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Set Powerful New Year Resolutions with Strategic Leadership
It’s time. Time to break up with 2020 and set our sights on the shiny new year. If ever there was a new year that warranted a little more care and specificity in terms of resolutions, it would be this one.

Here is a strategic leadership tool you can use in your work and in your life to ensure your new year resolutions pack a meaningful punch and serve as the back door that hits 2020 in the butt as it slinks back to whatever rock it slithered out from under.

Setting Powerful New Year Resolutions
1. What change do you want to make?
2. What does success look like?
3. Why is this change important?
4. How will this change impact me and those I care about (both positive and potential negative impacts get listed here)
5. By when will the change happen?
6. Write your SMART resolution. (What specifically you will do, by when, to achieve what specific result.)
This tool is adapted from UPschool’s “Setting Powerful Objectives” worksheet (DOWNLOAD HERE) and is part of our Uncommon Strategic Leadership course and coaching.

A key difference (among several) in this method is the exploration of “impact”. Any change is challenging. Even the changes we think we want to make – or even those we desperately want to make. There are consequences to any change and one of them is discomfort. By exploring the impact of the change you seek to make – both the positive and potential negative – you can get a jump on those obstacles. When you see more clearly what’s ahead, you can plan for them and set yourself (your team, your organization, your family…) up for success right out of the gate.

Hey, 2021…just a heads up…we have big plans for you so buckle up.

Be Uncommon

Learn more about becoming a member of UPschoolhttps://bit.ly/3eeJdDo
December 22, 2020
Strategic Leadership in HR Requires These 3 Things

#1. Know your industry:

What industry are you in? What business models exist in your industry today? Which business model(s) is your organization structured around? Is your industry growing, shrinking and or transforming? How much competition is there for human resources talent in your industry and region? What is your company’s unique value proposition? What sets it apart from its competition? These questions help you to understand the priorities of your organization and support its success with strong human resources management decisions through strategic leadership.

#2. Stay Abreast of Innovations:

What’s changing in your industry? Are there new business models, new products or new technologies?

#3. Track Trends:

What are your company’s major revenue drivers? What are those products and markets dependent upon? Do they require special skillsets or connections or technologies? Are those major revenue drivers growing or shrinking? How might the industry be changing in ways that could affect those drivers? What are the implications for human resources and human resources management? Will you need more people or fewer? What new skillsets will you need and will you grow them or buy them?

Read your industry’s news, join its professional organizations, talk to your sales people about your competition, ask questions. Be Uncommon.

Develop your strategic leadership skills with a membership to UPschool:

Learn more about becoming a member of UPschoolhttps://bit.ly/3eeJdDo

December 9, 2020
3 Critical Aspects of Strategic Leadership

#1. Have a compelling mission.

It should explain your existence. One of the best mission statements I have ever come across is from Boston Children’s Hospital: “Until every child is well”

#2. Have an objectively measurable vision for how you will pursue your mission.

Here are a couple of examples:

A state of the art hospital newly built in a world class city which draws the best doctors from around the globe by offering the highest compensation packages and parents of all backgrounds come from every corner of the earth based on our uncontested global reputation for their children to be cured.

A network of thousands of highly qualified, resourceful and socially conscious physicians deployed to every country and made accessible to the poorest communities where parents and their children have access to the care they need.

#3. Ensure your leadership team has a common definition of success.

Each team member should be able to answer: “what specifically are we achieving by when and how?” Each of their answers should be the same.

Develop your strategic leadership skills as a member of UPschool:

Learn more about becoming a member of UPschoolhttps://bit.ly/3eeJdDo

December 8, 2020
5 Signs You Need to Develop Your Strategic Leadership Skills

#1: Your mission is actually a project or goal.

#2: Your vision isn’t objectively measurable.

#3: Your team doesn’t have a common definition of success.

#4: There is ongoing role confusion within or across your teams.

#5: Team members aren’t held accountable to specific metrics tied to the vision.

Be Uncommon

Develop your strategic leadership skills with a membership to UPschool:

Learn more about becoming a member of UPschoolhttps://bit.ly/3eeJdDo

December 7, 2020
4 Employee “Types” that Undermine Strategic Leadership

#1: The Resistor – “This will never work.”, “We tried this before.”, “It will fail like all the other times.”

How to vanquish: Be curious. Explore their experiences. Understand what they noticed then and what they are assuming now. When you’ve exhausted the treasure trove of information they have to offer, ask them what they think might work.

#2: The Influencer – The thinking, collaboration and innovation starts off slightly left of the strategic center and starts to bend the organization away from your vision and towards their own personal version of reality.

How to vanquish: Ensure leadership has a common definition of the mission, vision and strategy of your organization. Test decisions and directions routinely against the strategic path and be transparent about divergence from it. “I notice this puts us on a different timeline than we agreed to. What is the value of that? What new metrics would we need to agree on for that to work?”

#3: The Lone Ranger – The Lone Ranger thinks she knows what’s best, will gather a merry marauding band behind her and set out onto the open road to accomplish what clearly only she can.

How to vanquish: Have the ole “there’s no I in TEAM” speech, set your expectations regarding their role in the execution of your strategy and tell them there will be consequences if they attempt to mutiny again. Be willing to let them go.

#4: The Mascot – Helping the mascot be successful feels sort of like pushing a little old lady into traffic while breaking your mother’s heart. The Mascot is the great defender of organizational legacy.

How to vanquish: Do an organ transplant. Either get consent from the mascot to remove the legacy flag and replace it with the current and future flags or invite them to transplant themselves elsewhere. Tough stuff.

Be Uncommon.

Learn more about becoming a member of UPschoolhttps://bit.ly/3eeJdDo

December 7, 2020
3 Reasons Strategic Leadership Requires Having a Vision
Strategic leadership is required to move companies through seismic shifts in their markets. That leadership begins with deciding – or changing – what they will be.

Case #1 – A company’s mission is to reduce loss resulting from fire hazards. Is your vision to be a(n):
- book publisher
- information technology company
- advocacy group
Case #2 – A company’s mission is to improve the quality of life by providing information about technology. Is your vision to be a(n):
- magazine publisher
- programmatic advertising hub
- product review site
Case #3 – A company’s mission is to inspire more purposeful engagement in work and life. Is your vision to be a(n):
- coaching service for professionals
- instruction provider for grades K-12
- professional membership association
These are real organizations. Strategic leadership was required to move these companies through seismic shifts in their markets and that leadership began with deciding – or changing – what they would be.

Strategic Reason #1: A vision describes what you’re building or maintaining. Without it, there is confusion and misalignment.

Strategic Reason #2: A vision indicates what kind of resources and processes are needed. Without it, skill sets and roles become misaligned.

Strategic Reason #3: A vision provides specific metrics by which you can measure progress. Without it, there is a lack of accountability and, therefore, anemic results.

Be Uncommon.

Learn more about becoming a member of UPschoolhttps://bit.ly/3eeJdDo
December 4, 2020
3-Steps to Maintain Your Energy for Strategic Leadership

Strategic leadership requires energy. How do you keep top of your game with so many things distracting from our goals and detracting from our focus. Here is a three step process for getting and staying charged up:

Step 1: Feel

How’s your energy? Check in with yourself and see where you’re at. How? Sit still for five minutes and just feel. Feel is a four-letter word to some of us. It is also a verb. Just sit and feel for five minutes. Are you excited? Anxious? Tired? Frustrated? Worn? Giddy? Does your body hurt anywhere? Sore feet, aching back, pounding head? A five minute scan brings to the surface all those little things that your mind body and spirit would have been fighting against on their own throughout the day, distracting you from your goals and detracting from your focus. Now you know what they are.

Step 2: Take Inventory

What’s on your mind? In step one, you may have discovered you could use an aspirin. Or perhaps you were reminded to stretch before getting in the car so your back didn’t seize up. There may be some other issues that you found are weighing on your mind. Grab a pen and paper and write down every single thing that comes to mind during Step 1. Write down what aches, what feels funky, what’s bugging you, what questions are nagging. Write until you can’t write any more.

What’s draining your energy? Take a look at your list. What items jump out as the most draining of all? What’s really weighing on you? Pick one and run it through the energy drainer exercise. Here’s the cheat sheet for the exercise and here’s where you can find the guided version. Basically, unpack that $#i! and overcome it.

Step 3: Overcome the Energy Drainers

From a neuropsychological standpoint, by noticing, naming and addressing what’s draining your energy, you are freeing up much needed brain resource for being your best creative, innovative, long-range thinking self. Strategic leadership takes guts, man, but it also takes brains. And you can’t be your best strategic leader self if your brain is overloaded with energy drainers. Be Uncommon.

Want to overcome your own Energy Drainers? Download a free copy of the Energy Drainer Exercise below:

Download and Find Your Energy Here!