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Ron Potter

Golf and Preference

by Ron Potter June 10, 2019

Let’s talk about golf!

Golf is an enigma. (Now there’s a classic understatement!)

They say golf is like life, but don’t believe them. It’s more complicated than that.”
—Gardner Dickinson

The sport abounds with perplexity and paradox: fairway and rough, dry land and water, green and sand trap. And then there are all the complexities involving mind and body.

Golf and Hand-Preference

Most of us are born with an arm/hand preference. Some of us are right-handed; others are left-handed. Golf says, “Don’t use what comes naturally! Let your other hand (your out-of-preference side) pull the swing through the ball.”

For example, for many players their right hand is dominant in all other aspects of their lives. But in golf, if they allow the right hand to control their golf swing, the ball hooks—hello rough.

However, if they learn to use their left hand effectively—a new swing style—they will hit the ball straighter and have lower scores (which, of course, in golf is better).

So how is this relevant?

Isn’t that just like leadership? If we allow our dominant preferences to always be in control, we will often not have complete success. However, we can learn to adjust our style away from a dominant (and in some cases damaging) preference and become better leaders if we are willing to make some changes.

To be successful in golf, players need to learn how to overcome or “position” their natural tendencies (or preferences) in order to hit just the right shot.

This is also true with leadership. We look for and focus on our strengths, but we are better leaders when we also allow other qualities to develop and come to the forefront. For example, it is not natural for many of us to be humble team builders. It is much easier to strive for the attention of others and build a personal résumé, ignoring the team’s input and value.

The temptation will always be to head in the other direction—toward the dominant preferences inside us and on every side in our environment. But by intentional effort we can learn to be humble and at the same time increase our success as a leader.

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Team Elements: Progress

by Ron Potter June 6, 2019

We just wrapped up the Elegance Summary for building great teams.

You may recall that we started with Aristotle’s Level Four Happiness. He described this level as being the highest form of happiness that every human being innately desires. The words he used were Truth, Love, Beauty, and Unity. There was also a fifth word in the middle. That word is Purpose. I haven’t spent a lot of time on Purpose because my assumption is that business teams know their purpose. But, if there is not a purpose for the team or the understanding of the purpose is not aligned across the team, this must be fixed first before the other elements of great teams can be effective.

TREC

I’ve altered Aristotle’s terms of Truth, Love, Beauty, and Unity to Truth, Respect, Elegance, and Commitment. The reason for the change is to use language better suited to the business environment and to put together an acronym that may help you remember the list more easily.

Truth is Truth

The word truth doesn’t need to be changed. Truth is truth. Sort of. Each of us builds our truth based on experiences, environment, history, beliefs and others. It’s important that a team share their beliefs and assumptions so that truth is understood.

Love is Respect

I had one business leader tell me not to use the word love in their meeting. They were tough-minded business people and the emotion of love did not come into their decision making. The love that Aristotle was talking about was the Greek word agape. It has nothing to do with emotion, it is related to respect and how you treat others.

Beauty is Elegance

Beauty may be the hardest one to understand in a business context. In the business world aesthetic’s are not the main issue although companies like Apple have proved that devices that are beautiful also have business appeal. But here I’m talking about simple, elegant, efficient, unambiguous business practices. Does your business run elegantly?

TREK is TREC

An acronym to help you remember. We all know the word TREK. The definition is “a long arduous journey.” Building a great team is a long arduous journey. It doesn’t happen overnight and you’re always striving to reach your destination. I hope TREC will help you remember that it’s a journey and that it’s made up of Truth, Respect, Elegance, and Commitment.

Unity is Commitment

Our next several blog posts will be about building unity on a team. Real unity! Not just nodding of heads and not just compliance, but a deep commitment to a unified path and direction. You won’t build a team without the first three, Truth, Respect, and Elegance but without deep Commitment, the team won’t accomplish the goals of the purpose. Unity and Commitment take hard work, even as part of a long, arduous journey.

Request

I have a request to make. Most of you have been on this blog journey with me right from the start several years ago. I appreciate and cherish the fact that you’re still here reading and commenting. My goal all along was to build a community of readers where we could share concepts together.

My request to you is to share this resource with others. Whether they be colleagues, friends, family, someone you’re mentoring or even a broadcast resource that you use. Would you help spread the word and share these blogs with others? While our numbers have increased at a steady pace since the beginning, I would like to see them increase at a higher rate.

Thank you so much. I appreciate you being with me on this TREC.

Ron

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Blog Trust Me

Persist

by Ron Potter June 6, 2019

Whenever trouble comes your way, let it be an opportunity for joy. For when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be strong in character and ready for anything.”
—James 1:2-4, NLT

Why persist?

When leaders develop endurance or perseverance, they develop maturity—not only within themselves but also within their organizations and teams. Persistence breeds character as we stick to the task, bring others along with us, and develop an enduring organization. According to Julien Phillips and Allan Kennedy,

Success in instilling values appears to have had little to do with charismatic personality. Rather it derives from obvious, sincere, sustained personal commitment to the values the leaders sought to implant, coupled with extraordinary persistence in reinforcing those values.

Bringing Others Along

Leaders who persist understand the importance of bringing every part of the organization along with them. It is a time-consuming and focused activity that will eventually yield tremendous results in overall morale, productivity, and team/employee support.

A leader needs the persistence to bring these people along—they are valuable to the team’s overall balance. They may simply need the leader to either ask them questions to propel them into the future or help them visualize steps to the future outcome.

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Short Book Reviews

Wisdom at Work

by Ron Potter June 1, 2019

Ron’s Short Review: Because you are older doesn’t necessarily mean you’re wiser. But, research does find that many people who do cultivate wisdom, gather wisdom at every age. Daniel Pink in his book “Whole New Mind” noted that pattern recognition is the only cognative ability that correlates to success. Older people who have cultivated wisdom are much better at pattern recognition because of their longer experiences.

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Blog Leadership

You can lead a horse to water but he doesn’t know your resume.

by Ron Potter May 30, 2019

I know, the actual quote says “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink.” The essence of the proverb is that you can give someone an opportunity but you can’t force them to take it.

I’ve had a couple of horse-related experiences lately that got me thinking.

Equestrians

I have two granddaughters who are both equestrians. I was watching one granddaughter take her horse through the paces in the arena and then cleaning and grooming him afterward. During my time in the arena, I watched as she guided the horse through different patterns and speeds. What amazed me was that I couldn’t discern what she was doing to get the horse to speed up, slow down, turn left or right. It was almost as if the horse knew what to do and she was just along for the ride.

After her ride, she was washing, cooling down and grooming her horse. Once again, I was amazed to see this petite young woman work around this half-ton animal with no concern for getting kicked, shoved or bitten. You could see the complete trust between them. So that was my first clue. Trust!

After she released her horse to the pasture, I asked her how she got the horse to work through the different maneuvers without doing much in the saddle. Her answer was simple. “I just shift my weight and the horse knows that I want to do.” Trust and understanding!

Dallas the Leadership Horse

An article appeared in the Wall Street Journal titled “How Dallas the Leadership Horse Glues Teams Back Together.”

The article was about a company called WorkHorse that hosts team-building workshops. One story was of a team that was given the assignment to get the horses to move into a pre-defined circle in a certain amount of time. After no success and with just three minutes to go in the exercise, one of the team members dispensed with the pleasantries, walked up to Dallas the Leadership Horse and began scolding him. “Sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to do!” she said. Then she leaned against him and started pushing.

Kristen de Marco who founded WorkHorse, says she’s seen this scenario play out before. “Under pressure, some humans resort to treating equines like recalcitrant office workers, issuing orders, making threats, dangling incentives, even shoving them. None of it works.”

She says that horses can sense when a stranger’s energy doesn’t feel genuine, or fails to line up with their body language, or conveys something other than trust and respect. If you’re bossy, overconfident or inauthentic, horses just tune you out. “They can’t read your resume. They only care about who you are in the moment.”

Leadership and Teams

The bold emphasis in the previous paragraph is mine. But look at the words.

Under pressure
Genuine
Trust and Respect
Who you are in the moment

They can’t read your resume! They only care who you are in the moment.

This blog post was supposed to be a break from the Team outline that we’ve been working on since the first of the year. But it seems to have fallen right back in step with the lessons we’ve been learning along the way.

Who are you in the moment? Genuine? Authentic? Trusting? Respectful?

How are you treating the other person in the moment? Being genuine and respectful is the only means by which leadership and teamwork are successful.

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Blog Team Team Series

Team Elements – Elegance: Summary

by Ron Potter May 23, 2019

We’ve looked at three of the four sections that will help us build great teams: Truth, Respect, and now Elegance. This week’s blog is a summary of the Elegance portion that has been written about over the last three weeks.

Elegance is made up of Simplicity, Focus, and Role Clarification.

Simplicity

Simplicity: We all know the old adage KISS, Keep It Simple, Stupid. I love old adages because they’re built on truth, even if they are a little rude like this one. But the point is right on target. Keep It Simple! Once we start adding complexity to an issue, it becomes less elegant, more prone to mistakes, missteps, miss understandings, and missed results. Our human brain is lazy and overloaded. It looks for ways to simplify things so we have the capacity to understand and deal with complexity. The more we simplify the greater chance the team has to perform together.

Focus

Books have been written about how our modern technology is not only destroying our focus but is destroying our ability to focus. That’s scary to me. But, like any muscle or ability, we can enhance that ability through dedication and practice. You’re not going to be in good physical shape without regular exercise. You’re not going to be a good reader without reading on a regular and disciplined base. You’re not going to be focused without regular exercising of focus.

In every case, the concept is simple but the execution is difficult.

Go out for that walk, run, or bicycle ride on a regular basis. Get to the gym several days per week. Seems simple enough. But it takes dedication and determination
Pick up that book rather than turn on the TV or flip through social media or complete just two more games on your phone. Seems simple enough. But, there we are, watching TV, finally looking up from our social media not realizing that we just spent an hour. Time is more valuable than money. We can always earn more money. But, once you spend that hour, ten minutes or even ten seconds on something frivolous, it’s gone forever. You’ll never get it back. Focus.

Role Clarification

This one is a negative, not a positive. While simplicity and focus are things that will greatly enhance teams, demanding that everyone stay in their “swim lane” or just do their role well and don’t worry about everyone else is a negative when it comes to great teams. Yes, good teams rely on everyone knowing and doing their roles well but great teams tend to blend and mix thinking and perspectives in order to come up with the best solution. Great teams function more like orchestras where the parts blend well together and are much richer and stronger in harmony they are as individuals.

Elegance

Elegance is the third leg of our team journey. It’s an important and positive leg but is more subtle than the previous two. When we’re not sharing the truth or showing respect, it’s obvious. When our Elegance is slipping it is not always to see it happening right away. Stay diligent on this one. Look for the signs of Elegance waning. Build an Elegant team. It’s powerful!

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Blog Leadership

Enduring Leadership

by Ron Potter May 20, 2019

A.B. Meldrum once said,

Bear in mind, if you are going to amount to anything, that your success does not depend upon the brilliancy and the impetuosity with which you take hold, but upon the ever lasting and sanctified bull-doggedness with which you hang on after you have taken hold.”

Most of my clients would probably never hire me if I told them it was going to take five years to complete the major changes we talk about at the beginning of many of my consulting assignments. At one high-tech company, after three years of intensive effort to develop a new leadership style and corporate culture, the leadership team asked me to evaluate how they were doing. I asked them to rank their “completeness” in each of several major change categories. Overall, they ranked themselves at about 60 percent. I admitted that if they had asked me at the beginning of the process how long it was going to take, I would have estimated five years—so 60 percent after three years was just about right.

One strong leader whom I’m working with now took over an assignment three years ago in one of America’s largest corporations. When he was hired he was actually identified as the “change agent” that the company needed. Needed, maybe, but certainly not wanted. After three years of struggling with the internal practices of the company, he has finally assembled a leadership team that should be able to carry out the many changes that are needed to meet the firm’s looming challenges. I can recall many one-on-one conversations with him over the last three years when he wondered if he had the energy to keep going and whether it would be worth it in the end. But he has endured. I believe he will pick the fruit of an enduring company.

A leader needs to understand that he or she may quite naturally have an easy time focusing on the future or on how the future will look when certain projects, tasks, or goals are completed. Others within their teams may not be able to clearly or easily see the future, or they may be naturally pessimistic about anything involving the future. A leader needs the persistence to bring these people along—they are valuable to the team’s overall balance. They may simply need the leader to either ask them questions to propel them into the future or help them visualize steps to the future outcome.

Bringing an organization along also involves being particularly effective during times of change. Many on the team will naturally resist change, so leaders need to humbly and calmly coax people along to the new direction or vision.

Throughout the history of man, the greatest achievements have been accomplished by leaders having an against-all-odds tenacity. The unshakable convictions of the rightness of their causes have kept adventurers, explorers, entrepreneurs, and visionaries going despite overwhelming difficulty and fierce competition. They were and continue to be persistent, holding fast to their beliefs and moving the idea or the organization forward.

That’s the path to building an enduring organization.

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Blog Team Team Series

Team Elements – Elegance: Role Clarification

by Ron Potter May 16, 2019

This will be our last blog post on the Elegance section of TREC: Truth, Respect, Elegance, and Commitment. We’ll summarize these three elements in our next blog as you begin to see the entire journey to great team development.

This post, a subtopic of Elegance, is about Role Clarification but I want to start with one of those statements that seem to have gone viral in corporate speak.

Stay in your Swim Lane

If you’ve been in the corporate world over the last several years, you’ve probably heard this term. I’m not sure who started this cliche but it sure wasn’t someone who knew how to build great teams. This is NOT one of my favorite sayings. Every time I hear this statement it’s in reference to someone who has:

crossed the boundary
stepped on someone else’s toes
“presumed” to know better than the “expert” how things should or should not be done

Whatever the reason for the irritation, it sends a message that everyone is supposed to do their own job and somehow that will make the team effort successful. This message reveals a couple of beliefs at the core of team building.

Build the right set of skills, do your job and everything will be just fine.
No one has the skills or experience to question the “expert.” Questioning the expert questions their competency.

There are some fallacies in those beliefs.

Skills and competencies are what will make a team and a corporation successful. WRONG!
The reason this belief exists is that most corporations depend on the measurement of skills and competencies as the measure of internal success. Promotions, pay levels, and other rewards are based on these measurements. Research and experience points to the fact the good people skills create more success than job skills and competencies. It’s just that people skills, leadership style, and team engagement are harder to measure.
Other research shows that new creative, innovative, breakthrough ideas almost always come not from the expert but from the person who has a different perspective altogether.

Orchestras and Choirs

Teams should function more like an orchestra. If you want a quick read about what that looks like, try Maestro: A Surprising Story about leading by listening by Roger Nierenberg.

I’ve been a choir member off and on for years. I just love the harmonizing of the various parts. When it all comes together in a crescendo, it just sends a chill down your spine and sometimes brings tears to your eyes. Hearing and being a part of a 12, 50 or 100 member choir as they bring their voices together is a wonderful experience.

Rehearsals

Rehearsals are very different and a great learning experience.

The leader expects each section to know their part and perform it well
The leader will often stop us to say, “This section is not working, let’s listen to each part then put it all back together again.”
Often we’re instructed to tone our section down a bit so that the overall piece can be better understood. “Basses, tone it down. The sopranos are carrying the melody at this point and you’re drowning them out. The audience can’t hear the melody.”
“Now basses, pick up the energy and the lead from the sopranos and bring it together with the same enthusiasm.”

The orchestra conductor leads us. He expects us to know our part and corrects us when we don’t do it well. But when we do it together it sounds awesome!

Business teams don’t usually function in this manner. “Stay in your swim lanes” or “Know your job assignment and do it well.” Seldom do I hear team leaders asking a section to tone it down, work at something other than your optimum rate, blend with the team, pick up on their enthusiasm and build something great together!

Build Team

Knowing our roles is important. Building a great team means bringing it all together, not just maximizing each part!

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Blog Leadership

Arresting Avoidance

by Ron Potter May 13, 2019

The tendency to avoid problems and the emotional suffering inherent in them is the primary basis of all human mental illness.”
—M. Scott Peck

Avoidance-oriented people tend to move away from things that threaten them in order to protect themselves. Why? There are a number of reasons.

Avoidance as Protection

Often it is due to excessive concern about embarrassment. We just don’t want to be embarrassed or, more often, to embarrass someone else. We hold back—we don’t tell the truth—and poor organizational or personal behaviors are perpetuated.

Fear is another culprit. Sometimes it just seems easier to run and hide. Maybe the issue will somehow just go away? That’s classic avoidance—a sign of cowardly leadership.

Another reason for avoiding problems can be oversensitivity to the feelings or opinions of others. We just don’t want to hurt anybody. The other person is so nice; why should she have her parade rained upon? Issues are circumvented, and facts are ignored. We avoid the short-term pain and inflict a longer-term problem within the team and the organization.

And then there is the old standby character quality that causes so many problems: unhealthy pride. Some of the people who are most adept at avoidance are very proud, especially if exploring the gory details of an organizational issue might make them look bad.

Overcoming Avoidance

Leaders who develop a humble heart and a willingness to confront concerns do not allow pride to interfere. They are open to opportunities for self-growth because they are secure in who they are and are not preoccupied with themselves.

Avoidance holds back an organization whereas a commitment to improvement will positively influence your own development as well as the development of interpersonal relationships, teams, and overall company effectiveness.

It takes great courage to change a pattern of avoidance and seek instead to make improvements and overcome the pain or difficulty in making decisions, confronting people, or being overwhelmed by circumstances or self-doubt. It is not easy, but the benefits you will experience from making this change are far greater than the “benefits” of avoidance.

Freedom from avoidance enables leaders to focus attention on determining when a situation needs action and improvement.

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Blog Team Team Series

Team Elements – Elegance: Focus

by Ron Potter May 9, 2019

We’re working through the Elegance section of a TREC. TREC stands for Truth, Respect, Elegance, and Commitment. These are the four elements that make up great teams.

Elegance consists of Simplicity (our last blog post) Focus and Role Clarification. This blog post will explore Focus.

Focus

Lack of Focus is another issue that keeps teams from becoming Elegant in their approach.

I’m a baby boomer. The Beatles didn’t come on the scene until I was in my teens. I started a microcomputer software company when Microsoft was still in Albuquerque, NM before moving it to Seattle. I owned one of the first Blackberry’s on the market.

I’m not sharing all of this just to demonstrate that I’m old, I’m setting the stage by saying that I’ve seen a lot of changes in my life and career. But what I have not seen through those many years of changes is a population so distracted as I see today. I watched a person walk straight into a lamp pole while being distracted on their phone. When I’m on the highway I can immediately notice a driver several cars ahead of me when they turn their attention to their phone rather than the road and traffic. We are losing our focus people. Even scarier, we’re losing our ability to focus.

One of the more profound books I’ve read over the last several years is Deep Work, Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport. Cal gives us research, reason, and ideas on how to regain some of this lost focus. It’s well worth the read.

Over my 30 years of consulting work, the people who I would put in the category of best leaders all had an ability to focus. In fact, one common trait that began to emerge over the years was their experience and belief that they could only hold the proper focus if they kept their list of key issues to three or less. Their time frames might change, usually from quarterly to yearly but the numbers was always three. If they begin to feel distracted from those three, even if it was for very good and legitimate reasons, they would start to hand-off the responsibility to others so they could get back to their three priorities. This was also a good way to grow others in the process.

Have you begun to look at what distracts you from your primary three goals? Our technology is geared to distract us or at least to attract our attention at a moments notice.

Have you turned off the notifications on your phone?
Have you set aside a period of time each day for no email or texts?
Even more powerful, have you established an hour a day, a day per week, a few days per month when you eliminate all of the distractions to get into some deep work?

Just like Einstein’s quote on simplicity, it takes courage. But without the courage you’ll never grow, progress, reach your goals, stay focused, become an elegant performer. Another definition of elegance is:

Pleasingly graceful in appearance or manner.”

Are you and your team pleasingly graceful in your manner? Maybe you need to work on your simplicity and focus!

Stress

One final thought on focus before we leave. If you’ve fallen into the trap of being constantly distracted by your technology or connected 24/7, you will be experiencing stress in your life that is unnecessary! If you’re experiencing constant stress that you don’t seem to be able to escape, read Cal Newport‘s book, Deep Work. Just the act of focusing on a book for a while will help relieve some of the stress and you’ll find good lessons for returning to a more satisfying and less stressful approach to live and work. Focus!

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Blog Trust Me

Holding the Hill

by Ron Potter May 6, 2019

On October 29, 1941, as the world reeled from the onslaught of the Nazi regime in Europe and faced a looming threat from Japan, Winston Churchill was asked to speak at Harrow, his old school. Near the end of his two-page speech, Churchill spoke the now famous words:

Never give in, never give in, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense.”

Churchill had experienced many crushing setbacks throughout his life and political career, yet he refused to give up. He was a man of extreme courage and endurance.

Endurance

When leaders make decisions, seek to expand an organization’s borders, or want to execute an innovative idea or create change, they will encounter opposition and face the great temptation to conform or quit. How can they resist and stand strong? How can they acquire the bulldog will of a Winston Churchill and never give up?

Endurance is the result of two foundational character qualities: courage and perseverance. Both are required of leaders seeking the trust of others.

“Holding the hill” when under fire can be a terrifying and lonely experience. A leader will face a long list of challenges, which, if not faced and disarmed, can turn the most competent person into a faltering coward. I have grouped these pitfalls to courage into two categories: doubt and avoidance.

Defeating Doubt

This foe of courageous leadership comes in a variety of flavors.

First, there are the personal doubts

We may doubt our abilities, our judgment, our talents, and even our faith. We look at a problem and cannot find a solution. We attempt to fix it but cannot. Doubt oozes into our minds, and we are frozen into inactivity.

Then there are the doubts about our teams or others we depend upon

Have you ever worked with people who are overwhelmed, stressed out, resistant to change, burned out, not working together, complainers, rumor spreaders, backstabbers, non-communicators, whiners, stubborn hardheads, blamers, or unmotivated negative thinkers? When encountering such bad attitudes and behaviors that stall the progress of our teams, we are tempted to slide into despair, and our backbones turn to mush.

Next is doubt in the organization

We may see the company sliding down a hill to mediocre performance, abandoning the right values and a vibrant vision. It’s one thing to maintain your own personal courage in the place where you have influence. But it’s overwhelming to stand strong when the larger organization is waffling on its mission and embracing plans that seem doomed in the face of aggressive market competition. Your knees start to knock.

To endure as a leader, you will have to disarm doubt with gritty courage.

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Blog Team Team Series

Team Elements – Elegance: Simplicity

by Ron Potter May 2, 2019

Let’s continue our TREC to a great team.

You’ll recall that Aristotle defined four levels of the Pursuit of Happiness. Level 4 is the highest level that produces the most happiness. Aristotle’s words to describe this level were Truth, Love, Beauty, and Unity. I’ve converted those words into Truth, Respect, Elegance, and Commitment. I’ve made this conversion for a couple of reasons.

Words like Love and Beauty are not often found in our corporate language today so I’ve converted Love to Respect and Beauty to Elegance
I like to use language tricks to help you remember a concept. TREC sounds very much like the word TREK. The word TREK means a “long, arduous journey.” Building a great team is a long, arduous journey. You’re on a TREK

If you intend to start that journey of building a great team, following the concepts of TREC will help you accomplish that goal.

We’ve looked at Truth and Respect in our previous blog posts. Our next topic is Elegance which will include the subtopics of

Simplicity
Focus
Role Clarification

Today we’ll start looking at Simplicity.

Simplicity

One definition of the word Elegance says “the quality of being pleasingly ingenious and simple.”

I think every team would want to be known as ingenious. Our corporations are pushing for more innovation every day. But I think simplicity is the more powerful and difficult of the two. In fact, being ingenious in the simplest form is the most powerful type of innovation.

Albert Einstein said,

The definition of genius is taking the complex and making it simple.” He also said “Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction.”

Notice that with the pause right in the middle, he indicated that it would take courage. Taking something complex and making it simple is genius at work but it takes courage. Why?

I think one of the answers to that question is that you are a professional or expert. Often you have earned your right to be on the team because you have become a professional or an expert at something. Professionals and experts tend to make things more complex to prove themselves or show-off their genius. But, back to Einstein’s quote, any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex. Real genius happens when things are simplified, made more elegant, streamlined, easier to adjust to changes, quicker to adopt.

Part of your TREC is to come up with the simplest, most elegant solution possible. It’s not easy and it takes courage.

The other reason I’ve seen through the years for making things more complex rather than simpler is that it’s hard to be held accountable when things are bigger and more complex. I’ve seen “expert” after “expert” explain away why a plan or structure didn’t work because “who could have predicted something like that would happen in a system so complex?”

Make things simpler, clearer and less complex. Might you be held more accountable? Yes! But high-performance teams hold themselves more accountable than anyone else will.

Simplify, simplify, simplify. Take out the complexity. Bring more clarity. Be a more elegant team. People will notice.

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