Welcome to our March business briefing.
It takes 6 minutes to read. We hope you enjoy it.
If you only ever read one book about art, it should be The Story of Art by Ernst Gombrich. It’s a beautifully constructed journey from the earliest cave paintings through all the significant developments in painting and architecture to the modern day. All illustrated with marvellous reproductions of the art itself.
At over 600 pages, it’s a sizeable book. If you’re like me, you probably have more books on the go than you can really read at one time. So for this giant, I took to leaving it open on my desk next to the keyboard and then aimed to read 2 pages a day.
Anyway, other than encouraging you to get hold of a copy (I first borrowed it repeatedly from the library for six months before my wife bought me a copy for my birthday), one of the things that strikes you is the impact that the work of Leonardo Da Vinci made, not only in art and science (anatomy, botany, geology and physics) but also warfare and philosophical reflection.
One of the traits that really differentiated Leonardo from those around him and those who had come before, was his capacity to observe: to examine things closely and for a long time; to look to see how things are and how they work; to listen and to feel in order to gain understanding. The same trait could be found in his younger contemporary Michelangelo. This was critical to their work. Developing this capacity for me is summed up in the expression “sharpening the senses” – being able to tune in with all your faculties in order to really comprehend and appreciate something.
There’s a lesson there for us in our working lives. How much time do we give to looking closely at what is going on before we take a decision or act to make a change?
If you run a team, it pays to pause and look closely at how things are and how it works the way it does. Only then is it possible to understand why things might be that way – and hence what might be done differently.
Here is a 5-day programme to think a bit like Leonardo in your work setting:
We recommend you make notes as you try this. Note-taking was one of Leonardo’s great skills – he mastered the art of thinking on paper. (see here for the 5 ways that taking great notes can help you have more impact).
And for more on Leonardo (and some potentially life changing ideas), read How to Think like Leonardo Da Vinci by Michael Gelb.
Our ideas on the Front Foot Organisation have proved extremely popular in recent months. Here is a series of 4 recent blogs on some practical steps you can take to get - and keep - your team on the front foot.
In working with leadership teams in our ‘classic’ workshop format, we bring the framework to life at four stages. At the start, we ask people to describe the future state they will be achieving in one or two years.
This ‘fast forward’ is about being clear on Direction. It builds a shared understanding of what is being aimed for and raises the expectation and hope for the next stage.
We then ask teams to consider how they can create Momentum around what they are trying to achieve, we find the ABC method works well:
A is for accelerate – what can be sped up?
B is for brake – what needs to be stopped?
C is for create – what should be started?
This is a simple but very powerful technique – we have a poster template you can use for this.
Co-ordination of everyone’s efforts is the third part of the Front Foot framework. Here we find that action planning for 5, 30 and 90 days clarifies the what, when and who. Spell out the critical actions for the next week, month and quarter. It’s a sure-fire way to build on the momentum that is emerging.
Striking the right Balance is the fourth thing to work on - the balance between:
The After Action Review process asks four useful questions for assessing progress against your 5-30-90 day plans:
From this you can also think through what else it will take to keep on the front foot in getting your ideas into action.
So, there you go – four simple methods to bring our Front Foot framework to life.
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One of us recently led a session for a group of fathers and sons at a leading school in Sydney. At this, we explored how the ‘front foot’ principles could be applied to family life by asking parents and children the following questions:
You might be interested to know that over the last couple of years we have been extending the range of courses which can be tailored to run in-house:
Getting your team onto the front foot
Move from ‘manager’ to ‘leader’| Coach, influence and inspire | Get the best from your team
Running great Meetings
Master the 7Ps of great meetings | Manage group dynamics | Navigate meeting nightmares
Selling services made easy
Relate to the customer | Listen for needs |Make the offer easy to buy | Get to ‘yes’
Building personal and team resilience
Learn the characteristics of resilience | Develop robust plans | Manage motivation
Thinking on your feet
Take ‘power notes’ | Ask great questions | Synthesise and conclude |Speak for impact
Master your personal productivity
Set successful goals |Use your strengths | Manage time | Develop productive habits
Commercial skills for health organisations
Analyse the market | Map the competition | Develop a viable offer |Prepare a business case
Put together a winning team
Profile the team | Build on strengths | Optimise the incentives| Make the right hiring choices
Email leadershiptraining@idenk.com for more details.
Best wishes
Phil and Ross
March 2011
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