Principles from “Great by Choice.” (CtbG Y4:E16)

“Why do some organizations thrive in uncertainty, even chaos, and others do not?”

That’s the first question Jim Collins asks in his NYT Bestseller, Great by Choice. It was written back in 2011, just as I was entering school administration. This book intrigued me for two reasons. First, I had just finished reading Good To Great, Collins’ other masterpiece that explores how companies jump from merely being good to reach greatness. Second, Collins’ basic premise, that greatness is a choice, resonated deeply within me. (Sound familiar? If not, check out the title of the blog.)

I decided to share it with you today because it’s come up in several conversations this week. While there are a few reasons for that, I don’t think anyone would disagree that we’re leading in times of both uncertainty and chaos. Because of this, it can be tempting to believe that we’re simply at the mercy of these uncertain and chaotic environments. In that reality, leadership is simply reduced to how we react.

But that’s not true. We often have much more power, influence, and agency than we recognize. The goal, then, becomes recognizing how we can use our power to succeed despite the noise. Great by Choice gives us some practical principles for doing exactly that.

1. 20 Mile March (Fanatic Discipline) “The 20 Mile March is more than a philosophy. It’s about having concrete, clear, intelligent, and rigorously pursued performance mechanisms that keep you on track. The 20 Mile March creates two types of self-imposed discomfort: (1) the discomfort of unwavering commitment to high performance in difficult conditions, and (2) the discomfort of holding back in good conditions.
2. Fire Bullets, Then Cannonballs (Empirical Creativity): “Fire bullets. Assess: Did they hit anything? Consider: Do any of your successful bullets merit conversion to a big cannonball? Convert: Concentrate resources and fire a cannonball once calibrated. Don’t fire uncalibrated cannonballs. Terminate bullets that show no evidence of eventual success.”
3. Leading Above The Death Line (Productive Paranoia): “It’s what you do before the storm hits – the decisions and disciplines and buffers and shock absorbers already in place – that matter most in determining whether your enterprise pulls ahead, falls behind, or dies when the storm hits.”
4. SMaC (Specific, Methodical, and Consistent): “A SMaC recipe is a set of durable operating practices that create a replicable and consistent success formula; it is clear and concrete, enabling the entire enterprise to unify and organize its efforts, giving clear guidance regarding what to do and what not to do.”
5. Return on Luck: “Luck happens, a lot, both good luck and bad luck…We observed an asymmetry between good luck and bad. A single stroke of good fortune, not matter how big, cannot by itself make a great company. But a single stroke of extremely bad luck, or an extended sequence of bad luck events that create a catastrophic outcome, can terminate the quest.”

If you found these helpful, I encourage you to pick up the book and allow Collins to fully color things in.

My hope in writing this is that you’ll consider how these principles apply to your organization, whether that’s a school or an entire district.

• Do we believe greatness is a choice to be pursued or a stroke of luck that finds some but not others?
• Do we press forward and make some measure of progress, even when things are difficult, or do we allow difficult circumstances to altogether halt our progress?
• Are we carefully considering our next steps or using massive resources on moonshots that have no promise of actually helping us?
• Are we making preparations for the dark days that lie ahead, even when we don’t see storm clouds on the horizon?
• Do we understand, deeply, how our organization works, and are we able to specifically, methodically, and consistently explain it in a way that is replicable and consistent?

Further, we must make this important link: these organizational principles are inextricably linked to our leadership beliefs and behaviors. Trying to implement a system built on these principles without first assimilating them into our own leadership practices is a recipe for organizational misalignment, confusion, and failure.

Start small. Start by firing a bullet by starting with yourself. From there, with some fanatic discipline, a bit of productive paranoia, and some SMaC practices, you’ll begin to identify the changes that will carry you and your organization to greatness.

#ChooseToBeGreat!

Angelo