This is the first of a series of posts based on my review of Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive Through the Dangers of Leading ((Harvard Business School Press, 2002).

Of all the books I’ve read and reviewed on leadership, Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive Through the Dangers of Leading would be one of the top 10 books I’d recommend to any leader—from first line manager to CEO.

 

Ron Heifetz and Marty Linsky serve on the faculty at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and have written Leadership on the Line.  The book proposes that leadership—adaptive leadership (transformative leadership) isn’t for sissies. It’s a full-contact sport (art/skill). When you lead people to change, they often have to give up something and experience a loss, such as routine, comfort, values, or beliefs. It’s not easy for those following a leader who demands they focus on the truth—often painful. Rather than face the pain, they try to eliminate that pain: The leader who introduced the pain!

On the other hand, the leader has to know when to apply the heat of change and when to release the pressure valve. People can only take so much disequilibrium. So this book presents what I would call a kind of seesaw approach to good leadership with the leader on one end, the issue (including those who have to deal with it like subordinates, peers, customers, etc.) on the other end…all kept in some sort of balance by the leader’s boss/superior (sometimes the CEO)—who modulates the dynamic change and rebalances the disequilibrium caused by adaptive leadership.

This week, I’ll be making some posts about this important book. NOTE: I have reviewed an article by Heifetz and Linsky in a recent series and will also be reviewing their newest book out this year….that’s how important I believe this stuff to be. KUDOS to Heifetz and Linsky.  

How Risy is Your Comapny...Last Post

This is part of a long series in a number of postings based on the Spring 2009 Issue of OnPoint (from the Harvard Business Press) dedicated to Risk Management.

Specifically, this particular post is the last of several relating to my review of the article How Risky is Your Company (Robert Simons).


1. Risk Exposure Calculator: Simons offers a simple and powerful calculator to provide risk assessments for successful companies. The clue here is that success may breed success—but it also breeds over-reaching ambition, unbridled confidence and often unbelievable stupidity. So if your successful…read through his calculator that tracks three things: Pressures due to growth, culture and information management.

2. Levers of Control: Simons offers some tactics once you’ve discovered your exposed areas of risks. Those safeguards are 1) Belief Systems (communicating core values); 2) Boundary Systems (off-limit behaviors); 3) Diagnostic Control Systems (monitor critical performance); 4) Interactive Control Systems (stimulate learning).

My Advice: If you’re a successful company read this article immediately before you hit the skids!

How Risky is Your Company

This is part of a long series in a number of postings based on the Spring 2009 Issue of OnPoint (from the Harvard Business Press) dedicated to Risk Management.

Specifically, this particular post is the 1st of several relating to my review of the article How Risky is Your Company (Robert Simons).

Like many, I lived through and suffered through the Dot. Com boom and bust in the late 90’s. I watched young high-flying CEOs and Internet gurus tell us all that there was a new economy…basically that 2 + 2= 785! It was a nutty time. Stock options flowed, IPOs abounded and many smart but very inexperienced folks made quick money. It was like musical chairs—then the music stopped and companies folded like lawn chairs and a lot of investors lost a bundle in money, energy and effort. If they had just talked to Simons, a lot of us would have saved a lot of time and money.

Watch this blog for a series of post on how risky your company is.

Managing Risk and Reward in an Innovation Portfolio (Part 2)

This is part of a long series in a number of postings based on the Spring 2009 Issue of OnPoint (from the Harvard Business Press) dedicated to Risk Management.

Specifically, this particular post is the 2nd and final of my review of the article: Is it Real? Can We Win? Is it Worth Doing? Managing risk and Reward in an Innovation Portfolio by George S. Day

The authors offer a two step process to help filter big potential and larger risk projects to ensure success and impact. The Risk Matrix: This tool subjects an innovation to a two-step process so that the use gets a clear vision of how all projects fall within a “probability of failure” matrix.

1. First Step, projects are subjected to a inquiry on the intended market (customer behavior, bran promise, competition, ect.) and product/technology (technology competency, manufacturing and delivery systems, quality standards, etc.).

2.From this analysis a score is derived and subjected to a graph. The score of the Intended Market becomes the X-axis score on the matrix. And the Product/Technology score provides the Y-axis plot point on the matrix.

Finally, each score for all innovative products gets plotted to provide the company with a meta-analysis to assess its overall portfolio risk.

R-W-W: Is it Real? Can we win? Is it worth doing? This test is a series of triage kind of questions based on the original three designated by its code R-W-W. the next step in the inquire is breaks each of these three down into six deeper questions (two for each element in R-W-W).
For example, under "Is it Real," the authors pose two clarifying questions:

Is the market real? And Is the product real?

Then those questions are further subdivided. For example, under Is the market real, follow several defining questions like: Is there a need or desire for the product? Is the size of the potential market adequate? And, Will the customer buy it?

My Advice: A worthy article to read. And worth tracking your innovations to move ahead, while understanding the necessary risk involved.