Internal Assessment

There are three components of a good internal assessment:

• Strengths and weaknesses

• Resources

• Innovations and new ideas

The first thing you need is a clear assessment of what your company is really good at and its blind spots. Remember, strategy should leverage off your strengths.

To get an objective reading on your strengths and weaknesses, we suggest asking a selection of employees and managers to list the top three strengths and the top three weaknesses of the company. To ensure candor, it’s sometimes useful to have these submitted anonymously…

A particularly useful question is, “What are we better at than anyone else, and what are our unique capabilities that give us a competitive advantage?” The literature of strategic management ascribes a ponderous term to this notion (“Distinctive Competence”), but the idea is really pretty simple. It’s also important. Simply put, smart firms stick to doing things they can do better than other firms….

This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t try to eradicate crippling weaknesses. Any great company is continually working on its weaknesses, always seeking improvement, and your basic strategy should play to your strengths. Do what you’re good at…

INNOVATIONS AND NEW IDEAS…

Make sure that your company is responsive to its own internal creative output. Examine what new innovations and new ideas are bubbling up in product development, research, design, and marketing. List all possible innovations that might come to fruition. Obtain estimates on how quickly the innovation could be made marketable, the level of resources required to complete its development, and the level of marketing required.

The last thing you want to do is kill new ideas and innovations just because they’re not planned. In fact, most great ideas are not planned, and if you introduce only products that are planned five years in advance, it’s unlikely that you’ll produce any breakthrough products.

For a leader, giving feedback—both when things are going well and when they aren’t—is one of the most fundamental aspects of the job. Mastering this skill means that you can knock down two of the biggest barriers preventing your reports from doing great work—unclear expectations and inadequate skills—so that they know exactly where to aim and how to hit the target.

As I near the end of all of that and think back on what I’ve learned, these are the ten principles that strike me as necessary to true leadership. I hope they’ll serve you as well as they’ve served me.

Optimism. One of the most important qualities of a good leader is optimism, a pragmatic enthusiasm for what can be achieved. Even in the face of difficult choices and less than ideal outcomes, an optimistic leader does not yield to pessimism. Simply put, people are not motivated or energized by pessimists.

Courage. The foundation of risk-taking is courage, and in everchanging, disrupted businesses, risk-taking is essential, innovation is vital, and true innovation occurs only when people have courage. This is true of acquisitions, investments, and capital allocations, and it particularly applies to creative decisions. Fear of failure destroys creativity.

Focus. Allocating time, energy, and resources to the strategies, problems, and projects that are of highest importance and value is extremely important, and it’s imperative to communicate your priorities clearly and often.

Decisiveness. All decisions, no matter how difficult, can and should be made in a timely way. Leaders must encourage a diversity of opinion balanced with the need to make and implement decisions. Chronic indecision is not only inefficient and counterproductive, but it is deeply corrosive to morale.

Curiosity. A deep and abiding curiosity enables the discovery of new people, places, and ideas, as well as an awareness and an understanding of the marketplace and its changing dynamics. The path to innovation begins with curiosity.

Fairness. Strong leadership embodies the fair and decent treatment of people. Empathy is essential, as is accessibility. People committing honest mistakes deserve second chances, and judging people too harshly generates fear and anxiety, which discourage communication and innovation. Nothing is worse to an organization than a culture of fear.

Thoughtfulness. Thoughtfulness is one of the most underrated elements of good leadership. It is the process of gaining knowledge, so an opinion rendered or decision made is more credible and more likely to be correct. It’s simply about taking the time to develop informed opinions.

Authenticity. Be genuine. Be honest. Don’t fake anything. Truth and authenticity breed respect and trust.

The Relentless Pursuit of Perfection. This doesn’t mean perfectionism at all costs, but it does mean a refusal to accept mediocrity or make excuses for something being “good enough.” If you believe that something can be made better, put in the effort to do it. If you’re in the business of making things, be in the business of making things great.

Integrity. Nothing is more important than the quality and integrity of an organization’s people and its product. A company’s success depends on setting high ethical standards for all things, big and small. Another way of saying this is: The way you do anything is the way you do everything.

The team you construct will magnify your management methods and your message. Who you are and how well you recognize the strengths and weaknesses in your skills will directly affect how effective your team is. In fact, everything about your team is a reflection of you - for better or for worse.

As astonishing number of managers surround themselves with people of similar backgrounds. But Jeff Immelt explains that he looks for team members who can complement, rather than supplement, his strengths and weaknesses.

Here are four key strengths you’ll need:

Self-accountability: holding yourself accountable for developing your abilities, managing your inabilities, and using reason to govern your actions

Self-knowledge: knowing your own strengths and weaknesses— what you’re capable of doing and what you’re not

Self-control: mastering your fears, desires, and emotions.

Self-confidence: trusting in your abilities and your value to others.