The Truth That Separates

13 May The Truth That Separates

Here are five principles I’ve learned are immutable when it comes to building a company of significance – or sustaining one that yearns to be.

• Principle #1 – Select and hire people of character – and at every level. Skills we can train – character we cannot. Companies fail when they forget this simple tenet – and for that matter, so do countries.
• Principle #2 – Double down on developing your leaders. And if you can put your money in only one area, bet it on your first line managers. That means investing where strategy and execution meet – the best-laid plans mean nothing if they’re not implemented.  That should be the domain of first line leaders – in too many cases it isn’t.
• Principle #3 – Make certain there is at least one senior leader that everyone else can believe in. Seems incredibly simple but the very essence of culture depends on it – we are genetically coded to look to a chieftain – and every great cause is made great because there is a face that gives that cause life. Lincoln, Churchill, Mandela, King, and Gandhi weren’t casual observers in search of followers – and their causes didn’t just happen.  We live in a world of pretenders – too many of them occupy key roles.
• Principle #4 – Develop a passion – and a rigor – for coaching – and not just the “check the box” off the shelf “latest fad” kind of coaching that typifies so many. The Gallup Group continues to offer us data that reinforces that a very small percentage of companies do it well…regardless of the counter claims.
• Principle #5 – Stay mindful of the needs that actually matter. Companies – and nations – that survive do so because they offer their constituents what should be, but often isn’t, the coin of the realm.
  • Stability in the midst of chaos.
  • Hope in a world of cynicism.
  • Compassion when it seems to be vanishing.
  • Trust – even when it seems to be the most abused of human traits.

Many years ago I came to a conclusion about this challenging business world of ours.

There is only one universal language – it has a name. We call it finance and accounting. Oh, the dialects might change – the vernacular shift – but it remains a constant – and in every country.

The mind that informs that language is always a combination of the same three variables – a brand that resonates; a strategy that makes that brand come to life; and execution against that strategy.

But the heart that makes each of the above come to life – that courses blood through the body of business – is as timeless as humankind.

People – leadership – and culture.

Few get it right.

Few know even where to start.