Predictable Success®

10/01/2024

Systems and processes are a vital precursor to achieving Predictable Success.

Overdoing it can send your organization into decline – even while looking efficient.

Is your business model efficiently ineffective? Take 2 minutes and read this. It just might open your eyes to a part of your business that could operate more efficiently, and as a result, more effectively.

Systems and processes are a vital precursor to achieving Predictable Success. Overdoing it can send your organization into decline - even while looking efficient.

09/29/2024

Business growth is as much about removing constraints as it is about expansion.

Here are three things you can do this weekend to remove constraints to growth in your business:

1. Drop the one activity or project that’s most holding you back.

There’s one thing you’re doing, lurking down there in the bottom right, that you need to stop. Now.

Marshaled properly, all the energies released from that resource-suck will translate into faster business growth everywhere else in your organization.

2. Drop the one relationship that’s most holding you back.

You can only grow as fast as your most dysfunctional key relationship.

Whether it’s an employee with an abysmally low ROM (return on maintenance), a customer that drains everyone who deals with them and still is never happy, a board member who is an unhelpful, arrogant pain in the neck, or a key supplier or provider who never delivers on time: whoever it is for you (and you know who it is) – they are holding back the growth of your business.

This weekend, cut the bonds.

3. Find where you are on the growth map.

You can’t grow your business to its greatest potential – Predictable Success – unless you know where you’re starting from.

Use this simple quiz - https://predictablesuccess.com/growth-challenge-quiz/ - to find out where your business is on the path to Predictable Success this weekend.

It’ll take around 10 minutes and costs nothing. If you would like my feedback on your results, there’s a button to email the results to me.

Otherwise, it’s free and entirely confidential.

Which will you tackle first? Share in the comments below!

09/27/2024

We all do what we do because of deep-seated needs.

Most founder-owners, for example, start ventures because of a need for freedom and autonomy. Most leaders arrive in leadership positions driven by a need to make a difference.

Some needs sour, however, taking the edge off otherwise great leaders and dragging them down to the level of the merely mediocre.

Here are the three most common good-needs-gone-bad that I see otherwise excellent leaders succumb to:

1. The need to be liked
2. The need to be the smartest person in the room (or Zoom)
3. The need to be elsewhere

What about you? Which of the three most common good-needs-gone-bad do you succumb to?

09/24/2024

Amazingly, there's just one week left before we lurch into the fourth quarter of the year.

'Q4' is a weird quarter - often it’s a blur of activity as everyone lurches toward the finish line, feverishly trying to complete their goals, reach their targets.

This has two unintended consequences:

1. Perversely, that frenzied focus on 'hitting the metrics' almost always means that the entire organization's focus moves almost exclusively to the short term, and other, more important but less urgent medium and long-term goals are either ignored. or at best given minimal attention.

2. In the blur of activity in Q4, it's easy to set aside (and never pick up again) commitments and promises you made to colleagues in Q3 (or earlier).

No matter how trivial some of those commitments may be, losing sight of them in a time-crush to 'hit the numbers' sends a subliminal message to others that your leadership is transactional and mercenary, whether you mean it to or not.

As a leader, you can’t afford for either of these to happen.

So here’s how to lead in Q4 in a way that ensures you hit your metrics and keep appropriate focus on the medium- and long-term while maintaining your integrity as a leader:

A version of this article first appeared in Inc.com Listen to Les McKeown read this blog post: Amazingly, there's just one week left before we lurch into the fourth quarter of the year.  'Q4' is a weird quarter - often  it’s a blur of activity as everyone lurches toward the finish line, feveris...

09/24/2024

We’ve all experienced the frustration of realizing that a highly prized, hard-fought-for, innovative strategy has gone south.

You know the pattern: hopeful ex*****on followed by poor results, an initial period of denial, doubling down on ex*****on…then the pang of recognition that this just ain’t gonna work, and finally the painful process of unravelling from what we now accept was a flawed strategy to begin with.

Sound familiar? I see this pattern repeat frequently in the leadership teams I work with, but I’ve also noticed something else: around two-thirds of the time, there’s nothing actually wrong with the strategy itself – the core problem lies elsewhere.

Here are the three most common reasons why good strategies go bad, and how to fix them without ditching the strategy itself:

We’ve all experienced the frustration of realizing that a highly prized, hard-fought-for, innovative strategy has gone south. However, around two-thirds of the time, there’s nothing actually wrong with the strategy itself – the core problem lies elsewhere.

09/20/2024

Many leaders don’t often think formally about growth (except when year-end strategic planning comes around).

Instead they have a sort of ‘rolling conversation’ with various people, informally and intermittently – with predictably inconsistent results.

Great growth leaders put structure into their growth planning – that’s why they achieve their growth goals more often or not, and do it with less drama and more consistently than the rest.

Here are three simple ‘nail-it-down’ questions you can answer this weekend to make yourself a structured growth leader by Monday:

Most business leaders don't often think formally about business growth (except when year-end strategic planning comes around). Instead they have a sort of 'rolling conversation' with various people, informally and intermittently - with predictably inconsistent results.

09/20/2024

I spend the majority of my time with groups and teams, helping them make high-quality decisions.

You’d be surprised (or perhaps you wouldn’t) at the degree to which even highly effective individuals can become paralyzed – or at the very least, dramatically slowed down – in their decision-making capabilities once they’re placed in a team environment.

Let’s face it, most groups and teams are highly ineffective at making good quality decisions consistently, repeatedly, and without stress.

There’s something about putting a bunch of people together – however competent they may be individually – that generates redundancy, friction and confusion.

There are teams that consistently operate at a high level, however, and although they’re hard to find, I’ve had the pleasure of working with many. In every case, one thing stands out above all, and that’s the rhythm of their discussions.

What is this rhythm? Keep reading!

Master the art of high-quality team decisions with expert insights. Elevate your leadership skills and transform your team's dynamics. Ideal for growth-focused leaders in both for-profit and not-for-profit organizations. Download the free eBook for a strategic edge in decision-making!

09/18/2024

So frequently do I complete the act of writing with more of an understanding than I did when I started – that I have for some time been applying three specific editing principles in all decision-making environments.

Here are 3 Leadership Lessons I Learned From Writing Linkbait Titles Like This https://predictablesuccess.com/3-leadership-lessons-from-linkbait-titles-like-this/ https://predictablesuccess.com/3-leadership-lessons-from-linkbait-titles-like-this/

A version of this article first appeared in Inc.com Listen to Les McKeown read this blog post: I have a confession to make: I had a love-hate relationship with the column I used to write for Inc.  It goes without saying that I loved working with the fine folks at Inc. (especially my wonderful edit...

09/17/2024

One of the precepts of Predictable Success is that the core of successfully growing any organization is simple: just make – and implement – good decisions.

What differentiates serially-good-deciders from the rest of us is the most important leadership skill you will ever learn. This:
https://predictablesuccess.com/the-most-important-leadership-skill-youll-ever-learn/

09/17/2024

Success in growing any organization is relatively simple: Make good decisions more often than you make bad ones, and you win. Make bad decisions too often, and you lose.

Simple? Yes. Easy? No.

Around 70 / 80 percent of the crud that occurs when otherwise good people get together in a joint decision-making process can be eradicated by the conscious use of a simple, 20-word statement.

The 20 Most Powerful Words For Any Team

A version of this article first appeared in Inc.com Listen to Les McKeown read this blog post: Success in growing any organization is relatively simple: Make good decisions more often than you make bad ones, and you win. Make bad decisions too often, and you lose.  Simple? Yes. Easy? No.  Partic...

09/13/2024

Growing any organization effectively requires leadership over the long term.

Intermittent leadership isn’t enough. Growth leadership needs to be consistently effective over a prolonged period. One period of ineffective leadership – however short – and a considerable amount of progress can be lost.

In the worst case, a prolonged period of ineffective leadership can lose an organization its entire competitive advantage.

When you examine what happens in organizations (big and small) that lose their growthiness, the problem isn’t always that they got dumped with a poor or bad leader. Often a leader that was formerly effective just seems to ‘lose it’ once they hit CEO level.

Often what has happened in such cases is a subtle transference that’s initially hard to spot: the individual in question has traded their leadership for positionship.

Are You Leading, Or Positioning?

A flash of the bleeding obvious: Growing a business effectively over the long term requires leadership.

09/13/2024

Does your project list look like an airline departure board during a hurricane… 'Delayed', 'Delayed', 'Delayed..’?
Are your managers constantly committing to stuff that just doesn’t get finished?

Here’s the single sentence – with just three words – that will clear that departure board and Get Stuff Done:

|image1|Does your project list look like an airline departure board during a snowstorm...'Delayed', 'Delayed', Delayed..'? Are your managers constantly committing to stuff that just doesn't get finished? Here's the single sentence - with just three words - that will clear that departure board and Ge...