Cultivate a blend of personal humility and indomitable will, channeling your ambition into a cause or purpose larger than yourself. This leadership style is crucial for transforming organizations from good to great and can be developed over time.
Begin any decision-making process or strategic planning by honestly accounting for the brutal facts, rather than starting with what you want or hope to happen. This enhances clarity and prevents denial of risks, which is a key step in avoiding organizational decline.
Identify the specific, inexorable underlying logic that drives momentum in your work or organization, creating a compounding effect through a series of good decisions. Consistently execute on each component, as failure in one part can halt the entire flywheel’s momentum.
Commit to consistent, disciplined progress (e.g., a specific growth rate, profitability target) every single year, regardless of external conditions. This unwavering commitment forces long-term investment and innovation, enabling you to stay ahead of disruptions and achieve superior results in turbulent environments.
Conduct small, calibrated experiments (“bullets”) with empirical validation before committing large investments (“cannonballs”). Ensure bullets are executed with excellence to get clean tests, and only scale up to cannonballs on a calibrated line of sight to extend your flywheel effectively.
Recognize that everyone experiences comparable luck events, but success comes from maximizing the return on good luck and diligently protecting against bad luck. Bad luck can be fatal, while good luck alone cannot guarantee greatness; it requires strategic capitalization.
Whenever possible, reframe “what” decisions (e.g., “what should we do about this problem?”) into “who” decisions (e.g., “who should we have involved in this problem?”). Getting the right people involved is a critical first step for effective decision-making.
Do not confuse a good decision process with a good outcome, or a bad process with a bad outcome, as results are probabilistic. A good process with an adverse outcome is preferable to a bad process with a good outcome, which reinforces poor habits and leads to long-term decline.
Maintain a healthy sense of productive paranoia, worrying about potential threats and protecting against downside risks. This mindset helps you stay alive and learn from mistakes, rather than succumbing to hubris or complacency.
Familiarize yourself with the five stages of organizational decline (hubris, undisciplined pursuit of more, denial, grasping for salvation, capitulation) to recognize and avoid them. Many companies appear healthy externally even in early stages of decline.
Shift your focus from advancing your own career to taking care of your people. This approach fosters loyalty and support, as your team will be less likely to let you fail if you genuinely prioritize their well-being.
Leadership cannot be taught but can be learned by embracing the idea of seeing what needs to be done and then exercising the art of getting people to want to join you in achieving it. Act when you feel “someone’s got to do something.”
Recognize that people primarily operate at the level of feelings, not just thoughts. Approaching discussions, negotiations, and interactions with this understanding can lead to more effective communication and outcomes.
Transition from being driven by youthful motivations or past experiences to finding sustained, joyful motivation in the work itself. This shift creates a self-perpetuating fuel for long-term engagement and fulfillment.
Write out your decisions in advance and later evaluate them, comparing your predicted reasons with the actual outcomes. This practice helps unearth biases and improve your decision-making process by highlighting consistent errors and preventing self-justification.