of these different ideas and concepts, and make sure that you’re attending to all of them. However, it can be easy to fall into a trap. In environments where we do not see as much supervision and accountability, we may not put forth the same efforts or begin acting in areas that feel like lighter lifts, which might not have the impact that they usually do. Do not forget that it is a hard road sometimes. So be sure that you’re always making sure that you’re choosing the harder right over that easy wrong.

The second piece is to keep your schedule. Remember, our jobs have not changed. So we’re not changing what we do. We’re only changing how we do it and how we go about it. Here, personal time management becomes even more critical. As we work more from home and more remotely, keeping a tight reign on our calendar and our daily tasks becomes even more serious. Understanding what all our different priorities, stakeholders, and what the information they need is a delicate act. Make sure to keep a running list of everything. Manage your calendar very carefully. Prioritize your tasks, because itis going to make a world of difference because we don’t have the same level of accountability, and we do not see the same stewardship that we usually see in our daily lives.

The last piece is to remember that it is a balance. Where do our work stop and our private life begin? When you’re working in the same area, and your commute is across your living room, how are you balancing everything out? How are you making sure that every time you pass through that same room, you’re not checking your email, even at seven, eight o’clock at night? Be sure to draw the same limits that you drew during your time in more-traditional environments. If you did not respond to an email at eight o’clock at night before, do not start now. We’re still doing the same things we’ve always done. We’re just changing how we’ve done them.

In the end, when we are faced with the struggle of an upended work-life balance when we face the battle of complicated changes in how we work. First, remember what your passions are and why you do what you do. Second, make sure that your time management skills are healthy and that you are following through on all of your responsibilities. And that you are staying well organized in the face of a new class of accountability and oversight. Lastly, maintain your balance. Make sure that you’re finding a way to be you and do the things you enjoy, while not feeling trapped. At the same time, your work is getting the same careful attention that it always has.

Ed Brzychcy is former U.S. Army Infantry Staff-Sergeant with service across 3 combat deployments to Iraq. After his time in the military, he received his MBA from Babson College and now coaches organizational leadership and growth through his consultancy, Blue Cord Management and leads the C-Suite Network Veteran Business Leaders Council. 

Categories
Best Practices Growth Management Personal Development

Crafting Culture

Crafting culture goes beyond adding a suggestion box in the office corridor. An organization’s culture can be a deliberate choice for every business; however, many organizations weave it to become something that becomes unconscionably crafted through the lives, actions, and experiences of the people within that organization. The tough part about culture is that it is always an end state and an aggregate result. As organizations, we have to be deliberate in crafting the type of culture that we want to see within our organizations through the actions, standards, and norms which are true to our values not only as an organization but as people and as executives.

There are deliberate steps to this, and all require prudent and strategic decisions on behalf of the individual employees, leaders, executives within the organization.

First, being deliberate early on and setting the standards from when a company is small, everyone’s wearing different hats, and there is a rapid startup mentality. Early on during this stage, organizational leaders have to be able to say, “This is the culture that we want for our organization, this is the feeling that we want to build, this is the way we want the interactions to be, and these is the norms and the values of our organization.” If we don’t set all of these early, they can each become unconsciously set, and changing it, especially a radical change, becomes exceedingly difficult, if not impossible.

The same goes as we are growing our organizations. It means carefully selecting and onboarding personnel on the norms and traditions of the company. Onboarding these ideas is not making sure that they are a quick 15 minute PowerPoint within a business’s onboarding process. It is making sure that new employees see great examples, understand the leader’s messages, and that the leaders themselves are espousing these values so that they can pass them on. It’s having these standards being acted out on and the value statement moving off the poster into the break room on the break room wall into everybody’s daily interactions and actions.

The last piece is to remain focused on growth. This is something that culture yes is an end state and aggregate result, but it is continuously changing based on the lives, actions, and experiences of the people. So what happens within the organization contributes to the future culture of that organization. This means that organizations and leaders are finding ways to encourage the informal influencers in the organization to build new ideas, achieve new goals, and share information about what is in line with the overall strategic arc of the company and where they want to go and what they want to achieve in the future—making sure that the people taking action are espousing the ideas that enable that action to happen. Culture is mutable and constantly adjusting for the situations companies find themselves in.

Current circumstances provide new input, changes, challenges, and opportunities for companies to build towards better cultural pieces. New and current situations offer ideas that can be espoused to remain ahead and competitive within their markets. These ideas do not always have to be a top-down push, and most times, this is going to be something that is a grassroots effort. Because something is going to work down in the line somewhere and having the frameworks in a place where these ideas, best practices, and influence can be shared is incredibly powerful.

As organizational leaders, we have to focus on these 360 degrees of influence and find the people within the organization that can drive the organization towards greater success with these new ideas, with these new experiences. What leadership allows to happen influences this greatly. Whether it be good, bad, or left unsaid, all of these actions contribute to the culture of an organization, and often something weak that’s adding into the lifestyle and remains unspoken about is allowed to continue—diminishing the overall culture of the organization.

Executives must act decisively and make sure that the culture is being steered in the right way, and that the personnel within the organization know what’s right, wrong, and acceptable, as well as know where they can be pushing the envelope to develop these new ideas. Crafting culture should not be left as free for all. It is something that everyone can contribute to, but it has to be guided.

For organizations that want to see cultural development of any type, there are best practices: Being open to new suggestions and ideas, especially informally helps immeasurably. Do not expect people to put things into a suggestion box that’s then blindly read and never acted on. Cultural development is based on the interactions of people. And in those interactions, we have to encourage what we want to see more of, and we have to nip problems in the bud quickly before they become systemic or swept under the carpet. We have to show both what we do want and what we don’t want for our companies.

Ed Brzychcy is former U.S. Army Infantry Staff-Sergeant with service across 3 combat deployments to Iraq. After his time in the military, he received his MBA from Babson College and now coaches organizational leadership and growth through his consultancy, Blue Cord Management.

Categories
Growth Human Resources Management Personal Development

The Leadership Bottom Line

There is an old meme that’s been floating around the Internet for a long time where it says, “CFO asks CEO, ‘What happens if we invest in developing our people and they leave?’ And the CEO responds, ‘What happens if we don’t, and they stay?'” This popular meme highlights the major issue in leadership development. While training and support for leadership is a line item for every organization, what is the ROI? When we look at it, it is an expense, and it can be significant, depending on how much an organization wants to invest in its people. However, the costs of not taking it are substantial. We need to start diving into organizations and exploring the aspects of what the aggregate effect of healthy leadership development are and how we show that it is a genuine and sincere need for our organization.

I think back to some of the earliest people I’ve coached where I saw a young leader who’s good at their job, then she gets promoted and is now the team leader and is expected to oversee the people who are doing the job that she used to do. When we look at it on a technical basis, she should be very good at that, and she knows the job, she has the ins and outs. But does she know how to delegate? Does she know how to step back and view her new organizational role and how those relationships have to grow? These skills and concepts are what proper leadership development brings into an organization.

I was speaking to a new project manager not too long ago, and he was proud that he completed his first project under time and budget. When I asked him how he made it happen, he said that he had spent the extra nights and weekends and worked himself to make sure the job got done.

Sorry, skippy, that’s not how it works. It’s not sustainable.

Making sure that new leaders have robust development opportunities available is crucial; this is true for experienced leaders as well. What happens when you have that one weak leader in your organization? You regularly see people in his team turning over because it’s just an unhealthy environment, and they don’t like working there. The common denominator is that one weak leader. Think about the extended costs of rehiring and retraining. Even if they are low, entry-level employees, those costs add up. The reputation of the organization can become tarnished. There’s a cost there. Development for executive teams falls along similar lines. What happens when we don’t set and exemplify a cultural precedent of what is expected in our organization? What happens when we don’t show people we care about their personal and professional development to inspire some of their loyalty, where they can see growth opportunities within the company. Let’s be honest; many people leave when they don’t see that opportunity for personal and professional development within their roles. They’re looking to see that next step. Sometimes it’s a leadership position. Sometimes it’s just simple job expansion. But if that’s not available, they’re going to look elsewhere.

These phenomenons become something that when we look at conversations at an organizational level, and we understand that, yes, this is a significant expense for some of our organizations. Still, it is a substantial investment in the organization’s future because we don’t want to keep bringing new people in through the door or to be losing out top talent and the productivity, organizational knowledge, and networks that come with them.

We don’t want to keep losing the best people that we have at any level. Unless we take the time to build proper development into our organizations, we’re going to fall short every time.

Invest in your people, invest in your organization, and invest in your future. That’s the power of leadership development. It’s not something where you are going to see immediate returns, but it’s going to be a huge stone that has a massive ripple effect when we toss it into that larger pond. It’s going to affect and touch every piece of our organization’s success. Robust leadership development is the only sustainable competitive advantage an organization can have because that’s what allows organizations to continually adapt and adjust and overcome the circumstances that they find themselves in, take advantage of new opportunities, and surmount the challenges before them.

Ed Brzychcy is former U.S. Army Infantry Staff-Sergeant with service across 3 combat deployments to Iraq. After his time in the military, he received his MBA from Babson College and now coaches organizational leadership and growth through his consultancy, Blue Cord Management.

Categories
Growth Human Resources Management Personal Development

Being In Charge

There’s a difference between being in charge and having things in your charge

Leadership is problematic for leaders. Of all the things that a person might have to do during their day, leading others can be one of the most challenging because of one idea; by definition, leadership is never a solo activity. Every leader is responsible for the outcome of other people’s actions—good or bad.
Every aspect of leadership is precariously balanced in this relationship. It is a matter of ownership, responsibility, trust, and outcomes. Most importantly, it involves other people.

This relationship creates an uncomfortable situation for many leaders; you’re not really in charge. Whether it be your team, situation, or outcomes, you’re not fully in control of what happens when and how. That’s entirely within the realm of the people that you lead.

Leadership is a tough pill to swallow because it means giving up much direct control

It is easy to take control of something because while being in control of the outcomes, you’re also directly responsible and accountable for the actions and decisions that result in the said outcome. Leadership is moving past this direct control and allowing others to hold these lower levels of responsibility and ownership while keeping them accountable and inspiring them towards action. That’s the hard part. Letting go and trusting others to be responsible.

We need teams to accomplish things that we cannot perform ourselves. We cannot concentrate on the minutia while at the same time, ensuring that our overall success comes out of our team’s actions. While we’re responsible, as leaders, we’re not really ‘in charge.’ There are too many variables for us to keep track of them all; we need our team to do so.

What this creates is a situation that is ‘in our charge.’ As leaders, we’re ultimately responsible for the outcomes and whether or not our teams are successful in their endeavors. Our ultimate barometer becomes mission success while taking care of our team’s needs.

Taking heed to that, and remembering that things are in our charge allows us to do that one very difficult thing, let go. We’re able to absolve ourselves of the smaller responsibilities that go into accomplishing our larger tasks. We can more effectively delegate because we acknowledge that we do not have direct control over the individual actions. Instead, we’re setting the conditions for them to take place, and for our teams to be successful in executing them.

Having something in our charge does not remove our responsibly, it redirects it. While we’re in charge of something, we tend to micromanage because we give ourselves the unconscious idea that we have to be responsible for every little detail. And wind up making sure that things are done to a T. Having thing in our change allows us to give our team more freedom of mobility and have them excel in their areas while contributing to the broader solution.

With this change of perspective, we can much more effectively delegate, trust, and oversee what our teams are doing. It doesn’t matter that we track every microsecond of our team’s performance. Instead, we give our teams the signal and then the support that they need to excel ta their part of the pie and the ownership to be proud of the results that they bring to the table.

Ed Brzychcy is former U.S. Army Infantry Staff-Sergeant with service across 3 combat deployments to Iraq. After his time in the military, he received his MBA from Babson College and now coaches organizational leadership and growth through his consultancy, Blue Cord Management.

Categories
Growth Management Personal Development

Leadership Coaches and Mentors

There are few forces as powerful as mentors and coaches in leadership development. As individual leaders, we learn our best habits, skills, and insights through having influential individuals in our lives. In time, we use our experiences with them to become coaches and mentors to others. But each role, coaches and mentors, is subtly different from one another, and both are necessary for the proper growth and development of leadership capacities.

 Future leaders need a solid example of how to lead.

Coaches build expertise and provide accountability. As coaches, we help set goals, expectations, and development for our team members and those within our scope of responsibility. We are providing support, assisting in establishing and building careers and personal development, while also providing a level of accountability. This last piece is critical because our team members are answerable to us. This relationship adds an often uncomfortable dynamic in these relationships where the cost of coming up short can lead to stressful situations. As coaches, we have to be able to allow our teams the freedom to explore new areas and try new things. At the same time, we keep our teams grounded in their responsibilities and hold them accountable for their contributions and work.

A mentor helps with these tough situations. Mentors are advisors and guides, not supervisors. Developing leaders are not directly answerable or accountable to their mentors, and they are not professionally responsible for any suggestions, advise, or work that mentors provide. As mentors, we provide advice, assistance, and an outside, third-party, perspective, and only hold our mentees accountable in a personal setting. There are no professional penalties if they fall short on expectations or fail to deliver results—although this may impair any relationships. This dynamic provides great strength towards mentoring-style relationships. They are excellent for advice and asking tough questions while receiving impartial and clear guidance on how to proceed under challenging situations.

Growing and developing leaders requires both ends of this spectrum of support. Future leaders need a solid example of how to lead. No text or training program can provide the substantial influence of having a great leader and a great example to follow. A great coach provides direction and accountability. They help to push leaders out of their comfort zone and expand their horizons, knowledge, and skills. A great mentor allows for a better area to have the difficult conversations around navigating these murky seas.

Developing leaders will face difficult situations which they will be uncomfortable discussing with their leaders, especially where accountability and failure are at stake. A mentor provides experienced insights into these situations and can help give answers to the tough questions. Both are necessary for developing the core leaders in every organization.

Ed Brzychcy is former U.S. Army Infantry Staff-Sergeant with service across 3 combat deployments to Iraq. After his time in the military, he received his MBA from Babson College and now coaches organizational leadership and growth through his consultancy, Blue Cord Management.

Categories
Growth Leadership Personal Development

Building Personal Persistence

Persistence can be a leader’s most invaluable asset

It happens to us all, everything is all set, our plans are laid out, and we set out on a new project. Then, something comes out of the blue, blindsides us, and for a reason that is entirely out of our control, we fall short of our goals.
This situation is where our persistence comes into play. There are several steps for us to take to make sure that we can effectively move onwards from such a shortfall.

We have to remember that our accomplishments do not define us. We are defined by the challenges we overcame to get there.

First, we have to remember that everything is relative, especially when we fall short of our own (or other’s) expectations. Right away, we are our own worst enemies, and once we start doing down that downward spiral of self-defeat, it continually becomes harder to get out of it. Keeping things in perspective allows us to see our missteps as just that, missteps. Everyone makes mistakes, and this one happens to be one of ours.

Second, we take ownership. Passing the buck, or playing the blame game gets us nowhere but hurt feelings. Moreover, misery loves company, but miserable people rarely get things done. By taking ownership, we retain control over the situation and give ourselves the change to make things right. Ownership is a powerful force. By reining in it, we help ourselves to ensure that the effects of our mistakes go no further than they have to and that we can immediately begin working on a solution.

Lastly, we have to get back to work. Proactively finding a solution helps us do two things: solve the problems we’ve created, and learn how not to make a mistake again. Sweeping things under the carpet, and trying to move on as nothing happened only allows for the error to happen again, often with more severe consequences. Proactively finding a solution by getting to the root cause of the problem helps us analyze how it happened and creates an iterative solution that helps to make sure that the same mistake is not made twice.

We all make mistakes, it is a natural part of being human. In making mistakes, we often become our own worst enemy, either by trying to ignore them or passing the blame onto someone else. In doing this, the attitude we display matter most. We have to keep our heads up and not allow our missteps to back us up more than they have to. We have to remember that this project is our responsibility, and we will see it through to success. Our determination, perseverance, and positivity help this like nothing else. No-one likes a complainer; no-one wants to hear what a problem is because it forces them to think that it is becoming their responsibly to fix. By keeping a proactive, solutions-orientated, mindset, we can ask for advice and assistance, without coming across as trying to rope someone into a lost cause. It comes down to HOW we face our challenges. When we adopt the right mindset, we’re good to go. Failing to do so is a chief cause of further failures.

We all want to be successful after all our successes give us a much higher feeling of satisfaction than the frustration of coming up short. We have to remember that our accomplishments do not define us. We are defined by the challenges we overcame to get there.

Categories
Best Practices Growth Management Personal Development

Why Your Managers Need a Coach

Hiring an outside coach is a big deal. There is a thriving, $12B coaching industry in the U.S., with a majority of that industry concentrating on the executive levels of organizations.

This focus is clear because executives are the high-level people in businesses, they have the internal attention, the outside eyes, and the largest share of responsibility towards driving the success of the practice. In short, high-level players get high-level investments.

Coaching is a critical investment for every organization. After all, personal development and growth should be a sizeable strategic focus for businesses, especially with today’s dynamic, competitive, and challenging labor market. Recruiting, growing, and retaining the best people for their jobs should always be a strategic priority.

The challenge arises in looking into organizations, and their personnel growth tracks, where identifying the high-performance, high-potential players becomes murky. After all, we can all agree that soft-skills such as communications, working with others, and character are critical to leadership development. However, these ideas are rarely tested, developed, and measured as potential leaders are growing. It often comes down to a “gut feeling” on the part of the evaluator or supervisor.

“A growing gap between strategy and execution exists.”

 

Middle management can be one of the most challenging positions in business, and a lack of support can only make it more so. Balancing strategy and execution is a difficult task, simply because it boils down to working on potentially conflicting priorities. It comes down to the questions of how can one manage the needs of their teams, support their people, and grow their organization while at the same time making sure that all strategic priorities and metrics are met (or ideally exceeded).

These situations are where the outside coach brings in the most significant value. Personal development is crucial, but when a middle manager has a problem, where do they go for unbiased and objective advice on solving delicate, and sensitive, issues in their team? While all leadership should be great coaches, it can be challenging to remove this unconscious bias, especially when a supervisory-level responsibility is in place.

Many people don’t like talking to their bosses because they worry that bringing up problems can lead to an inherent bias in future performance reviews.

Also, direct supervisors are parallel to any problems and can see things through a similar lens. Homogeneous thinking can become the doom of any organization; as the more in-line everyone becomes, the more difficult out-of-the-box or truly innovative thought becomes. Innovation is taking old experiences and finding new ways to look at them and new ways to implement the lessons from them. This naturally becomes more difficult as more people have similar experiences.

The power of coaching helps to close these gaps. First, an outside coach brings an unbiased, purely objective viewpoint into a situation. It provides a space for managers and supervisors to vent and speak about their problems without the (often unconscious, unfounded, or unintended) fear of repercussions. At the same time, the advice, critiques, and thoughts that coaches provide come from an outside view, from a genuinely different experience pool, allowing for more innovative problem solving and more easily uncovering the many angles to today’s complex businesses issues.

Categories
Best Practices Growth Leadership Personal Development

Keep It Simple: Lessons from D-Day

6 June 1944, 132,000 men storm ashore in the most massive amphibious assault in history. They are the spearhead to one of the largest, most complex, and crucial Allied operation of World War II.

Months of intelligence, planning, preparing, and even diversionary operations all came to a head in one grand event. Despite all this, General Montgomery, the ground commander for all Anglo-American forces under General Eisenhower, collected his battle plans for the invasion on a single piece of paper.
His note at the end was “Simplicity“.

It’s an old rule for military operations; no battle plan survives first contact with the enemy. The same can be said for many of our business plans, objectives, and goals. No business plan survives first contact with the customer, supplier, or other stakeholders.

For business, many of us are enamored with creating the most complex, comprehensive, and all-inclusive plan that covers as many contingencies as possible. However, the fact of the matter is that, no matter how hard we try, the contingencies will always get the better of us. Because the more complicated we make things, the more rigid they become, and the more difficult they are to change when it is most necessary – when things go wrong.

Everyday operations are one thing, but in business today, we are continually looking at more complex, dynamic, and competitive environments. Moreover, the more we try to adapt, change, and invoke order and design upon them the more we see ourselves being forced into one corner or another because the rigidity of our plans will not allow for on-the-spot improvisation, adaptability, and ease of realignment.

General Montgomery knew this as he was preparing his men to invade Fortress Europe. Also, he knew what was in his control once the wheels started turning, and once the battle plan was put to action that this was precious little. Once his men were on the boats, on their way across the English Channel, his influence was restrained, and he could do little to make any necessary changes.

His commanders on the ground accomplished these necessary adjustments, and these commander’s objectives, in turn, were achieved by their subordinates. Every man involved knew the plan and their goals. So each was empowered to make the necessary decisions to accomplish their objectives and missions.
This simplicity and trust serve as the penultimate example for us to follow as leaders in each of our realms, in the military, business, or entrepreneurship.

Our lanes and responsibilities are vast, especially as we move higher up in our relative hierarchies. However, we have to recognize that as our responsibilities widen, our ability to directly influence events and outcomes narrows. We cannot have our hands in everything. We do not have the luxury to dictate how everything will go in dynamic and changing environments. We have to have the ability to step back, lay the groundwork, provide the key frameworks to work within, and then allow our people to move forward with the support, training, and guidance that we provide them.

It can be said that very few things went off without a hitch on that fateful day in 1944. However, the preparedness and success of the men involved was not a matter of their superior officers holding their hands and guiding them through the operation step-by-step. It was a matter of being given the most robust possible guidance, training, equipment, and then letting them do their jobs, frequently adapting and improvising as necessary.

Image courtesy of the Imperial War Museum.
Categories
Best Practices Growth Leadership Personal Development

The True Test of Leadership Effectiveness: Dealing with Change

When things are running smoothly, all we need to do is have the proper management to keep the trains running on time. This statement, combined with the idea that 99.9% of the time things are going well, is what leads to businesses falling behind, losing market share, and ultimately facing failure in the great game of business.

Complacency kills. It was what lead us into an ambush during my tours overseas, and it is what leads to businesses missing out on crucial opportunities to grow and thrive in complex and dynamic marketplaces.

Because of this, complacent leadership should be one of the most significant weaknesses in any business’s strategy. The simple fact is that that world is ever-changing; our industries, markets, people, are all dynamic. Nothing is ever static.

Being an effective leader means that you cannot only deal with change–this implies that you are solely reactive–but to remain ahead of it.

Remaining ahead of change requires two things, knowledge and adaptability.

Today’s leaders must have a strong knowledge base around not only their sphere of influence –day-to-day activities, people, techniques–but also around the external factors of what affects each of these. They have to be able to spot trends, discover new opportunities, and learn about challenges before they become a substantial obstacle.

From this knowledge grows adaptability. We have to maintain the mindset that just because something works today, it will not necessarily be the best option tomorrow. Leaders must be able to adapt their teams to changing conditions, circumstances, and ideas. Almost all of these challenges will be because of external factors. These factors can come from anywhere, competitors, customers, suppliers, anyone that a team or business interacts with on a regular–and often indirect–basis.

A leader is never in direct control of all of the activities around them, but neither should they become purely reactionary. Great leadership resides in carefully walking the balance between the two; recognizing challenges and opportunities, adjusting where needed, and taking action when the time is right.

Ed Brzychcy is former U.S. Army Infantry Staff-Sergeant with service across three combat deployments to Iraq. After his time in the military, he received his MBA from Babson College and now coaches organizational leadership and growth through his consultancy, Blue Cord Management.

Categories
Best Practices Growth Leadership Personal Development

The Power of Perspective

Why Perspective Matters

Today’s business environment, markets, and industries are nothing if not complex and multi-faceted. Apple owning Amazon $30million a month despite competing across multiple verticles attests to the complexities of the relationships that business leaders face daily. However, with every new relationship, with every new facet that we see in business and organizations, the complexity is only compounded by the fact that every one of us views these differently. This matters in working on customer and employee experience, product design and customization, marketing and sales outreach, financial and investor relations, every single aspect of business that involves people. Moreover, that is every part of our companies.

Putting Different Viewpoints Together

Being able to see other’s viewpoints, and putting yourself in someone else’s shoes can become one of the most challenging pieces in creating better relationships. After all, we all know our customers and what they want, but have we taken the time to truly understand what the customer goes through when interacting with our business.

One of my favorite stories is from Expereince Enterprises is how they had a call center manager call into his system and the (almost predictable) results that came about.

Taking the time, asking genuine—open-ended—questions, and reminding ourselves that our businesses are not one-sided, makes a difference in how we can grow and differentiate our organizations.

Omnipotence and Adaptability

None of us knows everything, and fewer of us can see the complex picture of today’s business ecosystems. Every strategic framework that I have seen and used presents an intriguing structure, but most leave more questions than answers.
Filling the gaps in our knowledge is essential, but to truly grasp, interpret, and act on this information we need people. We need different viewpoints, experiences, ideas, and motivations to become successful.

Moreover, this allows for increased adaptability and resilience in our organizations. The ability to critically think around problems, solve issues by using old ideas in new ways provides for far-reaching implications in our practices. It is not about re-inventing the wheel when anything goes awry but finding ways to reimplement and adapt old knowledge in new ways. Being mindful of the various perspectives, ideas, and abilities within an organization allow for this to happen. The greatest mistake in business is often saying, “We have always done it that way” and allowing no further room for additional input.

Ed Brzychcy is former U.S. Army Infantry Staff-Sergeant with service across three combat deployments to Iraq. After his time in the military, he received his MBA from Babson College and now coaches organizational leadership and growth through his consultancy, Blue Cord Management.