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Don’t Jump the Gun

By Gino Blefari | February 2nd, 2012 0 Comments

“You may not find what you were looking for, but you find something else equally important.” – Robert Noyce

Last week we discussed the overview of Chapter 3 from the book Great by Choice.  This week I would like to move onto Chapter 4: Fire Bullets, Then Cannonballs.

Imagine yourself at sea with an enemy ship approaching.  You have two choices on how to attack; 1) Fire one giant cannonball in the general direction of the enemy ship and hope it hits (using up  all of your gunpowder in the process) , or 2) fire a few bullets to align your target first, and then follow up with a cannonball for a perfect shot.   Although the first option may seem enticing, the second allows you to adjust accordingly for a more accurate and successful blast.

Before Amgen made their success in Erythropoietin (EPO), they fired lots of bullets (an empirical test aimed at learning what works and that meets three criteria: low cost, low risk, and low distraction) to figure out what would work.  Once they saw some promise in EPO, they added more gunpowder (more specific testing) and eventually shot a cannonball to execute it.   EPO became the first super-blockbuster bioengineered product in history.  If Amgen had not tested multiple avenues prior to launching, they would not be the name we know today.  Amgen could have easily fired a cannonball with the first idea they had resulting in time and money blown to pieces.

The challenge is not getting ahead of oneself.  Problems arise when companies start firing cannonballs to soon.  PSA launched a cannonball called “Fly-Drive-Sleep” which sounds like a great concept, and it could have been if PSA had fired a series of bullets in a few areas by buying one hotel and partnering with a local rental car company.  Instead, they bought and leased 25 hotels and bought a rental company.   The program went too big too fast generating losses for years to come.  The problem was there was no test; no way to work out the kinks and try other models.  PSA had one shot to win it all or lose it and they lost it.

Of course even 10Xers make mistakes firing cannonballs before they’re ready for it.  The difference is instead of trying to recover by firing another cannonball which can make things worse; they take it as a learning opportunity and start over, only firing another cannonball when it has been calibrated.  A calibrated cannonball has confirmation based on actual experience.  The other option would be an uncalibrated cannonball which would mean placing a big bet without empirical validation.

What is the point of all of this?  Well, no one can predict the future.  If we knew which bullets would stick, we would just execute those.  This is why firing multiple bullets is so important.  It gives more validation of an idea allowing us to move forward with a more educated and formulated concept ultimately resulting in more success.

I have experienced this process first hand through the development of our insurance partner, Cause Insurance, a full service, “cause driven” insurance brokerage firm with a philanthropic focus. They provide the best insurance at competitive pricing while giving up to 20% of their commissions earned to the charity of the clients’ choice.  Just think, if all 2,000 Intero agents were set up with Cause Insurance they would not only be likely  to save money and get better insurance coverage, they could potentially raise up to $200,000 for The Intero Foundation just this year and every year after that on renewal.  Of course, Cause Insurance couldn’t just pop up and be successful; they have fired many bullets, realigned, and shot again.  These bullets will continue to be shot until they are ready to shoot a calibrated cannonball with the firm evidence of success.

The following are the key points found at the end of Chapter 4 to help you better understand the effectiveness and importance of firing bullets, then cannonballs:

  • A “Fire bullet, then cannonballs” approach better explains the success of 10X companies than big-leap innovations and predictive genius.
  • A bullet is a low-cost, low-risk, and low-distraction test or experiment.  10Xers use bullets to empirically validate what will actually work.  Based on that empirical validation, they then concentrate their resources to fire a cannonball, enabling large returns from concentrated bets.
  • Our 10X cases fired a significant number of bullets that never hit anything.  They didn’t know ahead of time which bullets would hit or be successful.
  • 10Xers periodically made the mistake of firing an uncalibrated cannonball, but they tended to self-correct quickly.  The comparison cases were more likely to try to fix their mistakes by firing yet another uncalibrated cannonball, compounding their problems.
  • The idea is not to choose between bullets or cannonballs but to fire bullets first, then fire cannonballs.

Which of the following behaviors do you most need to increase?

  • Firing enough bullets
  • Resisting the temptation to fire uncalibrated cannonballs
  • Committing, by converting bullets into cannonballs once you have empirical validation

Reference: Great by Choice by Jim Collins

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Thoughts on Leadership: 20 Mile March

By Gino Blefari | January 26th, 2012 0 Comments

Last week we discussed the overview of Chapter 2 from the book Great by Choice. We discovered how 10Xers turned their weakest behaviors into their strongest. This week I would like to move on to Chapter 3: 20 Mile March.

When Jim Collins began his study, he and his team thought they might see 10X winners respond to a volatile, fast-changing world full of new opportunities by pursuing aggressive growth and making radical, big leaps, catching and riding the Next Big Wave, time and again. And yes, they did grow, and they did pursue spectacular opportunities as they grew. But the less successful comparison cases pursued much more aggressive growth and undertook big-leap, radical-change adventures to a much greater degree than the 10X winners. The 10X cases exemplified what Collins and his team came to call the 20 Mile March concept, hitting stepwise performance markers with great consistency over a long period of time, and the comparison cases did not.

For example, when John Brown became CEO of Stryker in 1977, he deliberately set a performance benchmark to drive consistent progress: Stryker would achieve 20 percent net income growth every year. This was more than a mere target, or a wish, or a hope, or a dream, or a vision. It was to use Brown’s own words, “the law.” He ingrained “the law” into the company’s culture, making it a way of life.

Imagine going to a big company meeting. You walk into the main ballroom to find sales regions arranged by performance. Those in regions that achieved their 20 Mile March get seating assignments at the front of the room; those that fell behind find themselves assigned to tables in the back of the room.

From the time John Brown became CEO in 1977 through 1998 and excluding a 1990 extraordinary gain, Stryker hit its 20 Mile March goal more than 90 percent of the time. Yet for all this self-imposed pressure, Stryker had an equally important self-imposed constraint: to never go too far, to never grow too much in a single year. According to the Wall Street Transcript, some observers criticized Brown for not being more aggressive. Brown, however, consistently chose to maintain the 20 Mile March, regardless of criticism urging him to grow Stryker at a faster pace in boom years.

The 20 Mile March is more than a philosophy. It’s about having concrete, clear, intelligent, and rigorously pursued performance mechanisms that keep you on track. The 20 Mile March creates two types of self-imposed discomfort: (1) the discomfort of unwavering commitment to high performance in difficult conditions, and (2) the discomfort of holding back in good conditions.

Some people believe that a world characterized by radical change and disruptive forces no longer favors those who engage in consistent 20 Mile Marching. Yet the great irony is that when Collins and his team examined just this type of out-of-control, fast-paced environment, they found that every 10X company exemplified the 20 Mile March principle during the era they studied. The evidence shows that the 10X companies embraced a 20 Mile March early, long before they were big companies.

In 29 events in which companies such as Stryker, Southwest Airlines, Intel, and Progressive 20 Mile Marched into turbulent industry episode, they came out of the turbulence with a good outcome in every single instance, without exception, 29 of 29, 100 percent of the time. However, in 23 events in which companies failed to 20 Mile March heading into a turbulent industry episode, they emerged from the turbulent episode with a good outcome only 2 out of 23 times.

The following are the key points found at the end of Chapter 3 to help you better understand the effectiveness and importance of 20 Mile Marching:

  • The 20 Mile March was a distinguishing factor, to an overwhelming degree, between the 10X companies and the comparison companies in our research.
  • To 20 Mile March requires hitting specified performance markers with great consistency over a long period of time. It requires two distinct types of discomfort, delivering high performance in difficult times and holding back in good times.
  • A good 20 Mile March has the following seven characteristics:
    1. Clear performance markers.
    2. Self-imposed constraints.
    3. Appropriate to the specific enterprise.
    4. Largely within the company’s control to achieve.
    5. A proper timeframe – long enough to manage, yet short   enough to have teeth.
    6. Imposed by the company upon itself.
    7. Achieved with high consistency.
  • A 20 Mile March needn’t be financial. You can have a creative march, a learning march, a service-improvement march, or any other type of march, as long as it has the primary characteristics of a good 20 Mile March.
  • The 20 Mile March builds confidence. By adhering to a 20 Mile March, no matter what challenges and unexpected shocks you encounter, you prove to yourself and your enterprise that performance is not determined by your conditions but largely by your own actions.
  • Failing to 20 Mile March leaves an organization more exposed to turbulent events. Every comparison case had at least one episode of slamming into a difficult time without having the discipline of a 20 Mile March in place, which resulted in a major setback or catastrophe.
  • The 20 Mile March helps you exert self-control in an out-of-control environment.
  • 10X winners set their own 20 Mile March, appropriate to their own enterprise; they don’t let outside pressures define it for them.
  • A company can always adopt 20 Mile March discipline even if it hasn’t had such discipline earlier in its history, as Genentech did under Levinson.

What is your 20 Mile March, something that you can commit to achieving for 15 to 30 years with as much consistency as Stryker, Southwest Airlines, Intel, and Progressive?

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Thoughts on Leadership:10Xers

By Gino Blefari | January 19th, 2012 0 Comments

Last week I introduced Chapter 1 from the book Great by Choice by Jim Collins. This week I would like to continue our discussion on this superb book and focus on Chapter 2: 10Xers, which explains how people become 10Xers.

We begin by taking a look at the story of Roald Amundsen and Robert Falcon Scott.

In October 1911, two teams of adventurers made their final preparations in their quest to be the first people in modern history to reach the South Pole. For one team, it would be a race to victory and a safe return home. For members of the second team, it would be a devastating defeat, reaching the Pole only to find the wind-whipped flags of their rivals planted 34 days earlier, followed by a race for their lives – a race that they lost in the end.

It was a near-perfect matched pair. There were two expedition leaders – Roald Amundsen, the winner, and Robert Falcon Scott, the loser – of similar ages and with comparable experience. Amundsen led the first successful journey through the Northwest Passage and joined the first expedition to spend the winter in Antarctica; Scott led a South Pole expedition in 1902, reaching 82 degrees South. Amundsen and Scott started their respective journeys for the Pole within days of each other, both facing an uncertain and unforgiving environment and no means of communication. One leader led his team to victory and safety. The other led his team to defeat and death.

What separated these two men? Why did one achieve spectacular success in such an extreme set of conditions, while the other failed even to survive? It’s a fascinating question and a vivid analogy for our overall topic. Here were two leaders, both on quests for extreme achievement in an extreme environment. And it turns out that the 10X business leaders in Collins’ research behaved very much like Amundsen and the comparison leaders behaved much more like Scott.

Amundsen and Scott achieved dramatically different outcomes not because they faced dramatically different circumstances. In the first 34 days of their respective expeditions, Amundsen and Scott had exactly the same ratio, 56 percent, of good days to bad days of weather. If they faced the same environment in the same year with the same goal, the causes of their respective success and failure simply cannot be the environment. They had divergent outcomes principally because they displayed very different behaviors.

This was also true for the leaders in Collins research study. Like Amundsen and Scott, their matched pairs were vulnerable to the same environments at the same time. Yet some leaders proved themselves to be 10Xers while leaders on the other side of the pair did not. “10Xers” (pronounced “ten-EX-ers”) is Collins term for the people who built the 10X companies. In the research he and his team did, they observed that the 10Xers shared a set of behavioral traits that distinguished them from the comparison leaders. In this chapter they introduce those traits, and in subsequent chapters they describe how their 10Xers led and built successful companies consistent with them.

So, how did the 10Xers distinguish themselves? First, 10Xers embrace a paradox of control and non-control. 10Xers then bring this idea to life by a triad of core behaviors: fanatic discipline, empirical creativity, and productive paranoia. Animating these three core behaviors is a central motivating force, Level 5 ambition. (See diagram below “10X Leadership.”) These behavioral traits, which they introduce in the remainder of chapter 2, correlate with achieving 10X results in chaotic and uncertain environments. Fanatic discipline keeps 10X enterprises on track, empirical creativity keeps them vibrant, productive paranoia keeps them alive, and Level 5 ambition provides inspired motivation.

The following are the key points found at the end of Chapter 2 to help you better understand the effectiveness and importance of 10Xers:

  • Clear-eyed and stoic, 10Xers accept, without complaint, that they face forces beyond their control, that they cannot accurately predict events, and that nothing is certain; yet they utterly reject the idea that luck, chaos, or any other external factor will determine whether they succeed or fail.
  • 10Xers display three core behaviors that, in combination, distinguish them from the leaders of the less successful comparison companies:
    ° Fanatic discipline: 10Xers display extreme consistency of action – consistency with values, goals, performance standards, and methods. They are utterly relentless, monomaniacal, unbending in their focus on their quests.
    ° Empirical creativity: When faced with uncertainty, 10Xers do not look primarily to other people, conventional wisdom, authority figures, or peers for direction; they look primarily to empirical evidence. They rely upon direct observation, practical experimentation, and direct engagement with tangible evidence. They make their bold, creative moves from a sound empirical base.
    ° Productive paranoia: 10Xers maintain hypervigilance, staying highly attuned to threats and changes in their environment, even when – especially when – all’s going well. They assume conditions will turn against them, at perhaps the worst possible moment. They channel their fear and worry into action, preparing, developing contingency plans, building buffers, and maintaining large margins of safety.
  • Underlying the three core 10Xer behaviors is a motivating force: passion and ambition for a cause or company larger than themselves. They have egos, but their egos are channeled into their companies and their purposes, not personal aggrandizement.

As you think about your career – indeed, your life – ask yourself one key question: Rank-order the core 10Xer behaviors – fanatical discipline, empirical creativity, and productive paranoid – from your strongest to weakest. What can you do to turn your weakest into your strongest?

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Thoughts on Leadership: Thriving in Uncertainty

By Gino Blefari | January 12th, 2012 0 Comments

“The best – perhaps even the only – way to predict the future is to create it.” – Peter Drucker

Last week I introduced the book GREAT BY CHOICE: Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck – Why Some Thrive Despite Them All by Jim Collins. I would like to share with you over the next several weeks Jim Collins’ insight on how the choices we make determine our success.

As I continued to work my way through the book for the second time, I realized more people can benefit from this valuable information. In this week’s message we will begin with Chapter 1: Thriving in Uncertainty.

In this chapter Collins outlines his research journey and shares some of the surprises he and his team encountered along the way.

He explains that some companies and leaders navigate in this type of world exceptionally well. They don’t merely react; they create. They don’t merely survive; they prevail. They don’t merely succeed; they thrive. They build great enterprises that can endure. He and his team did not believe that chaos, uncertainty, and instability are good; companies, leaders, organizations, and societies do not thrive on chaos. But they can thrive in chaos.

To get at the question of how, Collins and his team set out to find companies that started from a position of vulnerability, rose to become great companies with spectacular performance, and did so in unstable environments characterized by big forces, out of their control, fast moving, uncertain, and potentially harmful. They then compared these companies to a control group of companies that failed to become great in the same extreme environments, using the contrast between winners and also-rans to uncover the distinguishing factors that allow some to thrive in uncertainty.

They labeled their high-performing study cases with the name “10X” because they didn’t merely get by or just become successful. They truly thrived. Every 10X case beat its industry index by at least 10 times.

To grasp the essence of their study, consider one 10X case, Southwest Airlines. Just think of everything that slammed the airline industry from 1972 to 2002: Fuel shocks. Deregulation. Labor strife. Air-traffic-controller strikes. Crippling recessions. Interest-rate spikes. Hijackings. Bankruptcy after bankruptcy. And in 2001, the terrorist attacks of September 11. And yet if you’d invested $10,000 in Southwest Airlines on December 31, 1972 your $10,000 would have grown to nearly $12 million by the end of 2002, a return 63 times better than the general stock market. In fact, according to an analysis by Money Magazine, Southwest Airlines produced the #1 return to investors of all S&P 500 companies that were publicly traded in 1972 and held for a full 30 years to 2002. These are impressive results by any measure, but they’re astonishing when you take into account the roiling storms, destabilizing shocks, and chronic uncertainty of Southwest’s environment.

Why did Southwest overcome the odds? What did it do to master its own fate? And how did it accomplish its world-beating performance when other airlines did not? Specifically, why did Southwest become great in such an extreme environment while its direct comparison, Pacific Southwest Airlines (PSA), flailed and was rendered irrelevant, despite having the same business model in the same industry with the same opportunity to become great? This single contrast captures the essence of Collins research question.

Collins and his team have been asked by many of their students and readers, “How is this study different from their previous research into great companies, especially Built to Last and Good to Great?” The method is similar and the question of greatness is constant. But in this study, unlike any of the previous research, they selected cases not just on performance or stature but also on the extremity of the environment.

The team selected on performance plus environment for two reasons. First, they believe the future will remain unpredictable and the world unstable for the rest of our lives, and they wanted to understand the factors that distinguish great organizations, those that prevail against extreme odds, in such environments. Second, by looking at the best companies and their leaders in extreme environments, they gain insights that might otherwise remain hidden when studying leaders in more tranquil settings.

Studying leaders in an extreme environment is like conducting a behavioral-science experiment or using a laboratory separator: throw leaders into an extreme environment, and it will separate the stark differences between greatness and mediocrity. Collins’ study looks at how the truly great differed from the merely good in environments that exposed and amplified those differences.

Thriving in a chaotic world is not just a business challenge. In fact, all our work is not fundamentally about business, but about the principles that distinguish great organizations from good ones. Greatness is not just a business quest; it’s a human quest.

Next week’s Thoughts on Leadership will feature Chapter 2: 10Xers

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Thoughts on Leadership: Great by Choice

By Gino Blefari | January 5th, 2012 0 Comments

For the past few weeks, I have been listening to the book GREAT BY CHOICE: Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck – Why Some Thrive Despite Them All by Jim Collins. This book is that good and powerful. It’s also my second time reading it. Jim has authored and co-authored six books that have sold in total more than ten million copies worldwide. They include: the international bestseller Good to Great, translated into 35 languages; the classic Built to Last, a fixture on the Business Week best seller list for more than six years; and How the Mighty Fall, a New York Times bestseller that examines how great companies can self-destruct.

For the next several weeks I would like to share the book Great by Choice and Jim Collins’ insight on how the choices we make determine our success.

Jim Collins is a student and teacher of enduring great companies – how they grow, how they attain superior performance, and how good companies can become great companies. He has invested nearly a quarter of a century of research into the topic.

His most recent book Great by Choice, co-authored with Morten Hansen, shares the principles for building a truly great enterprise in unpredictable, tumultuous, and fast-moving times. Based on nine years of research, it answers the question: Why do some companies thrive in uncertainty, even chaos, and others do not?

Great by Choice distinguishes itself from Jim’s prior books by its focus not just on performance, but also on the type of unstable environments faced by leaders today.

With a team of more than twenty researchers, Collins and Hansen studied companies that rose to greatness – beating their industry indexes by a minimum of ten times over fifteen years – in environments characterized by big forces and rapid shifts that leaders could not predict or control. The research team then contrasted these “10X companies” to a carefully selected set of comparison companies that failed to achieve greatness in similarly extreme environments.

The study results were full of stimulating surprises such as:

  • The best leaders were not more risk taking, more visionary, and more creative than the comparisons; they were more disciplined, more empirical, and more paranoid.
  • Innovation by itself turns out not to be the trump card in a chaotic and uncertain world; more important is the ability to scale innovation, to blend creativity with discipline.
  • Following the belief that leading in a “fast world” always requires “fast decisions” and “fast action” is a good way to get killed.
  • The great companies changed less in reaction to a radically changing world than the comparison companies.

Great by Choice is classic Collins: contrarian, data-driven, and uplifting. He and Hansen show convincingly that, even in a chaotic and uncertain world, greatness happens by choice, not chance.

Stay tuned for next week’s Thought on Leadership which will cover Chapter 1: Thriving in Uncertainty.

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Thoughts on Leadership: The Top Five Thoughts on Leadership of 2011

By Gino Blefari | December 29th, 2011 0 Comments

Want to check out the best-of-the-best in the world of Thoughts on Leadership during 2011? The following list is the top five blogs viewed and commented on in 2011. Each helps people find not only the best leadership advice being put out today, but also gives you the tools and confidence to help bring out the leader in you.

  1. Take your MEDS and become an effective leader

    Recent brain research shows that M-E-D-S – meditation, exercise, diet and sleep – can actually improve performance. “MEDS” aren’t just actions you perform occasionally, but part of your daily life. Take time to slow down and you’ll find that this peaceful state of mind contributes to more effective leadership.
    Read More

  2. Impact and goals on the road to success

    As a leader, you’re always making an impact as other people observe you, listen to what you’re saying and make judgments about your decisions and style. But are you making the right impact? Your team members are your most valuable asset and to maximize that asset every leader needs to make a positive impact and be a role model for others.
    Read More

  3. How to turn failure into success

    Failure. We all experience it. Most of us see failure as a negative thing, which makes sense; it doesn’t feel good to fail. We all want to succeed and failure feels like a setback to that goal. What we don’t realize is that failure presents an opportunity to learn, grow and succeed. True leaders do not fear failure; they know how to use failure to their advantage.
    Read More

  4. What’s the most critical quality of today’s leader? Creativity

    If you’ve ever thought that creativity wasn’t necessary in the realm of leadership, think again. Creativity is critical to leadership success. If you want to become a more confident and successful leader and improve your leadership skills and results, including your creativity, now is the time to take advantage.
    Read More

  5. Teaching others how to accept change

    “Who Moved My Cheese?” is a rare book that can be read and understood quickly by everyone who wants to succeed in changing times. Resistance to change is a dead-end street. Don’t depend upon the status quo. Realize change happens and circumstances, which may have favored you in the past, will change in the future. Accept that you can’t control change and are not entitled to things remaining the same.
    Read More

If you embrace the principal, that each of you can be a leader, you will find within yourself a greater desire to succeed and to perform at a higher level because you represent something larger than yourself. My hope is that each of you has your most successful year ever in 2012. Strive to make it so and recognize yourself as a leader among leaders.

Happy New Year and see you at the top!

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Thoughts on Leadership: ‘Choose Your Reindeer Wisely’ and Other Great Leadership Lessons from St. Nick

By Gino Blefari | December 22nd, 2011 0 Comments

Believe it or not – there is a leadership story in good old Santa Claus. More than a round, bearded man in a red suit who jumps through chimneys to deliver toys, this old legend keeps plenty of leadership secrets that fuel his ambitions, endurance and success.

We all have challenges and St. Nick is no exception. Think of the disappointment around the world should he give in to these challenges and call it a day rather than persevere in order to keep the holiday spirit alive. This leader understands how important his job is and what it takes to maintain success.

Want to be a great leader like Santa Claus? The following are concepts that will inspire you to build and lead a better organization from a book called “The Leadership Secrets of Santa Claus”:

  • Build a wonderful workshop.
    Every year Santa has a clear purpose.
    What is your purpose? Focus on the answer to that question as well as the individuals in your organization who can take you to the top. Bottom line: create your visions and values and let those be your guide.
  • Choose your reindeer wisely.
    While all the others on the team looked down on Rudolph, Santa looked for his unique strengths. He saw how Rudolph could contribute in ways others could not, and how he could gain acceptance from fellow team members.
    In your business, promote the right people for the right reasons. Diversify your team and see the benefits of choosing different people for different strengths.
  • Make a list and check it twice.
    The presents must be made and ready to be loaded on the sleigh and delivered by December 25 – every year without fail.
    In your climb to success, make the most of what you have, create a business plan and know the power of a deadline.
  • Listen to the elves.
    There is no way Santa could get it all done by himself. He knows he’s just the front man for something much larger than himself. Without his little helpers and all the reindeer, he could not accomplish his mission.
    In your career, understand that behind every great leader is a team. Every team member knows they can’t make it on their own.
  • Get beyond the red wagons.
    Santa understands that great leadership is about moving hearts and minds, not just about moving presents around the world.
    This holiday season, as a leader, make an emotional connection with family, friends and co-workers instead of just giving them a present.
  • Share the milk and cookies.
    Santa’s figured out his values. He knows what he stands for – laughter and joy. He then delivers the same message, linked to those values, again and again every year.
    When thinking about your work ethic, know the power that consistent messages have to drive your business to success. Continue to help your team see the difference they make and everyone will perform at a higher level.
  • Find out who’s naughty and who’s nice.
    Not only does Santa realize the importance of rewarding for performance, he personally monitors your behavior throughout the whole year.
    As leaders, we know the importance of taking personal accountability for quality, especially when it comes to people and performance. How do you do this? A simple system is to coach those in need and to recognize the super star performers.
  • Be good for goodness sake.
    Santa makes a connection with people and is consistent about those things that matter the most.
    To become an exceptional leader, set the example and remember that everyone counts. Focus on developing the leaders around you and giving them their own platforms for greatness.

Apply each of these leadership lessons from Santa Claus and learn how to get big things done in your workshop all year long.

Happy Holidays!

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Thoughts on Leadership: The GIFTS that Leaders Give

By Gino Blefari | December 15th, 2011 0 Comments

This is the time of year when many people exchange gifts and messages of gratitude for the things we do for each other. As a leader, the gift you bring to your organization is important in many ways. “Gifts” take on a whole new meaning, as they aren’t material things you can hold in your hand, but qualities that you bring to the table to lead a team to success.

Here’s what we mean by G-I-F-T-S from great leaders:

G: Generosity

A leader’s generosity will spread quickly through a company. Being generous often means understanding that most people want to feel that they are part of something bigger and that what they do matters.

I: Inspiration

Leaders always make us feel we can do more than we’re currently doing. In order to inspire, a leader needs to show by example rather than tell others to be inspired.

F: Focus

Good leaders provide clear, consistent communication to all. There is no mistaking the goal and what needs to happen to achieve the goals. Bottom line, there’s power in the alignment effort that comes from focus.

T: Teamwork

Good leaders take us from “me” to “we.” The leader will model positive behavior and encourage people to work together to achieve success. There is indeed a connection between people and cross-functional communication.

S: Success

It’s the power of “we” that achieves great things. The greatest outcome is to see how someone can step up and lead a group to accomplish together what seems unattainable on our own.

A good leader brings these gifts to an organization wrapped in his or her own unique style. These contributions tend to have a lasting impact, pushing a team to success.

What are the gifts your leadership style brings? Embrace the principle of G-I-F-T-S and you will find that you and your team can go further and perform at a higher level.

As we close out the year and open a new one, we challenge you to examine the kind of gifts you give to others throughout the year. Be mindful with your contributions and you will no doubt become a superior leader in your business.

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Thoughts on Leadership: Leaders Follow Core Values

By Gino Blefari | December 8th, 2011 0 Comments

With 2012 quickly approaching; full of promise despite these challenging times, I look forward to continue to share with you, each Thursday some weekly leadership thoughts. Ralph Nader once said, “I start with the premise that the function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.” At Intero, we strive to embrace this concept. It is always with great pride that we share with all of you, the remarkable growth and pre-eminent position Intero has achieved since it was established in 2002. Central to that success has been our principal of empowering people, more specifically, our agents, employees and customers.

I want to share a piece on Core Values that my good friend Merle Whitehead, President and CEO of Realty USA, the largest independent real estate firm in New York, shared with us at our most recent Trendsetters Meeting in Anaheim, CA, during the idea exchange portion of the meeting. Merle had a vision early in his career as a real estate agent. He wanted to grow a company that would be the real estate resource for consumers in New York State. He has achieved this and more.

These core values he shared with us at the Trendsetters Meeting are valuable advice and information that can help you as you develop your business and career and in your own pursuit of better leadership. The chart below demonstrates appropriate behavior as “In Bounds” and inappropriate “Out of Bounds.”

I believe every leader must understand, value and practice each of these core values Merle Whitehead put together:

Thank you Merle Whitehead for sharing this piece. If we all embrace these core values, we will find within ourselves a greater desire to succeed and to perform at a higher level because we represent something larger than ourselves. My hope is that each of you has your most successful year ever in 2012. Strive to make it so and recognize yourself as a leader among leaders.

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Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,      Categories: Thursday's Thoughts On Leadership

Thoughts on Leadership: To Lead is to Serve

By Gino Blefari | December 1st, 2011 0 Comments

As we enter into the heart of the holiday season and we are surrounded by reminders of the spirit of giving, we should not forget what that implies; namely, that there are so many in need.

At Intero, we have always strived to create a different kind of real estate company – a company that focused on more than corporate profits and selling houses, one that endeavors to create an atmosphere that allows its people to continuously grow personally and professionally.

A center point of that philosophy is the Intero Foundation. We understand the universal law that you “must give in order to receive.” And by that we mean contributing to our communities. One of our core values is commitment, and we therefore take great pride in belonging to a company in which everyone is encouraged to donate to the Intero Foundation. We earn our living by serving our community and this gives us an opportunity to give back to them.

As a company and as individuals participation in the Intero Foundation allows us all to serve the communities we live and work in. It also serves as a foundation of leadership. Empowered by Intero agents and employees, the Intero Foundation has given over $1.9 million in grants to nonprofit organizations that support children in need. In 2011 alone, over $200,000 was granted to organizations benefitting children in need.

Another center point of the “must give in order to receive” philosophy is Intero’s business partner, Cause Insurance Services. Cause Insurance Services, LLC is the first ’cause-driven’ insurance brokerage firm in the United States. Based in San Francisco, California, they are focused on providing a broad range of insurance products and services to the consumer and commercial marketplace. They work with the country’s leading insurance carriers to deliver the world’s first cause-driven insurance platform. Their clients are provided with the best insurance at competitive pricing, and, at the same time, giving to the charity of their choice. 20% of their commissions earned are forwarded to the client’s charity, in the client’s name.

In partnership with their charity sponsors, clients and ambassadors, their mission is to ‘change the world one policy at a time.’ The Company believes their pioneering approach will provide a new source of annual giving for the clients of Cause Insurance Services and the charities that they support. This will create a unique platform upon which to build a stronger community.

Cause Insurance Services as well as Intero and its agents have always believed in the importance of giving back to communities in which we serve, and 2011 was a perfect example of ‘paying it forward.’

In his book The Other Side of Leadership, Eugene B. Hacker writes, “The true leader serves. Serves people. Serves their best interests, and in doing so will not always be popular, may not always impress. But because true leaders are motivated by loving concern, than a desire for personal glory, they are willing to pay the price.”

As we give without expecting to receive – be amazed how the universe will reward your generosity.

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