Self-Awareness
How is leadership learnable?
How do the leaders at Bain & Company reach down to the organization and ensure alignment to corporate common ambition?
A survey is given to every project team every month using an online tool and insist that the manager of each team review and act on the results on the spot.
What is Janusian thinking?
The creative benefits that can emerge from considering opposites simultaneously.
Examples of Hidden killers of speed in an organization.
Excess Complexity, Energy Vampires, debates in committee where no person has the “D” (right to decide), lack of Monday meetings to de-bottled neck decisions and actions, leaving conflict unresolved, failure to embrace the power of repeatable models, making new growths to demand new and different capabilities.
What is the main premise of "The Founders Mentality"?
The key to sustain growth in any organization lies in maintaining the core attributes and mindset of its founders. By embracing the founder's mentality, companies can sustain growth and overcome challenges.
What are three important areas in which the founder's mentality can teach leaders valuable lessons?
Through self-awareness, common ambition, and creating a compass.
What did Unilever CEO Paul Polman and his leaders create to reduce complexity in key principles?
A document called the “Compass” consists of twelve non-negotiable principles designed to create more cohesion and reduce complexity. These non-negotiable principles are converted into plans for action.
What is the most common strategic root cause of stall-out?
The premature abandonment of the core business or inability to say no to new opportunities that don’t fit with a company’s core mission.
Leaders should be guardians of speed, what type of speed is a need in the workplace?
Speed to deliver, speed adapt, speed to solve problems, speed to the get to the root cause, speed to see crisis coming, speed to prepare and act, speed to grow.
What are the 3 main traits of the Founders Mentality?
Insurgent Mission, Frontline Obsession, and Owner's Mindset.
How did Jeff Bez combat the issue of listening to the wrong voices?
He ensured there was a designated person at key meetings to represent the customer voice at Amazon.
What happens when an organizations ambition becomes diffuse and vague?
Loses the ability to inspire, short-term financial targets and crises become a priority because there is no sight of long-term goals, and key principles get lost.
How do leaders of scale insurgents invest their time in talent?
They recruit, mentor, promote, and try to retain talent. To grow their company, they must grow their people.
What can we learn from Jabo Floyd’s (Walmart) story on embracing the founder’s mentality?
As a general manager of a DC, he embraced the founder's mentality regardless of his role in the company by focused on the company’s core values, customer-centric approach, and fostering a culture of innovation and agility. It does not need to start with the CEO. Everyone in the company should own it.
What are the three foreseeable crises when a business begins to lose the founder's mentality?
Overload, Stall-out, and Freefall.