Go On the Offense (#92)
There is an old military adage that “the best defense is a good offense." Leaders like General George S. Patton personified this approach. It has migrated out of the military into common use in other fields like sports, the corporate world, and non-profits. I favor an offensive mindset and have been using the tagline “Go on the offense in 2021” for some time in this blog.
Recently, a corporate executive asked me how I would recommend to help him and his team maintain an offensive mindset in the new year. Developing and maintaining an offensive mindset takes hard work from both the leader and the team. Like I told him, here are six ideas that I think would help you and your team stay on the offensive in 2021.
For an executive or leader in a company, I recommend three things:
Determine what you are doing, and more importantly what you are not doing (so you have the space to grow this year), going forward in 2021. The decision on what you are not doing is in many ways tougher than deciding what to do. But, it is more important to you and the team so that you free up the time to pursue new opportunities. Leaders must communicate what they won’t be doing in the new year to their team.
Relook the organization's Battle, or Operating, Rhythm to find meetings that can be discarded or shortened to free up bandwidth to pursue the new endeavors in 2021. Battle, or Operating, Rhythm is your organization’s cadence of reports, meetings, and off-sites. It is critical to make sure that each of them are effective and are helping the organization move towards its objectives. There is an exercise on how to review and optimize your Battle Rhythm in Post #34.
Provide your team these five things for 2021 (this was at the end of the article on Bastogne and how the paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Division’s maintained their organizational grit -- Post #80. And for more see Post #89. I’ll be discussing this more in February and March):
Provide the organization a goal (what does success look like on December 31, 2021) and a purpose (the why)
Provide the organization a plan of how to get there
Provide the group a scoreboard that tracks the progress
Model and grow an organizational culture that values daily small wins (”every day a little better”), self-discipline, and resiliency.
Develop trust in the team through shared experiences and hardships
For the team to build and maintain their offensive mindset, here are three things to do in the new year:
Inspire the team to think more strategically (in this case the strategic thought is how do we continue to grow?). There are five techniques in Post #81 to help the team think more strategically.
Have the team continue to reframe the question or problem they are trying to solve in the effort to find ways to stay offensive and grow. The whole point of reframing is not to find the correct problem but, instead, to examine if there is a better issue to solve. Problems are typically multifaceted and can be tackled in many ways; there is rarely one way to solve a problem. There are three ways to help your team reframe the question in Post #26.
Finally, have the team finding opportunities that they have missed by asking seven questions. The seven questions are in Post #7.
It take both the leader and the team to find ways to stay on the offense in 2021. Use one or all six of these ideas to help you and your team go or stay on the offense in the new year.
If you are using other techniques to get your or your team to stay on the offensive post them in the comments.