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1. Distribute responsibility. Strategic leaders gain their skill through practice, and practice requires a fair amount of autonomy. Top leaders should push power downward, across the organization, empowering people at all levels to make decisions. Distribution of responsibility gives potential strategic leaders the opportunity to see what happens when they take risks. It also increases the collective intelligence, adaptability, and resilience of the organization over time, by harnessing the wisdom of those outside the traditional decision-making hierarchy.
2. Be honest and open about information. Some competitive secrets (for example, about products under development) may need to remain hidden, but employees need a broad base of information if they are to become strategic leaders. Strategic leaders know that the real power in information comes not from hoarding it, but from using it to find and create new opportunities for growth.
3. Create multiple paths for raising and testing ideas. Developing and presenting ideas is a key skill for strategic leaders. Even more important is the ability to connect their ideas to the way the enterprise creates value. By setting up ways for people to bring their innovative thinking to the surface, you can help them learn to make the most of their own creativity.
4. Make it safe to fail. A company’s espoused statement of values may encourage employees to “fail fast” and learn from their errors.
5. Provide access to other strategists. Give potential strategic leaders the opportunity to meet and work with their peers across the organization.
6. Develop opportunities for experience-based learning. The vast majority of professional leadership development is informative as opposed to experiential. Classroom-based training is, after all, typically easier and less expensive to implement; it’s evidence of short-term thinking, rather than long-term investment in the leadership pipeline. Although traditional leadership training can develop good managerial skills, strategists need experience to live up to their potential.
7. Hire for transformation. Hiring decisions should be based on careful considerations of capabilities and experiences, and should aim for diversity to overcome the natural tendency of managers to select people much like themselves.
8. Bring your whole self to work. Strategic leaders understand that to tackle the most demanding situations and problems, they need to draw on everything they have learned in their lives. They want to tap into their full set of capabilities, interests, experiences, and passions to come up with innovative solutions. And they don’t want to waste their time in situations (or with organizations) that don’t align with their values.
9. Find time to reflect. Strategic leaders are skilled in what organizational theorists Chris Argyris and Donald Schön called “double-loop learning.” Single-loop learning involves thinking in depth about a situation and the problems inherent in it. Double-loop learning involves studying your own thinking about the situation — the biases and assumptions you have, and the “undiscussables” that are too difficult to raise.
10. Recognize leadership development as an ongoing practice. Strategists have the humility and intelligence to realize that their learning and development is never done, however experienced they may be.
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In the “forming” stage, team members feel moderately eager with high expectation, and they feel some anxiety regarding where they fit in and what is expected of them. They typically test the situation and the central figures, particularly the team leader. They depend on authority and hierarchy to give them a sense of place and structure, and need to find a position for themselves.
The tasks facing the team leader at this stage of development are ones providing orientation and creating structure within which the team can operate. They must define goals, provide direction, and roles for team members as well as determine the tasks and required skills.
2. Storming – problems arise from differences
During this stage, members experience a discrepancy between their initial hopes for the team and the reality of working together. At this stage, the leader must focus developing the skills of the members, define clear goals, and clarify the task at hand. This is when team development training should take place and removal of emotional blocks and barriers.
3. Norming – establish expectations of one another
Here is where the team members begin the process of trust, share responsibilities and control and begin to use a common language to express concerns. The team leader’s role here is to continue to focus on deepening skills and understanding of the role of the team.
4. Performing – focus on important issues and high volume of quality work
Characteristics of a high-performing team are typified by feelings of excitement about participating in team activities. Members exhibit high confidence, a willingness to work together and an ability to solve problems. They feel positive about past successes and now want to probe even deeper into more complex issues. A leader must help the team avoid “group think,” when members become overconfident about decisions, and stifle internal dissent.
5. Ending – the conclusion of the team’s work
This can range from permanent disbandment, to the departure of just one member from a team that will continue to operate. In this stage, members may deny the depth of their concern about the upcoming change. A leader should address the issues and try to keep morale up.
Companies born before the internet took hold have an enormous challenge: improving their online products and services at the warp speed of their online competitors.
Companies that are able to master continuous online product innovation have big advantages:
- Dramatic reductions in the time it takes to make critical product enhancements
- The ability to test new ideas quickly and cheaply, run experiments, and back out if there are any problems
- Large decreases in costs by eliminating the waste of fully developing features that fail in the market
- Rapid revenue increases from products that are continually on target, with more and better features, or functionality, every day
- Improvements in quality, reductions in errors, and greater reliability
From studying companies that excel at continuous online product innovation and companies that don’t, I have found the leaders have five capabilities that laggards have yet to master or, in some cases, even begun to pursue:
- To move fast on many fronts with minimal overhead, they are organized around small teams that are responsible for the building blocks of products (often called “services”) and have full-time leaders.
- To make numerous fast changes, they automate testing and making product updates. Product testing needs to be shortened from days, weeks, or months to minutes.This can be achieved by automating the testing process. This entails taking the step-by-step testing that has traditionally been done by people (such as making sure that a new feature works the way it’s supposed to) and coding those steps in software so that computers can do it fast yet reliably.
- To quickly and inexpensively ensure customer value and eliminate the risks of product changes, they conduct lots of small experiments.
- To keep product developers in touch with customers, they continuously inform them on how their product is performing in the market.
- To maintain perpetual customer relationships, they emphasize services over product transactions.
The ability to continuously enhance and overhaul online products is already separating the winners and losers among internet firms. Increasingly, it will affect the fortunes of every firm that must have successful online offerings.
Music Makes Repetitive Tasks More Enjoyable
Music’s effectiveness is dependent on how “immersive” a task is, referring to the creative demand of the work. When a task is clearly defined and repetitive in nature, research suggests that music is consistently helpful.
In a Noisy Workplace, Music Is An Escape
While the open-office debate rages on, one point has become clear: a noisy workplace can halt personal productivity in its tracks. Perhaps a pair of headphones may not be as distracting as some companies think:
Ambient Noise Is The Creative Sweet Spot
For those who do enjoy listening to music during creative sessions, an atmospheric presence seems to work best. Researchers have shown that a moderate noise level can get creative juices flowing, but the line is easily crossed; loud noises made it incredibly difficult to concentrate. Bellowing basses and screeching synths will do you more harm than good when engaging in deep work.
Lyrics Are Often Too Distracting
For low-immersion or physical tasks, music with lyrics can offer huge benefits. But for intensive work, lyrics are especially destructive for focus. Research shows that “intelligible” chatter—talking that can be clearly heard and understood—is what makes for a distracting environment.
Familiarity Is Best For Focus
It may be beneficial to listen to music you are familiar with if you need to intensely focus for a project. The reason being is that new music is surprising; since you don’t know what to expect, you are inclined to listen closely to see what comes next.
Music for Immersive Tasks: What Works?
Although “music that you like” should be given preference, most people have a fairly wide range of tastes, so using a certain type of music just for work isn’t out of the question.
Below we’ll cover a few proven styles, why they work, and where you can find more examples.
Classical music (Baroque)
WHY IT WORKS: Lacking in lyrics and often considered the finest form of the craft, classical music is a popular choice. One study made it clear that Baroque-period tunes have a measurable impact on productivity. However, not all classical music is created equal—the dramatic twists and turns of Toccata & Fugue in D minor might not be as appropriate as the more delicate sounds of Für Elise.
Electronic music
WHY IT WORKS: Ambient electronica tends to fit our need for present but unobtrusive. As a genre it’s repetitive, but in a good way. Unlike the ups and downs of a symphonic piece, there are quite a few producers who aim to create “soundscapes” (anyone remember Gabe from The Office?), which emphasize a few select melodies that build on each other. The song’s focus can help your focus, as the repeating tones won't be disruptive.
“Everything else”
WHY IT WORKS: Anything soft enough to not divert attention and focus is a possibility for your potential playlist—different strokes for different folks. If vocals don’t bug you during work, give them a go. Jazz, hip-hop, indie rock, blues, and everything else is up for grabs, remembering that “ambient” is the word of the day for engrossing work.
No music (ambient noise)
If you’ve had enough of these kids and their “newfangled dub steps,” fear not—sometimes the sweet sound of silence is the most fitting of all. But for many people, total silence is off-putting. There are two useful tools you can use to fix this:
- SimplyNoise — Playing a low pitch white noise in the background can be a lifesaver if something in your environment is being uncontrollably loud (such as construction work).
- RainyMood — Work like it’s drizzling outside even when it’s 90° F and the sun is shining. This plays a loop of a mild storm; turn on a fireplace video and you can get seriously cozy.
The environment you create impacts the behavior you get. When deciding what sounds will fill your workday, get deliberate: test and tweak until you find the perfect harmony. The ability to do consistently great work is what’s at stake, so think before you press play.
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