Back in the day. Correction. Way back in the day, we would slowly “bleed” one that was ill with the hope that this would “fix” them. We would, oftentimes, slowly bleed the ill one until they became a dead one. In hindsight we would mostly blame their untimely death on their disease, their high fever, their systems inability to fight, and we would, oddly enough, be right.
We would, of course, miss the fact that we were WRONG. We would miss the part where we mistakenly contributed to their systems inability to fight by slowly taking away their life blood.
Isn’t science great. We no longer make this same mistake thanks to modern day medicine. We understand so much more about the way our bodies work, the way they heal, and what we can do to aid the process. Wouldn’t it be great if we could transfer this systems thinking to our business systems?
Walk around nearly any corporate hall today and you will witness a very distressed system. Many are slowly bleeding as they watch their co-workers being carried out in body bags on friday’s at four. The leaders, the head physicians if you will, are offering little to no explanation. They simply come out, every so often, and tell those that are bleeding to get busy. They remind their patients that they must continue to perform, stop wasting time, and stop worrying about friday’s at four. Hey DOC!! Can’t you see I’m bleeding over here…
Here is what we need.
We need better science. We need better thinking. We need some modern medicine applied to our business systems. We need the head physicians, our leaders, to study, learn, and apply NOW. We need some new experiments and we don’t have time to wait all day. We need…
BUILT TO LEAD Leaders who:
1. Tell the patient, the attending physicians, the team, if you will, the unvarnished truth. Take the hard questions. Hang out with them. BE with them.
2. Involve the “team” in deciding how you go forward. This will be unnerving for most. The time for false pride and dictator doc’s is long gone.
3. Get in the laboratory and start more experiments. The internet has never made this easier. Awesome new discoveries are everywhere. The barriers to most every business system are being brought to their knees. This is as much an opportunity as it is a threat. Experiment early and often.
4. Study, learn, and apply as a discipline. You waited too long to innovate. Admit it. Do not make the same mistake again. Stop the bleeding, if you will, by mastering your craft. The road to mastery is a ten thousand hour journey. Med School never looked so easy…
5. Start hitting the books. Read. Feed the brain baby. Jolt it. Read Jeff Jarvis’ book, What would Google Do. Get some ideas and go to number 3 and start some lab work, baby. Stop telling yourself you don’t have the time to get better. You do.
We need some BTL leaders to stop the bleeding and stop the blaming.
Be one.
BUILT TO LEAD 
Stop the bleeding and stop the blaming…. ‘L yeah!
My “and” is to stop B.S.’ing yourself and your team that you don’t have time.
Most of us don’t “have time” because we allow a lot of B.S. to fill our time with B.S.yness and B.ureaucratic S.ystems in our business (most of which ME the enemy of WE created).
According to a frustrated leukemia research physician at OSU, this is the #1 enemy against finding cures for cancer… it’s B.S. meetings that interrupt flow and create a myriad of distractions for WHY they are there.
Do yourself and your team a favor. Start with yourself, and if you have a builder and an executive assistant, include them. Get out your crackberry or your “smart” phone or whatever you use for your personal calendar, and BLOCK out chunks of time for #1-#5 above for the current month. Make sure it’s ENOUGH time to get into FLOW. That means HOURS not minutes. Make THIS the priority for your PoPs each month. And then celebrate Done So’s with each other when you have team practice.
This is at the heart of practice…this is why we practice… this is the ONE to practice to truly “Be ONE”.
Great post, Toto.