Archives For Discipline

Empirical Creativity: Lesson #2 from Jim Collins’ Great By Choice

January 2, 2012 — 3 Comments

In my last post, I shared lesson #1, FANATIC DISCIPLINE, from Jim Collins and Morten Hanson’s book, Great By Choice. It’s the first of three core behaviors that mark the 10x companies shared in Collins and Hanson’s latest research. The second behavior that allowed 10x companies to thrive during chaotic and uncertain environments is EMPIRICAL CREATIVITY.

There is a common perception in leadership that innovation is the key to success. Or, put more plainly, the more innovative you are, the more successful you’ll be. However, Collins and Hansen discovered a different reality:

“The evidence from our research does not support the premise that 10x companies will necessarily be more innovative than their less successful comparisons. And in some cases, such as Southwest Airlines versus PSA and Amgen versus Genentech, the 10x companies were less innovative than the comparison….we’re not saying that innovation is unimportant…We concluded that each environment has a level of ‘threshold innovation’ that you need to meet to be a contender in the game; some industries such as airlines, have a low threshold, whereas other industries, such as biotechnology, command a high threshold. Companies that fail even to meet the innovation threshold cannot win. But–and this surprised us–once you’re above the threshold, especially in a highly turbulent environment, being more innovative doesn’t seem to matter very much.” (p. 65, 67)

What’s essential is that creativity and discipline exist together. “Intel’s founders believed that innovation without discipline leads to disaster” (p. 69). In fact, Intel’s #1 core value isn’t innovation or creativity, it’s discipline. Collins and Hansen observe, “The great task, rarely achieved, is to blend creativity intensity with relentless discipline so as to amplify the creativity rather than destroy it” (p. 70).

But the key is not just creativity…it’s EMPIRICAL CREATIVITY. In other words, 10x companies don’t innovate blindly, throwing huge amounts of resources at new ideas. They employ what Collins and Hansen call, “Bullets, Then Cannonballs.”

Continue Reading…

In Leadership, Organizations Creativity, Discipline, Failure, Innovation, Jim Collins, Risk, Success
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Fanatic Discipline: Lesson #1 From Jim Collins’ Great By Choice

December 30, 2011 — 5 Comments

Jim Collins and Morten Hansen’s latest book, Great By Choice, is the result of a nine-year research project aimed at answering one question: “Why do some companies thrive in uncertainty, even chaos, and others do not?” Our world is unstable, uncertain, and filled with unanswered what ifs. And while we cannot predict the future, as the authors observe, we can create it. And a handful of companies have done so exceptionally well.

Collins and Hansen identified what they call “10x Companies.” They write: “We set out to find companies that started from a position of vulnerability, rose to become great companies with spectacular performance, and did so in unstable environments characterized by big forces, out of their control, fast moving, uncertain, and potentially harmful” (p. 7).

Starting with 20,400 companies, their rigorous research identified seven 10x companies including Amgen, Biomet, Intel, Microsoft, Progressive Insurance, Southwest Airlines, and Stryker. These 10x companies beat their industry index by at least 10 times. And they did it during chaotic environments.

For example, in the chaotic airline environment from 1972 to 2002 filled with fuel shocks, deregulation, labor strife, air-traffic-control strikes, interest-rate spikes, hijackings (including 9-11), recessions, and multiple bankruptcies, Southwest Airlines had a stock return 63 times better than the general stock market. Had you invested $10,000 in Southwest Airlines on December 31, 1972, it would have been worth $12 million by the end of 2002.

How did the 10x companies achieve such astounding results in such uncertain environments? Collins and Hansen’s extensive research reveals three core behaviors that set the 10x companies apart from their comparison companies. Over the next three posts, I’ll explore each of these behaviors.

The first behavior is FANATIC DISCIPLINE. Discipline is “consistency of action” (p. 23). It’s not the same as regimentation, measurement, hierarchical obedience, or adherence to bureaucratic rules. “For a 10xer, the only legitimate form of discipline is self-discipline, having the inner will to do whatever it takes to create a great outcome, no matter how difficult” (p. 23).

Continue Reading…

In Leadership, Organizations Discipline, Jim Collins, Leadership, Organizations
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5 Signs that Your Success is Leading You to Complacency

February 3, 2011 — Leave a comment
Herb Kelleher, Co-founder and Chairman Emeritus of Southwest Airlines, once observed, “A company is never more vulnerable to complacency than when it’s at the height of its success.” So how do you know if your success is leading you to complacency? Here are five signs to consider: 

1.  You’re Enamored by the Scoreboard - When a leader is enamored by his organization’s #1 ranking, he forgets to man the cockpit. Accolades, statistics, and requests for interviews cloud his vision and fill his heart with pride. As Jim Collins observes, Hubris Born of Success is where organizational decline begins.

2.  The Organization and Its Leaders Have an Aversion to Risk - The higher you go the farther you have to fall. That reality breeds fear because leaders recognize what’s at stake if they risk too much. The problem is, they forget what’s at stake if they don’t risk at all. Pretty soon innovative adventures on the open sea are docked at the harbor of safety.

3.  A Culture of Discipline Wains - I’m not talking about disciplining employees, but rather disciplined action. It’s amazing how quickly organizations act without discipline in the areas of time, talent, and resources. When times are good, organizations tend to put on “fat.” That loss of discipline embeds itself in the culture and simultaneously blurs vision and drains passion.

4.  The Organization’s Learning Posture is Relaxed - If you’re successful, people look to you as the expert. That reality is a wet blanket on an organization’s fire for innovation and learning. Success makes leaders think, “I can relax my learning posture…after all, I’m the teacher now.” The problem is, if you’re always the teacher and never the student, one day what you teach will no longer matter…and your organization just might be out of business.

5.  Organizational Measurements are Ignored or Misinterpreted - When an organization experiences success, especially for a decent length of time, it’s easy to assume you’ll always be successful. The pressure also increases (internally and externally) to remain at the top. That’s when organizational measurements are conveniently ignored, misinterpreted or even manipulated. When this happens, mediocrity strangely resembles success. 

Questions: Which of these five signs have you observed in organizations? What other signs would you add to the list? Which is your greatest temptation?

In Leadership, Organizations Discipline, Learning, Measurements, Organizations, Personal Growth, Risk
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5 Truths About Discipline

December 12, 2010 — 1 Comment

Discipline probably isn’t your favorite topic. It’s not mine either. I have areas of my life where discipline is really tough. You probably do too. And in the life of a leader, discipline not only impacts you, it impacts everyone you lead. So, here are five truths about discipline…and some inspirational quotes to drive them home.

1. Discipline is the Great Conqueror - Plato said, “The first and best victory is to conquer self” and President Harry Truman said, “In reading the lives of great men, I found that the first victory they won was over themselves. Self-discipline with all of them came first.”

2. Discipline Brings Focus to Talent - H. Jackson Brown Jr. said, “Talent without discipline is like an octopus on roller skates. There’s plenty of movement, but you never know if it’s going to be forward, backwards, or sideways.”

3. Discipline Garners Respect for Leaders - Author Ray Pritchard said, “A leader is disciplined. If you expect discipline among your followers and lack it in your own life, your followers will first lose respect and then grow to resent you.”

4. The You of Tomorrow will be the Result of Today’s Discipline - H.P. Lindon said, “What we do on some great occasion will probably depend on what we already are; and what we are will be the result of previous years of self-discipline.”

5. Discipline is the Pain that Repels Regret - Author Paul Batura writes, “It’s been said that there are two types of pain in life; the pain of discipline and the pain of regret. Choose your pain; the choice is yours!”

Question: Which of these “discipline truths” challenges you the most? What “discipline truths” could you add to the list?

 

In Leadership, Personal Growth Character, Discipline, Leadership
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How the Mighty Fall – Part 2

June 16, 2009 — Leave a comment

Yesterday I shared the first stage of decline–hubris born of success–from Jim Collins new book, How the Mighty Fall. This book unpacks five stages of organizational decline based on extensive research from Collins and his team. The second stage is Undisciplined Pursuit of More.


Collins asserts that when leaders and organizations succumb to arrogance and pride, the next step is overreaching. In fact, the research indicates that most companies that fall showed very little evidence of complacency. Instead, “overreaching much better explains how the once-invincible self-destruct…Catastrophic decline can be brought about by driven, intense, hard-working, and creative people.”

Collins warns that when hubris–pride and arrogance–settle into an organization, it can generate brash commitments for more and more growth. Essentially, being big becomes more important than being great. It’s not that growth is bad–in fact stage two is really not about growth, but rather, the undisciplined pursuit of more. Collins sites “Packard’s Law”, named after co-founder of HP, David Packard, who observed that “a great company is more likely to die of indigestion from too much opportunity than starvation from too little.” Collins further says, “Packard’s Law states that no company can consistently grow revenues faster than its ability to get enough of the right people to implement that growth and still become a great company.”

There is some powerful truth in that statement. When the rate of growth exceeds our rate of getting the right people on the bus and sitting in the right seats, we stand on the brink of decline. I’ll share once again Collins’s quote from a previous post: “When an organization grows beyond its ability to fill its key seats with the right people, it has set itself up for a fall. Although complacency and resistance to change remain dangers to any successful enterprise, overreaching better captures how the might fall.”

How have you found this to be true in your setting? Do you fill vacancies on the bus quickly because its easier to have a warm body in a seat than to pick up the slack week after week. While this may create a short-term win it inevitably creates long-term setbacks. What kind of hiring process is in place to insure you get the right people (check out my post on Creating an Effective Hiring Process for additional insight).

The seven markers of the second stage of decline include:
  • Unsustainable quest for growth, confusing big with great
  • Undisciplined discontinuous leaps
  • Declining proportion of right people in key seats
  • Easy cash erodes cost discipline
  • Bureaucracy subverts discipline
  • Problematic succession of power
  • Personal interests placed above organizational interests

Question: What evidence points to discipline in your life, church, and organization? How do you control the undisciplined pursuit of more? What are you doing to intentionally get the right people on the bus and sitting in the right seats?
In Leadership, Organizations Discipline, Leadership, Organizations
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