Month: October 2017

Posted on

Making Toast to solve tough problems

Leadership is about working with your team to solve the toughest of problems.  These difficult, nasty, tough multi-domain and complicated problems are often known as “wicked problems”.

A wicked problem needs the very best thinking from your group or team.  The team needs to be able to set aside biases and think deeply about a problem.  As we all know, this can be very difficult to do.

One of your main goals as a leader is to build a great team surrounding yourself with the best and brightest.  (see my previous blog post)  This world-class team can then be set loose on solving the most complex and wicked problems.

One great way for your team to think through difficult and wicked problems is through design or visual thinking.  There is a lot written about it and several leading universities and business schools are offering visual thinking courses.

Visual thinking helps one “see” the problem quickly propelling your team to a much deeper understanding of the actual problem.

Tom Wujec, a Fellow at Autodesk, has been studying visual and design thinking for years.  He’s written four books on the subject and presented a great TedTalk which you can watch here.  You can also visit his website at http://www.drawtoast.com.  His work is a great look at the value of visual thinking.  I encourage you to check it out.

Enjoy the TedTalk and I hope you will spend a few minutes “thinking about thinking”.

Dan

 

Posted on

It’s all about the people

I have been incredibly blessed in my life to work with some of the best of the best.  Unfortunately a few times earlier in my career I took this incredible gift for granted.  You realize how important it is to work with great people when you have the opportunity to work with less than dedicated teammates (thankfully a very rare experience for me).

When Steve, Charles, and I started our first company we did not always agree on things.  In fact, there were times that we wanted to kill each other but one thing remained true, we had a deep respect for each other and realized that we each brought different things to the business.  By realizing that, even when it was hard, we powered through some incredibly difficult times and remain, great friends and collaborators, today.

As a leader the most important decisions you will make center on the team that you will build.   I’m most proud of the teams I have been a part of or have had a role in building.

Remember – leading well means driving hard to hire talent that is better than you and be ok with that.

Dan

Posted on

On critical and creative thinking

Recently colleague remarked on how interesting it is that Americans spend an incredible amount of time thinking about our physical health and conditioning but frankly no time focused on our “thinking health” and conditioning.   He’s absolutely right.

When is the last time someone sat down and discussed not what to think about something, but rather “how” to think about something?

As a nation, I think our education system should spend time teaching our kids how to think.  They should learn how to both critically and creatively think about issues and problems – not just regurgitate facts from a textbook.  We could do a lot better on this front – and we need too in order to give our children the gift of curiosity as they grow up.

As leaders in business, we also need to ensure that we are fostering an environment that allows creative and critical thinking at work.  Business leaders need teammates that can think clearly, critically, and creatively to solve our difficult business problems.

There is a lot of work to do in this area.

Dan

Posted on

Mad Minute: Integration in your business

Integration in business, or lack thereof, is a significant problem in today’s fast-paced business world.  We see it all the time.

Good companies end up having departments operating in silos and occasionally compete against themselves for the same business.  I recently saw this when a major defense contractor had two specific business units competing for the same piece of work – neither aware of the other.  Needless to say, the EVP was not too happy when she realized how much time and energy they had burned.

CEOs, COOs, and other business leaders need to make it a priority to coordinate, synchronize, and integrate business operations throughout the company.  Establishing a normal meeting rhythm can help with this.

For example, at one of my manufacturing companies, we had a daily 15min standup where we talked about the major lessons learned from the previous 24 hours what was coming up each day.  We held this “standup” on the plant floor and all of our key leaders were present.  It went a long way to ensure that we never let things get too far out of sync.

Ensuring your business is integrated will go a long way towards improving your bottom line and improving senior leader communications.

Dan

Posted on

Chief AI Officer

Today I noticed that Cerberus Capital Management had appointed Afsheen Afshar as their Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer.  This is a first that I know of and I applaud Cerberus for moving in that direction.

As we look at the future of big-data, AI is the greatest component of translating large data sets into actionable business intelligence and understanding.

Across the board, we are awash with big data and AI is our only hope in turning this strategic resource into a true understanding of the operating environments that we work in.

Checkout the link to the Cerebus press release here.

Congrats to Afsheen.

Dan