Leadership Principles

Leadership Principles are the glue that keep our remote teams together. They provide a sense of belonging and pride and give guidance and direction to our day-to-day interactions and choices. They help set expectations for the people we interact with.

1. Accept That Each Yin Has Its Yang – There are always two sides of a coin. Yin and Yang are about balance between and understanding of those two opposite sites. It is about the ability to switch, and the understanding that each side contains elements of the other.
2. Be Customer Obsessed – Do everything you do from the perspective of achieving the right outcome for the customer. Step in your customers shoes and stand in your customers position. Observe what you do and then ask yourself if that makes sense from that perspective. Don’t confuse Customer Obsession with ‘just doing what the Customer tells you to do’.
3. Be Fascinated with Making Technology Work – Start with embracing new technologies. Experiment, investigate and learn. Accept mistakes and learn from them. Be comfortable with letting go of the status quo and accept that initially it may make things worse. Technological advancements will continue to accelerate and open mindedness and fascination will help us make sense of it, identify the benefits of it, embed it in our ways of working and accelerate with it.
4. It’s About Effectiveness as a Team – Did we mention ants before? Prevent the 5 dysfunctions of teams:
5. Apply System and Design Thinking – System thinking is about the whole process. It is a holistic approach that focuses on the way a system’s constituent parts interrelate. Looking at how systems work over time and within the context of larger systems. System thinking requires collaboration. Attention to feedback is an essential component. If you get the process right, then the results will take care of themselves. The how is more important than the goal.
6. Be Action and Outcome Driven – Apply Eisenhower’s Principle: if an action is urgent and important, do it now. If it is urgent but not important, schedule when to do it. If it is urgent and not important, delegate it. And if it is not urgent nor important, delete it.
7. Create Positive Environments – A good place to work for staff, shared objectives with customers and partners, a win-win-win situation with suppliers, fun, a sense of humour, play. Be friendly and approachable. Do something nice for others with no strings attached. Obsession with positive environments will help identify and remove silly habits and roadblocks. It helps you question what you do, create a positive challenge and an upwards and onwards attitude. Change thrives in a positive environment.
8. Only Do What Makes Sense – Only doing what makes sense forces the ’why’ question. Answering the ‘why’ question leads to discovery, elimination, innovation and disruption. It comes from asking ‘why’ and from accepting that ‘everybody else does it’, doesn’t make it right. Do the right thing.
9. Be Courageous – Prove that you have taken and can take some courageous or interesting paths in your life. Being courageous ensures comfort with ambiguity – we do not know how technology, our business and our customers will evolve, and navigating this requires courage and the ability to deal with ambiguity.