Tom Friedman, the NY Times columnist, wrote about the lessons he learned from Stan Greenberg who did polling for presidents and prime ministers across the world. Friedman wrote: "What distinguishes the best leaders, he (Greenberg) says, is that they learn from their crashes, adjust, persist, and succeed."

So true.

How many times have you noticed leaders, perhaps even yourself, failing to adjust to changing circumstances?

Consistency is not the same as persistence. Several leaders I know have been consistent in their efforts to respond to the challenges they face; they do the same things repeatedly. Unfortunately, they produce the same poor results repeatedly, too. They fail to realize that consistency is neither appropriate nor admirable when it leads to producing the same mistakes, failures, or shortfalls in performance.

The best leaders, as Friedman writes, adjust. They change what they do in order to achieve the results they want.

Many of the most effective leaders I know are those who, once they realize that their initial efforts have failed, immediately turn their attention to finding other solutions. For example:

Rather than continuing to invest in building the sales skills of internal candidates by hiring consultants to teach sales training courses that take too long to produce minor improvements in sales, they hire experienced and proven sales staff from competitors.

Rather than continuing to rely on home-grown leadership development programs that miss their targets, bring in proven leadership development expertise (me!) from the outside.

Rather than continuing to struggle with long-range planning sessions unable to accurately project the future, start with preliminary conversations with key customers to identify the challenges that lie ahead for them, in order to begin to understand how the landscape of the future may unfold.

Once the ability to adjust becomes ingrained, good leaders track progress and, if needed, adjust again if the results are unsatisfactory. The ability to adjust repeatedly becomes the persistence needed to overcome the obstacles in their path.

The ability to adjust repeatedly, despite the frustration of failure, leads to the persistence that Winston Churchill meant when he said, "When you find yourself in hell, just keep going."

Persistence, as practiced by leaders, is not enough, though, to ensure that success is attained. Leaders must also make clear to others in their organizations the importance of persistence for them, too. Leaders must help the rest of the organization to learn the importance of persistence.

I've heard numerous examples of staff members who find it hard to keep trying new things. They ask "How many more times do we have to do this?" or "Are we done yet?" or "Don't you think we've done everything we can?"

Of course, the answer is, "We're done when we produce the results we want." But that is not what your staff members might want to hear.

What can you say to your staff members to help them adjust, persist, and succeed?

Yogi Berra said, "There are some people who, if they don't already know, you can't tell 'em."

Let's hope he wasn't referring to leaders. Truly outstanding leaders learn from others. They don't let their initial understanding, personal preferences, or past history close the door to new information or new ways of doing things.

What about you? How might you have let yourself be shut off from new thoughts and ideas? How might you open the way to listening more?

Arnold Glasow once wrote: "One of the tests of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency."

No doubt. Knowing it is not enough, however. You have to have the courage, wisdom, and persistence to solve the problem before it explodes.

What problems are just over the horizon of your organization's future that you should be dealing with now?

email: archie@archietinelli.com archie@archietinelli.com