The Leadership Journal

A year ago, I took up martial arts – seemed like a good idea at the time. I was looking for a forcing function to help me stay fit and learn new self defence skills.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that my martial arts instructor issues a monthly personal development bulletin, with some great leadership develpoment insights.

Last month, the theme of the bulletin was “studying the meaning of resistance”, here’s a recap of my learnings. Most of us are very resistant to change. We resist trying something new, we fear of the unknown.

Never be afraid to try something new, just becuase you might make a mistake. Remember  – it’s impossible for (even) strong leaders not to make mistakes. When we are born, we know virtually nothing. To learn anything, we must explore new territory. So, unless we behave like passive recievers of information or “guess right every time”, WE WILL ALL MAKE MISTAKES.

Some try to avoid errors by staying in familiar territory, howevever – great leaders are inquisitive, bright – they never stop learning and making mistakes.

Life is much too short to limit yourself by living in fear. The world of learning is vast and life will throw you all sorts of challenges. In responding to these challenges, we will invariable make mistakes – we’ll have some successes and failures, but it’s through these experiences that we learn invaluable life lessons.

If you don’t make any mistakes, it probably means you haven’t learnt much.

During my 10 years at Microsoft, I’ve spent a lot of time reviewing reports, looking for trends, anomalies, insights – anything that would help me understand the “what” and “why” of a report. Over time, I’ve developed a methodical approach to navigating reports, I go into “question storming” mode.

Here are some of the questions that I ponder, whilst looking at reports – I think these will work well for any report.

1. What does this report measure and why I’m I looking at it?

2. What is the key metric? (Sales Revenue, Share, License Counts, Performance Levers ??)

3. What is the target for the metric? What key assumptions, if any – were made when the target was created?

4. How well has the metric performed in relation to the target? (I look at the point in time data as well as trends, MoM & YoY

5. Does the metric have any performance levers? If so – how are they being used?

6. Does the Metric have any key performance indicators, if so – what are they and how have they performed?

Trends & Assumptions

The key to creating insights from any report is to identify trends and figure out what’s driving them. A snapshot of a report at a point in time, is not very useful because it provides no insight on historical trends or future forecasts.

Once you have good data on a key performance metric, it’s levers and key performance indicators – start looking for trends. The best way to make trends pop is to slice up the data into aggregate or all up views and segment or category specific views. Also, it’s important to review at least 1 full year of calendar year or fiscal year of data – so as to account for seasonal trends.

Good target setting is often a function of accurate assumptions made about the impact of historical trends, performance levers and competitors performance.

Find out what assumptions, if any – were used to create targets and forecasts. Often, you’ll find that any anomalies in data trends can be traced to faulty assumptions or unforeseen changes in the competitive landscape.

I used to create 3 targets – conservative, realistic & stretch. If you’re going to do that, you’ll need separate assumptions and performance levers for each set of targets.

So now you’ve got: Realistic Targets -> Accurate Forecasts -> Well thought out Assumptions – > Realistic Targets -> Accurate Forecasts -> Insightful BI Reports

As you review data performance trends, ask why 5 times? Why VTB is positive, negative, flat? Why Performance is good, bad? Why anomalies in seasonal trends, Why assumptions didn’t pan out? Why? Why? Why?

If you can get to the point where you’ve answered the why of your performance trends – 5 times, I guarantee that you’ll have relevant, useful business insights, from your BI reports.

Rotimi

Just completed my first auto biography of 2012 – “The Measure of a Man” – by Sidney Poitier.

Sidney talks about his childhood on Cat Island, his upbringing and the influence of his parents. If you read through this book, it’s not hard to see why the man has been so successful. Sidney is not just an actor – he’s an intensely driven leader who rose from nothing, with no formal education and simply drove himself to become a great entertainer.

This book is filled with insightful stories and great quotes – below are 3 of my favorite ones.

“Of all my father’s teachings, the most enduring was the one about the true measure of a man. That true measure was how well he provided for his children, and it stuck with me as if it were etched in my brain.”Sidney Poitier talking about one of the key life lessons, he learned from his Father – Reggie Poitier

“Charley never lived to see our dream fulfilled. The same cancer that declined to take me, called him back to Nature. I don’t know why he died any more than I know why I went from being a stargazer on the beaches of Cat Island to an actor in Hollywood, but I do know that I’m responsible not for what happens but for what I make of it. It’s up to me to take my own measure, to claim what’s real, to answer for myself” Sidney commenting on the death of a close friend who died from prostate cancer.

“Telling myself I would probably lose took the edge off being afraid to lose. Prepare for the worst; hope for the best. I did that a lot”.  Sidney explaining how he got through crisis after crisis.

Good book by a truly remarkable man….

“Highly innovative companies live by a set of key innovation philosophies that instill a deep, company wide comimtment to innovation“. Christensen, Gregersen & Dyer

Below is a final recap of my earlier post on the  Innovators DNA.

First – these companies make clear that innovation is everyone’s job.

Second – they make sure that distruptinve innovation is an important part of the company’s innovation portfolio

Third – they create lots of small project teams and endow them with the righ people, structure and resources to power new ideas to market.

Finally, they knowlingly take risks in the pursuite of innovation. But they mitigate the inherent risks assoicated with innovation by deploying the right people and processess in their teams and providing th right strsucture so that teams have a proper autonomy levels.

Innovative companies rely on these philosophies to create a culture that not only ignites new ideas, but tes them to market.

So, now comes the test to help you determine whether or not your company truly believes in the value of innovation and truly encourages innovation at all levels.

1. In your company, is innovation everyone’s job?

2. Are small project teams central to taking innovative ideas to market?

3. Is disruption part of your company’s innovation portfolio?

4. Does your company take smart risks in the pursuit of innovation?

Whether or not your company promotes a culture of innovation, you have an opportunity to differentiate yourself as a leader, by applying some of the innovation principles outlined in the Innovators DNA.

You may want to start out by making a more concious effort to observe work projects, initiatives or established process and asking questions about why things are done in a certain way. You may come up with a few innovative ideas of your own……

In a few months, this journal will mark it’s 3rd year, in publication. We created the Leadership Journal to help provide leadership training insights, commentary and resources for aspiring leaders, everywhere. There’s plenty of material out there, on leadership development – however we wanted to highlight relevant, tangible insights which any leader can use on a daily basis. Earlier this year, we reached a milestone when we recoreded over 25,000 comments from our readers.

Thanks to all of you who take the time to visit the leadership journal, read our posts and even leave a few comments. We hope you find our write ups thought provoking and that we’ve played a small role in helping you become better leaders.

All the best in 2012 and remember – Great leadership is constantly evolving concept – we all have room to grow, as Leaders.

Rotimi Olumide

We welcome your continued feedback on the relevance and usefulness of our write-ups and invite readers to send us questions or feedback  – @ comments@theleadershipjournal.com

I’ve recieved plenty of career advice over the years, from some great leaders. I don’t think I could say one piece of insight was the “best” ever – however, here’s one intersting insight that has stuck with me.

Growing up, I had a very wealthy Uncle – he was bright, charming, funny and incredibly worldly. He also shared my passion for building relationships with people. I’d always enjoyed spending time with him and observing how he dealt with others. So, it was only natural that I sought career advice from him, as I prepared to go to Business School.

He sat me down and asked why I wanted to pursue an MBA – I have the usual responses – improve career propspects, learn new business & leadership skills, network and help prepare myself to run my own company, some day.  He responded by giving me a piece of advice that I never forgot. He asked me learn how to read financial statements and read biographies of great leaders.

At the time, his advice seemed a little simplistic to me – now, 15 years later – I finally understand what he meant. He wanted me to understand how to intepret financial statements as a means of developing useful insights about publicly traded companies – I”m sure we can all agree that’s an important skill to develop.

More importantly, he wanted me to learn as much as possible about the success and failures of great leaders, how they responded to challenges and setbacks. Some of you may have misgivings about just how valuable the biographies of “great” leaders may be – especially in present day times.

Over the next 12 months, I will read a few biographies and share a few key learnings from some of them. I’d love to read your comments on whether or not you find my insights useful. Let’s find out just how valuable my Uncle’s advice really was…..

All the best in 2012…..