Flight of the Buffalo: Soaring to Excellence, Learning to Let Employees Lead

I EXPLORE FOUR themes in the pages that follow. First, the best way to deal with strategic issues is by squarely facing the challenge. Too many people start with goals and other visions of a desired end state. Start with the challenge, and diagnose its structure and the forces at work. Once you do that, your sense of purpose and the actions you con

Intentional Action Has a Few Simple Elements Determine who it’s for. Learn what they believe, what they fear, and what they want. Be prepared to describe the change you seek to make. At least to yourself. Care enough to commit to making that change. Ship work that resonates with the people it’s for. Once you know whom it’s for and what it’s for, wa

All too often, proactiveness is reactiveness in disguise. Whether in business or politics, if we simply become more aggressive fighting the “enemy out there,” we are reacting—regardless of what we call it. True proactiveness comes from seeing how we contribute to our own problems. It is a product of our way of thinking, not our emotional state.

But for “good performance to speak for itself,” a boss and subordinate must have 100 percent agreement on what tasks constitute the subordinate’s job, on the relative importance of those tasks, and on unambiguous ways to measure the performance of the tasks.