Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0

Like a good teacher, a good leader assumes that people from all walks of life and backgrounds can perform at high levels and that, deep down, they want to. A good leader doesn’t demand high performance (demanding implies that people are basically lazy and are inclined to withhold their best effort— that it must be extracted out of them, like pullin

Consider the following scenario: You have a person in a key seat who’s doing a good but not great job. You like this person. You really want this person to succeed. You’ve invested time and energy in this person. But the fact is that you’re not yet seeing the A-level performance you need in the seat. When facing this situation, which way do you til

On paper, the basic strategy should fit on no more than three typed pages. This may be shocking to those who think of strategic plans as thick, turgid documents. But keep in mind that no one reads thick, turgid documents. Instead think of creating a strategic guide that people at all levels can easily absorb. Specific tactical or implementation pla

The point is a lesson that I wish I better embraced: the sheer value of having fun and enjoying yourself, of loving what you do, of living with the paradoxical assumption that you have decades of life left and that it might come to an end tomorrow.

On the other hand, and if you are clear that you are only going to do that type of product for the next 100 years, then you might produce a purpose statement like Celtrix Laboratories. Celtrix was tempted to state its purpose as “To develop, manufacture, and sell human therapeutics products.” Wisely, however, CEO Bruce Pharriss took it a step furth

Level 5 leaders who build the greatest and most durable companies think first about “who” and then about “what.” They first get the right people on the bus (and the wrong people off the bus) and then figure out where to drive the bus. When you’re facing chaos, turbulence, disruption, and uncertainty, and you cannot possibly predict what’s coming ar

And what’s that metric? The percentage of key seats on the bus filled with the right people for those seats. Stop and think: What percentage of your key seats do you have filled with the right people? If your answer is less than 90 percent, you’ve just identified your number one priority. To build a truly great company, you’ll need to strive for ha

Yet, on the other hand, many market-successful innovations did not originate from market-pull, nor were they developed via classic market research techniques. Indeed, many breakthrough products wouldn’t even exist if the companies that created them had relied solely on a market-pull approach to innovation.

Does this mean that you should only have one thing on your “to do” list? Yes and no. Clearly, it is virtually impossible to lead a company and have only one “to do” on your list. But you should be spending the bulk of your time on your number one priority, concentrating your efforts on that priority until it is complete.

The three elements of strategy described above (big bets, protect flanks, and extend victories) can guide your strategic thinking. But never forget, sound strategy is impossible without clear vision. Muddled strategies flow from muddled vision; clear strategies flow from clear vision. If you want to have a good strategy, you need to first understan