“You do not merely want to be considered just the best of the best. You want to be considered the only ones who do what you do.”
— Jerry Garcia, Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream
The world’s greatest organizations—the ones that have happy employees, satisfied customers, and a growing bottom line—all share a common trait. They all know what they are famous for. They know why customers buy from them. They know what they need to focus on in order to continue growing. They have a clear focus on being innovators, driving quality, operational efficiency, and customer intimacy, but they never try to be all things to all people. The world’s great organizations have laser beam focus on being great at one thing and getting good at other areas.
Apple is great at being an innovative company; it’s probably the most famous innovator of recent times. Four Seasons Hotels and Nordstrom’s are world leaders in customer intimacy. Wal-Mart, Costco, and McDonald’s are famous for their consistency and good prices because of their intense focus on operational efficiency. GE is single-minded in its approach to quality—leading the world with its Six Sigma excellence.
The key is that it’s all about focus—focus on a greatness that gets the entire organization pulling in the same direction and climbing the same mountain.
Companies that are great at customer experience, like WestJet or Southwest Airlines, with their “Fun and Friendly” approach, are also very good at landing an airplane, unloading, loading it up again, and taking off faster than their competitors. Still, their key strategic focus is the customer’s experience.
Costco is known for great prices. It also has a very good return policy for defective products, but Costco’s key strategic focus is on low prices.
The same is true for individual leaders. Their strengths are what got them to where they are today. If you are a leader, you are famous for what got you the leadership job and any promotions, not for your weaknesses.
You may have been hired because you fulfilled a need the company had for a professional engineer, an MBA, or a chartered accountant. But now that you have the job, what have you done to establish yourself as the very best there is at what you do?
Today, I arrive on the job far differently from when I started out some thirty years ago. My strengths have evolved into a leadership role, and in fact, it is because I am a good leader that I have been hired for various executive roles over the last fifteen years. I started as a marketer and I was very good at what I did. I was recognized for innovation in my creativity with three very prestigious marketing awards. I realized, however, that as a marketer, even with the fancy glass awards that adorned the cabinet, I needed skills that would make me more valuable at a strategic level. The answer was to become world-class at leadership.
I began to study other leaders—past and present, good and bad. I found mentors. I turned my car into a university on wheels with countless audio books on leadership by some of the best leaders and business gurus in the world like Peters, Drucker, Waitley, Iacocca, and Welch. I read every book I could get my hands on. School was never out for me on the subject of leadership and strategy. Today, my classroom is composed of e-Books on my iPad, YouTube, blogs, and Internet sites like www.ted.com.
My key point here is: I have known lots of functional experts in marketing, finance, and operations who were amazing at their jobs. Some had awards like myself for the jobs they performed. Today, some are still in functional roles, but most have been outsourced, downsized, or put out to early retirement. Managers do not have a shelf-life. Only leaders do. Those who get good at leadership find increasingly senior roles and find it easier to break into new companies and new industries.
As I said at the beginning of this chapter, when you break into a management role, you need to work hard to become world-class at it. Become the very best accountant there is. Be renowned for your abilities to run a logistics centre. Whatever it is, be the very best! Turn your education into leadership. Get good at leading people into change. Use your drive to become the world’s best at it. Become known as the guy (or girl) who can get an engaged team of people to achieve amazing results in the face of hopeless odds.
Don’t have people reporting to you? Get good at being a leader anyway! Be the person who knows the business’ strategy inside and out. Look for every opportunity you can find to present ideas to senior management. Find an internal sponsor who is senior to you, tell him or her what you want to do, and ask for advice on becoming the company’s next leader. Show your leadership by being the absolute best there is at your job. And, while you are waiting for your moment to step onto the leadership stage, learn as much as you can about every aspect of leading.
Be famous in your network for what you do. Then become famous for leading others.
What are you good at in your business that you can do even better so you become famous for it?
If you were the absolute best in the world at what you do, what would you need to do to be recognized as such?