Another tool for exploring the “goal of the goal” is a technique that comes from the discipline of solutions-focused therapy. It’s called the “Miracle Question.” The therapist says the following: Imagine that in the middle of the night tonight, as you are sleeping, a miracle happens… the problem you are stressed about has been solved. Poof! Gone. B

Quick adaptation is the ultimate force multiplier. If we aspire to get unstuck and make progress on what matters, we must accelerate our learning.

So what looks like “mismanagement” is often the accidental accretion of outdated habits. And the way you can begin to detect and ultimately erode that accretion is by going and seeing the work. You’ll spot places where you and your team have acclimated to problems—instead of fixing them. Those long-tolerated bad habits are Leverage Points: Correcti

“When you go see the work,” wrote Repenning and two colleagues, Don Kieffer and Todd Astor, “if you aren’t embarrassed by what you find, you probably aren’t looking closely enough.”II

What we find is that those 20% of customers—that are 80% of the revenue—are generally 150% of the profit. So what we tell our clients from the get-go is: Your problem isn’t that you’re not making enough. It’s that you’re not keeping it.” Philippi has found that his clients make twin mistakes: They undercoddle their best customers and overcoddle the

Averages are great for simple monitoring but terrible for diagnosis. If you want to spot Leverage Points, you must untangle averages. The air force found that there was no such thing as an “average pilot.” They needed cockpits that could be tailored to individual differences.

This matching can take a surprisingly literal form. There’s an idea called the “genius swap” that I learned from my friends Christine and Becky Margiotta.

The ultimate effect of this “look backward, then look forward” strategy is to minimize the middle. Because in change efforts, the middle is the biggest trouble spot.

Meanwhile, he forced a reassessment of the organization’s programs, which were both plentiful and ineffective. Mollenhauer asked: Which of our programs are delivering on our mission? And which are providing a financial contribution? Programs that did neither were discontinued, no matter how well-intentioned.