The past year has been rough for most businesses. However, if you are reading this, it probably means you are still in business. And if you are still in business, then you have had some degree of profitability. You might even be having a good year. Well, I say that good isn’t good enough. Not today and not going forward.

Some of your competitors are now out of business. That bodes well for you. Stimulus dollars are flowing and, one way or another, many firms will be favorably impacted by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Revenue enables you get back to business as usual. But, it also hides weaknesses in your organization. So, while revenue is good, it isn’t good enough.

My work as a Non-Resident Fellow with Marine Corps University reminds me that leadership must evolve to meet new challenges. The Marine corporal is a leader at the smallest unit level. The corporal is often referred to as the strategic corporal because the decisions he makes may have global repercussions. In his book, Making the Corps, Thomas Ricks said, “the kid whom we don’t trust to run the copier is the squad or platoon leader addressing questions that could alter national security…and he is doing it under the glare of real-time global television broadcasts.” Currently, the Corps is reevaluating how it educates the strategic corporal to make his development more relevant and more valuable. In other words, the Marines have done a good job developing this front line leader–but they recognize that good isn’t good enough.

Your operations leaders are most likely proficient at the tasks they oversee. In fact, they have probably come up through the ranks and are not only proficient, but expert at these tasks. However, their level of technical expertise does not necessarily equate to their ability to lead. Often, an employee rises to a supervisory position with little or no training in how to do it. Without proper guidance and training, they can’t help but perform poorly in this capacity.

Much like the Marines are integrating more lessons on decision-making, ethics, and planning, so too must you work smarter to produce better leaders. Business must recognize the front line as the profit generators and treat them accordingly. Senior execs attend industry conventions and are exposed to cutting edge ideas. Front line leaders are often subjected to what a client described to me as the “annual training day.” Unbelieving, I asked, “You mean annual meeting, right? Not annual training.” He replied, “No, we only bring them in once a year. We can’t afford to do more than that. We need them producing.” I never worked for that client again.

Last century, there was a time when Quality was Job One at Ford Motors. Today, and always, Planning Is Job One. But a good plan is not good enough. The plan must be communicated and implemented. While planning is the work of managers, implementation is the work of leaders. We have seen that a good plan and a good boss can create good results. Yet, we know the truism that “good is the enemy of great.” In fact, you can capitalize on this statement and work to create a great system and a great leader.

No other combination will produce superior results.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 16th, 2009 at 2:00 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.