Understand why strategy is important

In their book Strategic Planning: A Practical Guide, Peter Rea, Ph.D. and Harold Kernzer, Ph.D. note that no strategic approach fits all situations, and as a result “contingency theory rules the day” (2). What is equally true, the authors say, is that all strategies require good sense and judgment. Further, while there is no singular school of thought on strategic planning all definitions speak to these concepts:

• Formulation of long-term goals and allocation of resources
• Serves as a “vision of success” and how to achieve it
• Necessity of free will and intentional design (qtd. in Rea and Kerzner 2)

Strategic planning sets the course for your organization’s future and as a result impacts not just the organization as a whole but each team and employee as well. Strategic planning, say Rea and Kerzner, “must function beyond an office of well-educated executives who are insulated from those who make the organization work” (3).

Strategic planning determines your organization’s direction, and a lack of focus leads to an erratic, uncontrolled lurching into tomorrow.

Formulate a strategic plan when conditions are right

If your organization has skills, resources, and the commitment of key decision makers then creating an implementing a strategic plan will serve you well (qtd. in Rea and Kerzner 9). Without this trifecta that forms a stable foundation, though, any plan you make will not endure. Further, your strategic plan must head in a direction that others are willing to follow (Rea and Kerzner 9); this may mean initially making decisions and changes that are agreeable to most everyone, and once those pay off push a bit further with more innovative plans.

Strategic Planning offers several questions to use as a basic framework for any organization’s strategy:

• Strategic issues
• Competitive advantages
• Compatibility of products/services and customers
• Innovation and growth
• Stakeholders’ satisfaction
• Strategy integration/measurement (Rea and Kerzner 11-12).

Think about the many ways your organization can grow

Insight has identified 44 diverse ways to grow – from sales to profit to people. Specific examples include ideas like branching into e-commerce or licensing, diversifying offerings, empowering employees as experts, and implementing a performance management system enables management to track progress. We encourage you to review the 44 strategies for yourself by downloading the PDF.

Get ready to make your organization BLOOM®

Our proprietary performance management system, BLOOM®, enables administrators, managers, and employees to form the big picture – the strategic plan – organize it into meaningful goals and milestones and then into actionable tasks, and see where each employee fits into the overall plan. Administrators provide the vision, managers provide the necessary notes and resources (e.g. spreadsheets and PDF files), and employees help carry out the plan to reach the goal. Because BLOOM® includes timelines and due dates anyone can see when a milestone has been completed and what’s past-due. Contact us for more information or to schedule a demo of BLOOM®.

In his book The Manager’s Book of Questions: 1,001 Great Interview Questions for Hiring the Right Person, John Kador identifies seven types of questions that serve specific purposes in a job interview:

• Icebreaker and Background Questions
• Behavioral Questions
• Questions to Determine Fit
• Core Competency Questions
• Ethics Questions
• Brainteaser Questions
• Closing Questions

Each type of question has its place, yet you must know how to interpret each response. After all, “the specific content of the answer is rarely the key element you should be listening for” (Kador xvi). Even non-verbal cues like body language and eye contact reveal volumes about an applicant.

Insight has experience with each type of question, and the one we find most revelatory is behavioral. Kador hypothesizes that “the most accurate predictor of future performance is past performance in a similar situation,” and we couldn’t agree more (9). Past performance is related to instinct, which is what the tools that Insight uses — the Kolbe Indexes® — identify. We also use the Whole Mind Assessment process; download a PDF overview.

Asking the right questions doesn’t always involve questions

As Kador notes, behavioral questions are focused and offer possibilities for follow-up (9). They take the form of “Tell me about . . .” imperative statements rather than interrogative sentences. They investigate reality rather than hypothetical situations, requiring the interviewee to explain how they did respond to a situation rather than how they would respond.

Kador’s book offers 187 behavioral questions, each naturally fitting into a specific script or line of questioning that he also provides. He reflects briefly on the shift in the hiring process from one that Human Resources once managed from start to finish to one that Human Resources initiates by qualifying an applicant before passing his or her name on to another department for further interviews. That shift means that employees previously removed from the hiring process are now playing the vital role of interviewer and need to be well-prepared (Kador xiii).

Consider learning from the experts

Because the current job market is so competitive you may be tempted to rely on a down market providing top-notch applicants who are desperate for the job. We maintain that résumés alone are insufficient to determine which applicant is the right hire. Insight’s extensive experience in the hiring process and performance management gives us, well, insight into a prospective employee’s overall fit and the potential contributions to your organization. To ensure a meaningful, successful hiring process we recommend reviewing The Manager’s Book of Questions and also working with an expert who can guide you through the interviewing process. Contact us to talk more specifically about what a partnership between Insight and your organization could look like and what results you can expect.

For the American economy to rally and re-establish strong growth trends, we must examine at its foundation: manufacturing. The foundation is eroding at an alarming rate, and rather than reinforcing it we must focus on renovation through innovation.

In his book Saving American Manufacturing: Growth Planning for Small and Midsize Manufactures, manufacturing expert Michael Collins offers ideas to shifting the downward trend, and again we provide an overview so that you have a sense of the kind and degree of change needed and to give you some direction in how your company can be among those that remain strong and competitive in the changing marketplace. The concepts Collins discusses are ones that Insight helps clients explore, and we can help you set your organization on a new innovation track, too.

The Crisis in American Manufacturing

The crisis isn’t the surface symptom of lost jobs, it’s the residual effects on the trade deficit, job creation, and strategic industries (xi). Historically, a large portion of the middle class income came from the manufacturing sector; as that sector shrinks, so does the middle class and its ability to help sustain the economy.

A 1987 report issued by the Office of Technology Assessment as an early prediction that is nearing fulfillment:

During the next two decades, new technologies, rapid increases in foreign trade, and the tastes and values of a new generation of Americans are likely to reshape virtually every product, every service, and every job in the U.S. These forces will shake the foundations of the most secure American businesses. (qtd. in Collins xii)

Why should we care?

Manufacturing touches nearly every aspect of American life in one way or another. Collins notes that, among other things, manufacturing:

• Creates secondary jobs (xx)
• Generates exports (xxi)
• Supports state economies (xxii)
• Affects our infrastructure (xxiii)

More specifically, the report makes four predictions:

1. “Change can lead to wrenching dislocation and pain for workers with obsolete skills, for management unable to recognize opportunity, and for communities where traditional businesses have failed” (qtd. in Collins xiv).The data bears this out. From 2000-2006 the United States lost more than 2.3 million jobs in the manufacturing sector alone.
2. “Change can create an America in graceless decline – its living standards falling below those of other world powers” (qtd. in Collins xv).While the upper class and those with top-tier jobs continue to experience high standards of living, that of most Americans is on the decline.
3. “Change can result in a gap between those fortunate enough to have the talents, education, and connections needed to seize the emerging opportunities and those forced into narrowly defined, heavily monitored, temporary positions” (qtd. in Collins xvi).In short, the gap between those who have and those who don’t is widening.
4. “Will people be able to find a variety of attractive opportunities for work, or will only the credentialed elite enjoy such opportunities?” (qtd. in Collins xvi) More jobs are being lost than college degrees are being issued, which indicates that a college degree does not guarantee a well paying job. Collins notes that reasons for this include the advent of the Internet, which has eliminated many tasks that service industry professionals once performed (xix).

What can we do?

Collins is upfront: it is impossible to save all manufacturers (xi).

Success Through Transformation

1. We Must Grow: stopping the decline isn’t enough.
2. Process Solutions: solutions like lean manufacturing help, but they alone are not enough.
3. All Customers Are Not Good Customers: demands prices so low that profit margin is non-existent are demands by customers you can afford to lose.
4. Finding New Customers and Markets: you must find new, good customers to replace bad ones.
5. A New Organization: focus on exploring new markets and developing new products
6. Mindset Change: be market-driven rather than operations-driven.

(Collins 1-2)

Collins, Mike. Saving American Manufacturing: Growth Planning for Small and Midsize Manufacturers. Chicago: First Flight Books, 2006.

Written by Paul J. H. Schoemaker, Profiting from Uncertainty: Strategies for Succeeding No Matter What the Future Brings, paints a clear picture of how responses to uncertainty can make or break a company.

In this post we offer a taste of the first chapter, “Embracing Uncertainty,” because it addresses many of the concepts that Insight does when we work with clients to grow and transform their businesses.

Embracing Uncertainty: An Overview

There is no sure-fire way to plan for the unknown, but let’s be clear: risk is not the unknown. Risk is calculated by identifying known contributors and variables; uncertainty is the space outside of risk. It is the unknowable. “The most challenging uncertainties that managers face,” says Schoemaker, “are those they haven’t a clue about – when they wake up one day to find that the Berlin Wall has crashed to the ground or to recognize that the Internet has merged or faded as a powerful new market space” (2).

Why should managers focus on something so unpredictable as uncertainty?

“Firm-specific actions account for just over half the value of a firm,” and the remainder is attributable to external forces that cannot be controlled, but that a company can prepare for through scenario planning (Schoemaker 6).

A few reasons to give uncertainty due consideration:

• Uncertainty affects the external environment
• The level of uncertainty appears to be increasing significantly
• Humans have inherent limitations in dealing with uncertainty 
(Schoemaker 5).

It is also, says Schoemaker, the only source of superior profits (3). A brief look at past examples reveals that stakes are high and that a future that managers fail to see is the one they failed to prepare for (Schoemaker 3-5).

Why is uncertainty increasing?

There are innumerable factors that contribute to uncertainty. A few that are easily identifiable include:

• More complex socioeconomic systems
• New technologies
• Demographic changes
• Changing values
  (Schoemaker 7)

Discomfort with uncertainty is a human response

Humans prefer the predictable. We have myopic eyes that limit our range of sight and timid souls that miss the bigger picture (13). We tend to trust our instincts, but the inherent problem is that instincts develop from past experiences, and uncertainty assumes that the future will differ greatly from the past (Schoemaker 14-15).

Uncertainty = opportunity

You can profit from uncertainties if you’re prepared, and you can prepare with scenario planning. “The less ambiguity we experience, the more we feel a problem can be structured, managed, planned for, and controlled. But competitors can do this as well, so the opportunity for advantage is diminished. We must learn how to welcome and indeed embrace ambiguity” (Schoemaker 10).

Schoemaker’s book includes a number of approaches that help prepare for uncertainty:

• Scenario planning
• Key success factors
• Robustness analysis
• Strategic vision
• Options thinking
• Dynamic monitoring (17)

Schoemaker, Paul J.H. Profiting from Uncertainty: Strategies for Succeeding No Matter What the Future Brings. New York: The Free Press, 2002.

8 building blocks that support an innovation mindset

To achieve a true mindset of innovation takes commitment. Kuczmarski submits that eight building blocks that rest on three interconnected platforms:

1. Planning for innovation
2. Defining the innovation process
3. Crafting a holistic innovation organization

Platform One: Planning for Innovation

Building Block #1: Create an innovation vision and blueprint

A vision enables you to see beyond what you’re currently doing to what you want to become (Kuczmarski 126). Kuczmarski says that, while related to the corporate vision, an innovation vision more specifically:

• Highlights the role that new elements will play
• Describes mission and purpose
• Examines how strategic direction is effected by innovation (128)

Give the innovation vision some parameters and structure by developing an innovation blueprint to guide the way.

Building Block #2: Develop an innovation strategy

To set the vision in motion you need more than a blueprint: you need a plan to implement what the blueprint outlines. That plan is innovation strategy, and it clarifies expectations and defines:

• Financial growth gaps that will be filled
• Financial objectives to meet
• Strategic roles

Building Block #3: Design a technology and innovation portfolio

“Aligned to each strategic role should be an identification of the core technologies or technical expertise areas that you anticipate will be necessary for developing new products” (Kuczmarski 136). In other words, what core technologies do you already have that you can (and will) use to develop new products? Using existing technologies will give you a leg up on your competition.

Platform Two: Defining the Development Process

Building Block #4: Design a staged development process

To transition from a concept to a tangible product your innovation team (see block #5 below) will need a process to follow. Such a process, says Kuczmarski, will:

• Provide a logical approach and system
• Articulate the required approvals
• Offer a framework to manage multiple new concepts (137)

Platform Three: Crafting a Holistic Innovation Organization

Building Block #5: Form innovation teams

To be effective you need a team effort, and the team should consider itself committed for the long haul. When forming an innovation team include these components:

• Cross-functional representation, including expertise, perspective, and experience (140)
• Full-time, dedicated leaders who can motivate, communicate, and solve problems (142)
• Performance-based rewards to motivate team members and recognize a job well done (e.g. peer recognition and career advancement) (145)
• Regular meetings

Building Block #6: Establish reward systems

Rewards do not have to be financial, but they do have to motivate. Particularly for an innovation team whose objective inherently involves taking big risks there is opportunity for big reward, which may come in the form of career advancement, option to buy stock, or some other form of compensation.

Building Block #7: Measure progress and returns

Because the members of innovation teams are pushing boundaries and working to expand the company in new directions they are taking risks. This puts them in a different position than other employees who are supporting the current product and service lines. For the innovation team evaluate members with company-wide, team innovation, and individual innovation measures; having a unique evaluation format further signals a commitment to innovation and cultivates that mindset in the innovation team (151).

Building Block #8: Infuse innovation norms and values

Norms and values, while somewhat informal, help a team establish a sense of community because they form a common set of standards and expectations. When the team members understand the ground rules, there’s no need for rules or regulations (Kuczmarski 153).

Kuczmarski, Thomas D. Innovation: leadership strategies for the competitive edge. Chicago: NTC Business Books, 1996.

8 Steps of Leading Change

1. Establish a sense of urgency

True change takes a lot of effort by a lot of people. If you don’t have buy-in and support from at least 25% of your workforce then road is going to be even more perilous.

To generate support and gain momentum you need a sense of urgency – if you don’t have one then create one. Urgency leads to cooperation to accomplish the goal. If there’s no sense of urgency then there’s likely a high rate of complacency, which becomes a huge obstacle from the onset. Complacency results from sources like low performance standards, senior management communicating exclusively optimistic messages, and “the absence of a major and visible crisis” (Kotter 40).

Three Ways to Counter Complacency

• Set higher standards
• Change internal measurement systems that focus on the wrong indexes
• Reward honest conversation and a willingness to confront problems

Three Ways to Increase the Sense of Urgency

Kotter identifies a number of ways to increase the sense of urgency, among them are to:

• Eliminate obvious excesses
• Require employees to regularly talk with unsatisfied customers
• Highlight opportunities that exist that the company cannot yet pursue

2. Create the guiding coalition

As noted above, you need support to effect change. You also need strong leadership that identifies the goal, sets the course, and guides the way.

Rather than one person who thinks and acts in isolation you need a group that brings a wealth of knowledge. The group, or guiding coalition, must have the right composition, a high level of trust, and a shared objective (Kotter 53). Members must have positions of power, expertise, credibility, and leadership in order to move the organization forward (Kotter 57).

3. Develop a vision and strategy

“Vision refers to a picture of the future with some implicit or explicit commentary on why people should strive to create that future” (Kotter 68).

Kotter outlines three purposes of a good vision for change:

• To clarify the general direction of change
• To motivate people to take action
• To help coordinate action (69)

4. Communicate the change vision

For your employees to understand impending change and its necessity, you must communicate with them. It’s that simple. How you communicate depends somewhat on your company’s structure, but the basic premise is that you must use focused, simple language so that it is easy to understand and sticks in people’s minds. Kotter recommends simplicity, repetition, various forums (e.g. meetings and information conversations), and leading by example (93).

5. Empower employees for broad-based action

If your employees feel powerless then they won’t see the important role they play. Barriers to empowerment that Kotter identifies include formal structures and a lack of needed skills (102). Enable people to take the necessary action.

6. Generate short-term wins

When your employees see evidence that changes are making positive impacts, they see the value and may get a clearer view of the overall vision. If it’s visible, unambiguous, and “clearly related to the change effort” then it’s a short-term win (Kotter 122).

7. Consolidate gains and produce more change

In leading a successful change effort you’ll see more help, support from senior management, and fewer unnecessary interdependencies (Kotter 143). It’s valuable to look to short-term wins to maintain momentum, but be wary of over-celebration that can derail plans you’ve set in motion and completely hijack your vision for change.

8. Anchoring new approaches in the culture

Once you’ve achieved the desired change and experienced positive results it may be tempting to sit back and admire your work. Don’t. The philosophies, norms, and approaches adopted to effect change must be ingrained in the culture in order for them to take hold and sustain themselves. If one person or team was the glue that held everything together, as soon as they’re gone old habits may return if the culture hasn’t fully embraced the changes (Kotter 157).

Kotter, John P. Leading Change. United States: Harvard Business School Press, 1996.

The Pew Research Center is currently working on a yearlong series of reports that will profile the generation known as Millennials — reports that will enable employers to further understand the drivers and motivators to which this group responds.

What is a Millennial?

The most cut-and-dry identifier of someone in the Millennial generation is that they were born between 1978 and 2002. Attitudinal and behavioral tendencies generally observed in this generation include:

• Prolonged adolescence
• Better educated than previous generations
• “Helicopter parents” have instilled a strong sense of the Millennial’s uniqueness, which leads to the belief that they are special and should be treated as such
• Use of technology comes as second nature

What Millennials mean for your business

The above description of Millennials may indicate that they have a warped sense of reality, and to some extent that’s true. But they’re also a tolerant, tech-savvy bunch that can help move your organization into one that makes more effective use of technology, builds a stronger of community (internal and external), and fosters trust. They were born in the era of laptops and iPods, Facebook and Twitter, and they know how to use them effectively.

Millennials tend to be civic-minded and confident, valuing diversity and achievement

They like to be challenged. They want to like their work and to leave work at work (not take it home like their parents did); if they don’t, they will find more meaningful work elsewhere. Use this information along with their Kolbe Indexes® to align your Millennial employees with your business strategy.

Your business will benefit from Millennial’s persistence, optimism, diversity, confidence, and multi-tasking abilities, though you’ll need to provide plenty of structure and to grow their experience working with people. You can optimize Millennial’s performance by:

• Budgeting plenty of time for orienting them and creating a clear picture of the work environment and expectations
• Learning about the employee’s goals and develop a strategy for weaving them into job performance
• Setting employee goals (short- and long-term)
• Growing  your training department  and providing opportunities for professional development and continuing education
• Demonstrating and developing strong leadership
• Where there are lots of Millennials, consider expanding the size of teams and appoint a strong team leader
• Offering assistance with handling difficult people issues
• Establishing strong mentoring programs – matching young workers with most seasoned people with whom they resonate

What are some ways you have succeeded working with Millennials in your organization?

In his November 2009 article “The use and abuse of scenarios,” Charles Roxburgh discusses the ways that scenario planning helps leaders to identify extreme events and their potential outcomes and responses. He notes four features that lead to understanding uncertainty and developing strategy:

• Expand your thinking. “You will think more broadly if you develop a range of possible outcomes, each backed by the sequence of events that would lead to them.”
• Uncover inevitable or near-inevitable futures. “As the analysis underlying each scenario proceeds, you often identify some particularly powerful drivers of change. These drivers result in outcomes that are the inevitable consequence of events that have already happened, or of trends that are already well developed.”
• Protect against “groupthink.” “Often, the power structure within companies inhibits the free flow of debate. People in meetings typically agree with whatever the most senior person in the room says.”
• Allow people to challenge conventional wisdom. “Scenarios provide a less threatening way to lay out alternative futures in which these assumptions may no longer be true.”

He also offers some good rules of thumb:

• Always develop at least four scenarios
• “Crunch” the quadrants
• There should always be a base or central case
• Scenarios must have catchy names to make it part of your organization
• Learn from being totally wrong
• Listen to the contrary voices
• Even modest environmental changes can have enormous impact

We highly recommend that you read the article to get a stronger sense of what we’ve summarized here.

In December of 2008 McKinsey & Company published an interview with Hugh Courtney, an associate dean of executive programs and professor of strategy at the University of Maryland’s Rober H. Smith School of Business, who had recently published a book entitled 20/20 Foresight: Crafting Strategy in an Uncertain World.

Highlights from the Interview

Courtney developed a four-part framework to help managers think about the level of uncertainly that surrounds strategic decisions:

• Level 1: a clear, single view of the future
• Level 2: a limited set of possible future outcomes
• Level 3: a range of possible future outcomes
• Level 4: a limitless range of possible future outcomes

Following the September 11 attacks and then the financial crisis, Courtney identifies the shift not in the uncertainties that exist, but in the human perception of them:

The financial crisis has actually brought greater clarity because it has forced us to recognize that we have a lot more level three and level four situations than we would have admitted a few months ago. They probably were there all along, yet the bias was toward thinking that issues were more at level one and level two. Specifically, we have learned how interdependent our financial markets are and how systemic failure in any important node of the network can work very rapidly through the system and bring liquidity to a halt. So our scenarios about the availability of capital around the world have changed significantly.

Where to go from here?

Courtney says to rethink your planning process and we at Insight agree as we assist organizations with this process:

Have you been doing strategic planning on an annual basis as a paper-pushing exercise? That will have to change. In the months to come, you’re going to have to make decisions very quickly on fundamental opportunities that may drive your earnings performance for the next decade or more, and you’ve got to be prepared to make these decisions in real time.

When it comes to your organization’s future, scenario planning is one of the tools you must regularly sharpen in order to adapt as necessary. Contact us for more information or to schedule a consultation.

Optimize costs and develop people by outsourcing to specialists

Bringing in HR specialists enables you to focus on your core business while ensuring that a keen eye is on talent and human resource management. There are a number of benefits to an outsourcing arrangement:

• Cost savings are often associated with outsourcing rather than hiring internal staff to manage non-core functions
• Great IT efficiencies through integrated tools
• Readily-available advisors provide another perspective
• Employees do not waste time reinventing the wheel of administrative tasks

Insight partners with Reach 360 to help you streamline & accelerate your people development

Insight is a strategic growth firm that starts with understanding your organizational objectives and goals to help transition the expectations of your culture during changing times. Reach360 provides you relief from the burden of day‐to‐ day business administration through a complete circle of services—including Human Resource Management, Accounting and Financial Services, and IT support—all through one phone number.

Insights’ turnkey performance management system, BLOOM®, aligns people performance functions with your business strategy. Reach 360’s robust IT systems bridge ongoing information exchanges between payroll, insurance, 401K, and ancillary benefit programs vendors.

Stop wasting time with double and triple data entry between payroll and benefit systems

• Bridge information between all of your HR vendors
• Link your strategic plan to the performance management of your people
• Automate role descriptions, performance reviews, employee goals setting, training, tracking, wage scale tracking, strategic status reviews, and more.
• Complete, secure access to information 24/7

Growth with Savings

There is no better combination in business than growing a business with better strategy and decision-making with simultaneous achieving cost savings. Based on our experience, here are some examples of what that can look like in small and mid-size organizations when you integrate improved strategic talent leadership with more efficient HR systems:

Cost Savings

• Benefits: as much as $250,000 annually (average $20,000‐60,000/yr)
• Commercial Insurance: as much as $100,000 annually (average $45,000/yr)
• Payroll: as much as $20,000 annually (average $15,000/yr)
• Recruitment: As much as $10,000 annually (average $7,000/year)
• Time & Attendance: as much as $15,000 annually (average $10,000/yr)

Growth (Manufacturing)

• 18% compounded annual growth for 10 years straight
• $9.6m to $18m in 2 years; industry down 15% per year
• $35m to $165m in 3 years
• $12m to $17m in 1 year; industry down 30%
• $40m to $120m in 3 years

Next Steps: contact us for more information

Contact Insight for more information We are flexible and will independently assess your organization as you wish.

Tom Coughlin. Bobby Knight. Both are names you might recognize; they’re coaches whose unique — even controversial — coaching styles have led to great success.

Coach Coughlin adapted to team needs

Coughlin is known for his “if you’re not five minutes early you’re already late” and “no white socks with dress slacks” rules for his professional football teams. His traditional style challenged his team to change and adapt their ways to his norm, yet his disciplinarian style left him disconnected from his 2006-2007 team and caused discontent among the players. Given another year to turn the team around, Coughlin made some key modifications:

• He listened to the feedback and intentionally became more approachable, forming a team leadership council to get input from players. The council gave players insight into what the coach was thinking and why, and it gave them a sense of involvement that led to buy-in.
• He began to look like he enjoyed his job – even smiling more often. In press conferences he used words like “fun” and “enjoy. ” He took the team bowling during the preseason.

Coughlin’s changes were not extreme, yet they changed the team’s dynamic to one of high morale and unity.

Coach Knight put his beliefs into practice

Volumes have been written on Bobby Knight’s leadership style, though two key points stand high above the rest:

1. Knight has led by his values: discipline, effort, execution, and dedication. He lives what he believes. His dedication extends to his players past and present, which his record of a 98% graduation rate among his four-year players demonstrates.
2. Knight is loyal. His loyalties include his inner circle of friends, past players, and causes he believes in. When coaching at Indiana University, Knight was known to show up in the children’s wards of the local hospitals to spend time with kids and their families.

What their examples show us

Coughlin coached the New York Giants well enough for the team to turn its mediocre season into a 2008 Super Bowl victory over the New England Patriots. Knight is the winningest men’s coach in NCAA basketball history. Both men are leaders. Both men are intense, no-nonsense individuals. Both have earned reputations for their firebrand, disciplinarian, and controlling coaching styles.

Both are also examples that teach us about personal uniqueness and leadership:

• Good leaders are never too old to learn, to listen to feedback, to be introspective, and to adapt in order to best lead.
• Leadership involves buy-in. If you’re leading and no one is following, then you’re not actually leading. You need involvement and interaction. Be a strong leader, but be human.
• There is no cookie cutter leadership style. Authentic leadership must be a reflection of who we truly are – and that style must also be able to adapt to the team’s needs.
• Leadership involves loyalty and care.

What are some effective leaders or style you’ve found helpful? What are some ways you’ve adjusted your own leadership approach to better lead your team?