The speed of life is a global condition that presents a strategic challenge for everyone.  The speed of life combines excessive amounts of unrefined information with a glut of choices and opportunities and presents itself in the form of confusion and distraction!  How well we function within this constant condition determines value, competitive advantage and the ability to create results that will convert a vision or a dream into reality.  These issues are always important but in tough economic times they are absolutely critical to success.

The speed of life can’t be stopped but it can be understood and leveraged in a positive way.  It is a fact that knowledge and information have always been a cornerstone of power, influence and achievement!  However, the speed of life generates so much information it creates distractions that unwittingly lead people into well-intentioned busyness.  It is a form of busyness that marginalizes results.  The solution is to identify and deploy high leverage activities that harness the right information at the right time and focus on action that will move the results needle!

The only thing certain about the speed of life is uncertainty.  It is impossible to accurately forecast future conditions over a long period of time and an  approach based on the principle of ‘going as far as you can see — so that you can see farther’  is needed.  Such a strategy is created by concentrating on the three strategic issues that matter most:  Clarity, Focus, and Execution.

CLARITY
If you have no cohesive vision there is little chance of achieving sustained success in a bad economy.  Think about this:  Most organizations have adopted vision and mission statements; however, many within those organizations find it difficult to articulate the vision or mission, without reading it.  This condition is typical and may be evidence that there is no real  clarity about the vision and how to achieve it.  Unless there is clarity regarding a vision — there is no vision!

When businesses have clarity concerning their vision it lives!  It also creates zeal and passion for the commitment and determination needed to execute the vision.  The vision itself becomes able to pull everyone forward.  The pulling effect is created because clarity impacts people at the level of belief and produces voluntary change in attitudes and behavior.

Clarity is achieved when we have an unfettered view of our vision and understand what we really want, why we want it, the value of doing it and the highest purpose for doing it!

FOCUS
Focus is the opposite of distraction!  At the speed of life,  success hinges on the ability to cut through the clutter and focus on the high leverage activities that directly impact results.  Focus is not something that comes naturally for most people, and that is why it is a skill that must be learned, polished, and practiced. Specifically, focus is a thinking skill that is acquired as a result of mental discipline.

Because the human mind serves as a connector of facts and information, fresh input is the raw material of creativity, opportunity recognition and problem solving.  The mind is always hungry for new information because it stimulates thought and is fulfilling.  Unfortunately, basic process of thinking provides the opportunity for distraction.  Distraction is always the path of least resistance and the most natural activity for the mind to embrace.  The speed of life offers up scores of opportunities each day that lure us into distractions that gobble time.

Between today’s conditions and tomorrows hope is a gap that must be crossed.  In that gap is every goal, objective and action step that must be taken to be successful.  Achieving focus is a matter of identifying the high-leverage activities in the gap that powerfully impact results and developing the mental skills to insure they receive the time they deserve.

EXECUTION
The ability to persuade others has a direct impact on achieving superior results, faster, which is what the speed of life demands.   As we gain clarity and develop our focusing skills, the need to concentrate on high-leverage activities becomes paramount.  However, identifying and focusing on those activities is only the beginning.  Once our high-leverage activities are known the challenge of actually doing them becomes the issue.  People must be persuaded to focus on these activities and to act quickly!  This always involves exceeding expectations.

There is more to exceeding expectations than adopting the idea as a strategy.  Exceeding expectations has its greatest impact when it is adopted by individuals as a way of life.  When you have a group of people who are willing to exceed expectations in the normal course of their daily activity a powerful force for superior results is created.

People in businesses and organizations are persuaded to exceed expectations based on the positive strategic presence of their leadership team. Leaders create images of influence in the minds of those they lead and those images define the organizational perception of leadership.    It is this overall persona that creates what I call Strategic Presence.  Leaders are constantly creating positive and negative Strategic Presence based on their values and their behavior.   The most important fact about Strategic Presence is that it produces two possible reactions in others.  It either produces voluntary cooperation or it produces various forms of resistance.  If the Strategic Presence of leadership is highly positive, people will be more likely to support the vision of leadership.  If the Strategic Presence of leadership is negative, people will not be willing to exceed expectations.  They may actually try to undermine the goals of leadership!

The key to persuasion is Strategic Presence and the ability to communicate strategically is the foundation for both.  Organizations frequently treat communication as a collection of skills, or just another training or coaching objective.  This idea represents a tactical approach to communication.  If execution can be seen as a train rolling down a track to a predetermined destination, communication is the engine that powers the train!  If you can’t communicate effectively you will not execute effectively

©2008 Tony Jeary, author of Strategic Acceleration: Succeed at the Speed of Life

Author
Tony Jeary, author of Strategic Acceleration: Succeed at the Speed of Life, has been and continues to be the coach to the world’s top CEOs and high achievers for more than 20 years. His clients include the Presidents of Wal-Mart, Firestone, Shell, Samsung, New York Life, and the United States Senate, to name only a few. An advisor to many, Tony Jeary has invested his life and career in helping others discover new clarity for their vision, develop focus on direction, and create powerful execution strategies that strategically impact achievement and results. Tony is happily married and blessed with 2 great daughters.

Exercise 1 – Create Voluntary Change

Exercise 2 – Understand Your Influences

Exercise 3 – Understand Your Strategic Beliefs

Exercise 4 – Outline What You Need To Do To Get What You Want

Exercise 5 – Document Your Vision

Exercise 6 – Unlock Your Internal Keys To Success

Exercise 7 – Explore Where You Are Today, Why You Might Not Be Going Where You Want, And What Can Be Changed

Exercise 8 – Create Your Own Recipe For Clarity

Exercise 10 – Evaluate Your Current Focus Skills

Exercise 11 – Improve Your Focus Skills

Exercise 12 – Get Clear on Current Conditions

Exercise 13 – Develop Your Strategic Plan

Exercise 14 – Determine What to Say and How to Say It

Exercise 15 – Give Value and Do More Than is Expected

Exercise 16 – Document What Is And Is Not Working Well

Exercise 17 – Describe Your Hope And Great Goal For The Future

Exercise 18 – Examine the Behaviors You Most Value

Exercise 19 – Understand What You Are And What You Want To Be

Strategic Acceleration produces clarity and focus about things that need to be said. Communication Mastery provides the methodology and the means by which those things can be said. The result of Communication Mastery is growth, enhancement of perceived value in the marketplace and sustainable methodologies that yield highly productive cultures characterized by accomplishment.

As Strategic Acceleration becomes a reality, communication skills and abilities are elevated at every level. They are raised not by the training of individual presentation and speaking skills, but by the presence of a system that produces clarity and focus and the ability to execute. When people have clarity, focus and execution they are confident. When they have tools and processes that facilitate their communication objectives they become better communicators. When a system of communication is established, the ability of the team is elevated. A rising tide raises all boats and that is the effect of Communication Mastery.

Organizations are actually living things composed of people whose success depends on their collective ability to express the common values, focused objectives and proven practices that will yield dynamic growth and sustained success. When people within an organization communicate, their goal must be to do so at a level that produces measurable impact. Some are able to communicate more effectively and powerfully than others and have greater impact. Tony Jeary presents Communication Mastery as a system capable of lifting everyone to higher levels of impact. As entire organizations elevate their communication standards, their impact on people improves from Basic to Mastery over time. The greater the impact, the more profound the results. This concept is graphically depicted with the “Impact Curve Graphic.”

So, what is the effect of Communication Mastery? Four things always appear:

Strategic Acceleration is a leadership methodology developed by Tony Jeary that combines awareness, operational practices, and powerful informational resources  designed to produce Strategic Speed, and superior results within time frames that exceed traditional expectations.

Strategic Acceleration is also a leadership mindset that approaches old issues in new ways.  Empowered by proven tools and processes, the Strategic Acceleration mindset transforms old practices into new initiatives of excellence that produce unprecedented results.  Strategic Acceleration is capable of solving even the most difficult challenges through clarity and focus concerning the hardest of facts.  The Strategic Acceleration Mindset is driven and supported by one simple concept:  “Always Give value, Do more than is Expected!”

Strategic Acceleration begins with awareness.  To have clarity, there must be an understanding of the issues.  People must understand that leadership is about getting results and that results depend on execution. Strategic Acceleration allows these truths to become a part of the organizational belief window (how people perceive everything).  Elevating awareness concerning the strategic issues of speed and results is the catalyst for Strategic Acceleration.

When awareness has been achieved the next issue engages operational practices as they relate to communication.  These practices touch every area of an organization: how leaders communicate to their employees, how peers communicate with each other, how the Business Development Team communicates with customers, and how the value of the enterprise is perceived by the world.  There is no strategy or objective that does not rely upon effective organizational practices to produce success.  Strategic Acceleration produces the tools, processes and practices needed to generate this kind of business capability.

The final piece of Strategic Acceleration is an information arsenal that is accessible by all who need to use it.  It is the sum of the intellectual capital of the enterprise in every operational business segment.  It is organized through cutting edge technology and placed at the fingertips of the people who need to use it.  It is a repository of best practices and wisdom from a wide variety of sources – all organized in a way that it may be captured and deployed.  This asset is a powerful strategic resource that comes together in a dynamic tactical tool known as The Strategic Acceleration Studio.

With most of the world falling into an emotional funk about the economy, its time for leaders to stop focusing on problems and start thinking about solutions. Ultimately, the free market will have to provide the permanent solutions for our economic challenges. Until that happens, we are going to have to create strategies for ourselves and our businesses that will allow us to weather the storm and thrive! Because the economy can’t be changed by any single person or organization, it creates a lot of individual and organizational fear and concern. We tend to feel helpless in the face of such huge challenges that seem beyond our control. A huge part of our individual success will hinge on the perceptions we have about our ability to be successful, in spite of hard times. Perception is reality, even if its not the truth and our perceptions are the engine of our action and the results we get. That is why perception matters!

Organizational perceptions about the economy may become the most strategic factor in how well any business will respond to the economic downturn. Companies that are able to move beyond the obvious problems and move toward positive solutions and identify new opportunities are going to have a competitive advantage over businesses frozen in fear about the future. Every leader should understand that the organizational perceptions of their team must be addressed. Leaders must proactively involve themselves in communication strategies that promote healthy perceptions about their businesses, their products and their future. Simply put, leaders have to take on the challenge of persuading their teams that the world is not coming to an end and that opportunity continues to exist, even in the worst of times.

The speed of life is a global condition that presents a strategic challenge for everyone. The speed of life combines excessive amounts of unrefined information with a glut of choices and opportunities and presents itself in the form of confusion and distraction! How well we function within this constant condition determines value, competitive advantage and the ability to create results that will convert a vision or a dream into reality. These issues are always important but in tough economic times they are absolutely critical to success.

The speed of life can’t be stopped but it can be understood and leveraged in a positive way. It is a fact that knowledge and information have always been a cornerstone of power, influence and achievement! However, the speed of life generates so much information it creates distractions that unwittingly lead people into well-intentioned busyness. It is a form of busyness that marginalizes results. The solution is to identify and deploy high leverage activities that harness the right information at the right time and focus on action that will move the results needle!

The only thing certain about the speed of life is uncertainty. It is impossible to accurately forecast future conditions over a long period of time, and an approach based on the principle of “going as far as you can see – so that you can see farther” is needed. Such a strategy is created by concentrating on the three strategic issues that matter most: Clarity, Focus, and Execution.

Clarity

If you have no cohesive vision there is little chance of achieving sustained success in a bad economy. Think about this: Most organizations have adopted vision and mission statements; however, many within those organizations find it difficult to articulate the vision or mission, without reading it. This condition is typical and may be evidence that there is no real clarity about the vision and how to achieve it. Unless there is clarity regarding a vision – there is no vision!

When businesses have clarity concerning their vision it lives! It also creates zeal and passion for the commitment and determination needed to execute the vision. The vision itself becomes able to pull everyone forward. The pulling effect is created because clarity impacts people at the level of belief and produces voluntary change in attitudes and behavior.

Clarity is achieved when we have an unfettered view of our vision and understand what we really want, why we want it, the value of doing it and the highest purpose for doing it!

Focus

Focus is the opposite of distraction! At the speed of life, success hinges on the ability to cut through the clutter and focus on the high leverage activities that directly impact results. Focus is not something that comes naturally for most people, and that is why it is a skill that must be learned, polished, and practiced. Specifically, focus is a thinking skill that is acquired as a result of mental discipline.

Because the human mind serves as a connector of facts and information, fresh input is the raw material of creativity, opportunity recognition and problem solving. The mind is always hungry for new information because it stimulates thought and is fulfilling. Unfortunately, basic process of thinking provides the opportunity for distraction. Distraction is always the path of least resistance and the most natural activity for the mind to embrace. The speed of life offers up scores of opportunities each day that lure us into distractions that gobble time.

Between today’s conditions and tomorrows hope is a gap that must be crossed. In that gap is every goal, objective and action step that must be taken to be successful. Achieving focus is a matter of identifying the high-leverage activities in the gap that powerfully impact results and developing the mental skills to insure they receive the time they deserve.

Execution

The ability to persuade others has a direct impact on achieving superior results, faster, which is what the speed of life demands. As we gain clarity and develop our focusing skills, the need to concentrate on high-leverage activities becomes paramount. However, identifying and focusing on those activities is only the beginning. Once our high-leverage activities are known the challenge of actually doing them becomes the issue. People must be persuaded to focus on these activities and to act quickly! This always involves exceeding expectations.

There is more to exceeding expectations than adopting the idea as a strategy. Exceeding expectations has its greatest impact when it is adopted by individuals as a way of life. When you have a group of people who are willing to exceed expectations in the normal course of their daily activity a powerful force for superior results is created.

People in businesses and organizations are persuaded to exceed expectations based on the positive strategic presence of their leadership team. Leaders create images of influence in the minds of those they lead and those images define the organizational perception of leadership. It is this overall persona that creates what I call Strategic Presence. Leaders are constantly creating positive and negative Strategic Presence based on their values and their behavior. The most important fact about Strategic Presence is that it produces two possible reactions in others. It either produces voluntary cooperation or it produces various forms of resistance. If the Strategic Presence of leadership is highly positive, people will be more likely to support the vision of leadership. If the Strategic Presence of leadership is negative, people will not be willing to exceed expectations. They may actually try to undermine the goals of leadership!

The key to persuasion is Strategic Presence and the ability to communicate strategically is the foundation for both. Organizations frequently treat communication as a collection of skills, or just another training or coaching objective. This idea represents a tactical approach to communication. If execution can be seen as a train rolling down a track to a predetermined destination, communication is the engine that powers the train! If you can’t communicate effectively you will not execute effectively.

To listen to Tony Jeary discuss Strategic Acceleration, go to:

http://odeo.com/episodes/24145543-Strategic-Acceleration-Succeed-at-the-Speed-of-Life