There can only be one vision
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March 15, 2011When it snows, it storms
March 28, 2011Every department, company and democracy has a leader for a good reason. The one thing most of us would agree on, is that with any given issue there are as many opinions as there are stars in the sky… and someone needs to make the final call. I like the sayings “a camel was a horse designed by committee” and “too many cooks spoil the broth”, and of course to counter that “two heads are better than one”.
So how do you decide how much buy-in to get from the troops? When to listen and who to listen too? Who knows best? When and where does “the buck stop here”? Let’s sidetrack for a minute to the fundamental principals of executive decision making at the highest level… business innovation. In simple terms, at the front end of the process every idea is a good idea. After every goofy and insightful suggestion is exhausted, the process of elimination occurs to get the best idea in place that can solve the problem or create the new product.
I believe most leaders (be it of a department, a company, or a country) are both effective problem solvers and delegators. The best ones know when to call in specialists to assist and trust them to do the job at hand. The worst ones revert to “If I want your opinion I’ll give it to you”. Like most things it’s a matter of balance and from my viewpoint it’s a hard balance to achieve.
As an observer of leaders within the transportation sector for the last twenty years, I’ve seen all kinds. Some who are close minded to any new thinking, some that can’t decide, some that decide to quick, some that flip flop, some that run decisions by everybody (including close relatives), others that don’t let anyone in on what they’re thinking, a few that are extremely decisive, some surprisingly approachable, and those that are for the most part unapproachable by design. The commonality is they all run successful companies, have team members that complement there strengths and weaknesses and somehow find a way to keep all the balls bouncing in more or less the right direction.
In an ideal world I believe a good leader gets buy-in at the senior management level and that their senior managers are in touch with the needs and thinking of the troops. Decisions are not a democracy or a dictatorship. And a good leader knows when and how to bring the troops together, is decisive, cares about the people that make up their team and doesn’t keep that fact a secret.
I continue to learn about the decision making process and the responsibility of being a leader:
- You can’t touch everything and if you are attempting to, you are not building an effective team around you or giving your people the opportunities they deserve
- You have to let people fail to learn and grow, and many people have more capabilities then you or they are aware of. It is our job as leaders to understand their strengths and steer them to the right seat on the bus within or outside our organizations
- When your level of confidence is based on what you know and not a tactic to cover up what you don’t know, it is a powerful tool in business and in life
Lee’s Quote for the day 🙂
“Forget process, bonuses and perks of all kind. Honest and frequent communication is the most powerful tool we have to build the teams, the relationships and the success we deserve… we have the skills, we just need to remind ourselves to use them on a regular basis!”
I started Palmer Marketing at age 34 in January of 1988. I had 2 kids in diapers and a crazy idea about running my own company. I came from an entrepreneurial family and had no good reason to believe it wasn’t possible and as it happens, it was.
I’m definitely a country girl. I didn’t grow up in an actual town, village or hamlet. It was more like the middle of somewhere along Highway 28, surrounded by trees. Many thanks goes to my high school art teacher, Mr. Edwards, for inspiring me to choose this career path. With the realization that I actually could create art for a living, college lured me away from country life to the big city. Kitchener, to be exact, to study Graphic Design & Advertising at Conestoga College. Talk about beginning an adventure and a culture shock! Not staring at people with purple, green or some other wildly coloured hair was a bit of a challenge. City buses (lol thinking back), who knew they only stopped on the same side of the street as the bus stop sign!? Lesson learnt.
I love my work like I love summer. Why not? Summer is when I get to play my favorite sport—golf! Playing artist is a lot like playing golf. You need to be calm and cool under pressure if you ever hope to keep the ball in play; that’s rare for an artist. My best shots happen when I talk less and concentrate more; that’s not so rare for an artist.
I am the 8th of 9 children raised in Essex County outside of Windsor, Ontario. We lived on a gravel road, no sidewalks and our greatest adventures were in our own backyard. I still have friends I made in grade 1 and continue to stay in touch today. After graduating from the University of Windsor with a Bachelor of Commerce degree, I moved to the big city of Toronto and have worked most of my career in the printing industry. I got to know the folks at Palmer Marketing as a key supplier to them for over a decade.
To say the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree would be an understatement in my family; at least when it comes to picking a career path. There isn’t a person in my immediate family that hasn’t at some point or another worked in the IT field. I guess there’s something in our DNA that pulls us towards computers.