After winning race, Dario Franchitti came out to the middle of the track, knelt down, and kissed the famous one yard wide strip of bricks that marks the start/finish line.

It is traditions like these that make the Indianapolis Motor Speedway so special.

Great organizations use traditions – like kissing bricks – to build a high-performance culture.

So, if you are trying to improve engagement within your organization, take a careful look at your traditions. There are lots of ways, such as:

• Special on-boarding traditions that indoctrinate every new employee.
• Over-the-top birthday parties.
• Unusual ways of celebrating big sales wins.

In a way, it does not really matter what traditions you have, as long as they are memorable, meaningful, and consistent. These kinds of things don’t cost much, but can pay rich dividends.

The Shift Points blog is designed for Fast Lane leaders who want to leave their competitors in the dust.

Shift Your Thinking … Accelerate Your Results.

His answer: “Finding good people.”

Top performers are, by definition, very rare. Obviously, every organization wants them.

To find them, leaders should consider the four sources of talent:

• Hiring entry-level people and developing them yourself. Entry level people are a blank slate and thus have little or no baggage. However, it can take a long time (and a lot of training) to develop people into fully productive contributors.
• Hiring seasoned professionals from your direct competitors. This can be a double win, since you gain talent and your competitor loses talent. However, these people come with baggage, and will need to be “reprogrammed.” Obviously, your competitors will try to steal your best people right back.
• Hiring seasoned professionals from “adjacent industries.” For example, a construction company could hire someone from an architecture firm and retrain them to be a project manager. However, these people will require significant retraining, and many won’t be able to make the transition.
• Hiring seasoned professionals from totally unrelated industries. For example, in 1983, Apple hired John Sculley to be their CEO. Sculley was from Pepsi, and had no experience in the computer industry. This case did not work out so well, but there are many success stories as well.

Each of these four talent strategies has pros and cons. Given the scarcity of top talent, leaders would be wise to consider using all four.

The Shift Points blog is designed for Fast Lane leaders who want to leave their competitors in the dust.

Shift Your Thinking … Accelerate Your Results.

This recognition has gone through several name changes during the past 60 years. It began as National Secretaries Week in 1952. The name was changed to Professional Secretaries Week in 1981, and became Administrative Professionals Week in 2000.

Regardless of what you call it, celebrating and recognizing the contributions of the administrative professionals in your organization is important.

Awhile back, I was in a meeting where an executive team was discussing what the organization should do for their administrative team on Administrative Professionals Day. The senior executive said something I’ll never forget:

“Give them Saturday off.”

Of course, they already got Saturday off. So, this leader was sending a clear message.

This organization had the most talented and committed team of administrative professionals I had ever seen. Virtually all of them had college degrees. Some had master’s degrees. They routinely went above and beyond the call of duty, often refusing to record their overtime.

Just don’t ask me why.

The Shift Points blog is designed for Fast Lane leaders who want to leave their competitors in the dust.

Shift Your Thinking … Accelerate Your Results.

In addition, there are lots of different kinds of teams:

• A golf team is a loose collection of individuals all playing their own games. The team wins if enough people play their individual matches well. However, it is possible for an individual to win the overall trophy, yet have their team lose the match.
• A football team is a interdependent group of very diverse individuals, each of whom have very specialized skills. Some weigh 380 pounds, others weigh 180. In addition, there are sub-teams within the team, such as the offense, defense, and special teams. However, there is only one score … everyone wins or loses as a team.
• A crew team is, in contrast, much more interconnected and homogeneous group. Each member is very similar, and has a virtually identical build and skill-set. There is only one team, and they must work in perfect harmony in order to win.
• The US Olympic team is not a team at all; it is just a collection of individual athletes and disconnected teams. Frankly, most of them could care less if the US wins the overall medal count … all they care about is winning their medal.

So, rather than take your executives to a ropes course, perhaps you should simply define what you mean by team. It is harder than you might think.

The Shift Points blog is designed for Fast Lane leaders who want to leave their competitors in the dust.

Shift Your Thinking … Accelerate Your Results.

These organizations have used the bad economy as an excuse for lots of misguided management actions, such as:

• Reducing management communications, especially when it comes to discussing poor financial results or layoffs.
• Throwing temper tantrums, such as AN E-MAIL RANT IN ALL CAPS SENT BY THE CEO WHO IS PISSED-OFF.
• Eliminating recognition, even though their people are often doing two or three jobs because of layoffs.

When the economy recovers, these organizations will discover a new meaning of the accounting term, “goodwill write-down.”

In accounting, firms write-down goodwill for the reduced value of “impaired assets.”

In organizations, many leaders will say that their people are their “most important asset.” However, many have behaved so poorly that they have destroyed the goodwill of their people.

Their write-down will come in the form of reduced employee engagement, reduced retentions, difficulty in attracting new talent, etc.

Accountants have difficulty reporting these kinds of things on the income statement.

But trust us, it shows up on the bottom line.

The Shift Points blog is designed for Fast Lane leaders who want to leave their competitors in the dust.

Shift Your Thinking … Accelerate Your Results.

Immortalized by Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar (1599), this Latin phrase is still used to depict the ultimate betrayal.

In organizations, betrayal comes in all shapes and sizes:

• Your best customer steals your staff and brings the work in-house.
• Your top salesperson jumps ship and takes their clients with them.
• A key member of your inner circle “pulls a Judas” and stabs you in the back.
• Your partner plots a coup d’état to throw you out of the business.
• The person you were recruiting joins a competitor instead.

These acts, and countless others, can have devastating impacts. The betrayed can suffer deep wounds. Friendships can be permanently terminated. Cultures can be dramatically altered.

If you were the betrayer, it is time to ask for forgiveness. If you were the betrayed, you must learn to forgive.

The Shift Points blog is designed for Fast Lane leaders who want to leave their competitors in the dust.

Shift Your Thinking … Accelerate Your Results.

But, it is equally important to challenge followers with a similar question:

Are you “a follower worth leading?”

In our work, we see all kinds of organizational pathologies.

One of the most damaging is employees who undermine their boss and “throw them under the bus.” This kind of behavior kills organizational performance, and must not be tolerated.

So, what makes someone a follower worth leading?

Great followers:

• Accept (and implement) decisions that they were not included in making
• Highlight their boss’s strengths, rather than criticize their weaknesses
• Express concerns privately and directly, rather than at the water cooler
• Demonstrate loyalty and respect
• Give the boss’s initiatives their very best, even if they don’t fully agree with them
• Keep their word, meet their deadlines, and make their numbers … not one-time, but every time

Great leaders are rare. But perhaps great followers are even rarer.

The Shift Points blog is designed for Fast Lane leaders who want to leave their competitors in the dust.

Shift Your Thinking … Accelerate Your Results.

To millions, He is a leader worth following.

So, how about you?  Are you a leader worth following?

Leaders, by definition, have followers.  The question for you to consider is why they are following.

Are they following because they have to?  After all, you’re the boss.  Or, are they following because they want to.  Because they believe in you, in your vision, and in your strategy.

What makes someone a leader worth following?  There are hundreds of lists about leadership, but here are a few of our favorites.  Great leaders:

• Communicate with clarity, especially in turbulent times.
• Identify and maximize the strengths of every person on the team.
• Model the organization’s values and behaviors.
• Have a broad range of leadership styles, and use the right style and the right time.
• Create environments where people contribute because they want to, not because they have to.
• Take the blame when something goes wrong and give away the credit when something goes right.

All leaders should examine themselves and ponder another question: “Why should people follow me?”  And the answer needs to be something more compelling than, “because I’m the boss.”

The Shift Points blog is designed for Fast Lane leaders who want to leave their competitors in the dust.

Shift Your Thinking … Accelerate Your Results.

In many cases, new leaders are initially welcomed with fanfare and great expectation.

Jesus was welcomed with palm branches and shouts of hosanna.  It was His triumphal entry.

Too often, triumphal entries end with tragic exits.

The average tenure of a new C-level executive is less than 18 months.  Of course, all new leaders enter their new positions with great expectations.  Many left great jobs with great companies, and even relocated their families to take the new role.  They negotiated signing bonuses, compensation packages, and golden parachutes.  They did their due diligence, and concluded that the grass was indeed greener.

And too often, just a few weeks or months later, they are packing their bags.

Scorned.  Rejected.  Crucified.

There are many reasons why new leaders fail.  Sometimes, they misread the situation.  Or misunderstood the expectations.  Or miscalculated the expectations.  Or misplayed the politics.  Or all of the above.

The Shift Points blog is designed for Fast Lane leaders who want to leave their competitors in the dust.

Shift Your Thinking … Accelerate Your Results.

Make the right calls, and you’ll succeed.  Make the wrong calls, and you’ll be updating your resume in no time.

To succeed in a C-level transition, you must successfully complete five critical tasks.

1. You must correctly assess the situation.  This sounds easy, but many executives kick into their default management style, only to find that it was inappropriate for the situation.
2. You must correctly set expectations.  How does your boss define success?  Exactly what must you accomplish in order to retain their confidence?
3. You must quickly assess your people and make decisions about the team.  You need to build bridges, form alliances, eliminate under-performers, and terminate under-miners.  Some will cheer your arrival and sign up right away.  Others will declare loyalty but stab you in the back.
4. You must perform at least one miracle.  Jesus turned water into wine to establish His credibility and earn the allegiance of His followers.  Likewise, you must deliver results to earn the allegiance of yours
5. You must be extremely clear.  Clear about the strategy, clear about your values, clear about your expectations, and clear about the challenges ahead.   Clarity is the anecdote for anxiety.

Accomplish these five things, and your chances for success go up exponentially.

The Shift Points blog is designed for Fast Lane leaders who want to leave their competitors in the dust.

Shift Your Thinking … Accelerate Your Results.