Why should the boss listen to you about anything? What’s in it for him or her?
There are clearly some risks and often intense surprises if you do punch through and get heard by the boss. Are you ready?
Can you be more brutally honest with and about yourself?
Can you train yourself to focus on what really matters . . . to the boss?
How willing are you to change yourself to have the influence you seek? The odds of changing the boss are slim.
You might use what I call the clarifying triad:
The Five Why’s process, to help you recognize where you are and the root causes of your problems.
The If… Then…Test: if you suggest A, then B will become obvious.
Present options rather than solutions. Always use The Three Minute Drill technique to present your advice. This approach will multiply your importance and influence.
Being a Trusted Strategic Advisor is a fascinating journey, one from which, ultimately, you will benefit more than anyone else, as will those who use what you advise.
Those who successfully serve others have a work attitude that says,
When I am here, working for you is number one.
I plan to be here a lot and, if necessary, available the rest of the time as well.
I am committed to extensive independent reading, discussion, issue sensitivity, and personal learning that is of value to those I coach and counsel.
I will take the initiative to help those I coach and counsel move in useful new directions and rely far more on foresight than hindsight.
I recognize that going even a small extra distance will be the difference between mundane and magnificent results. Extra effort, extra sensitivity, extra focus are what make the difference from the client’s perspective.
Read these five commitments carefully. If becoming a Trusted Strategic Advisor is truly important to you, then you must be willing to commit to each and every one of them. This is because the CEO has already made them get to where he or she is. You have to make them, too, if you want to operate on the inside.
Practical: suggests tasks that are achievable and positive in nature and that employees and even critics can endorse to some degree.
Pragmatic: recognizes that only certain outcomes are possible, that no matter how spiffy, creative, or exciting your ideas might be, those affected by the advice as well as those acting on the advice will look at it from the perspective of whether it can actually work in their real world.
Purposeful: has self-evident forward focus and positive momentum. Counselors and consultants are strategic operational assets. When activated, strategic assets are fundamentally positive and energize the organization and its constituencies.
Focused: shows the way, helps the client or customer think and act in the future tense, and works toward a few important goals (or just one) that everyone recognizes.
Candor: truth with an attitude delivered right now.
There are many distractions in consulting, and many clients with great difficulties, problems, shortcomings, and blind spots. The consultant’s obligation is to identify and provide candid, constructive advice that finds those deficiencies, strengthens the shortcomings, and fills blind spots, while stabilizing or moving the organization toward tomorrow.
Becoming a Trusted Strategic Advisor imposes five crucial imperatives:
Jettison staff-based assumptions.
See the whole board.
Tolerate constructive ambiguity but strive for certainty.
Maximize your prerogatives.
Develop real expertise beyond your staff function.
Jettison Staff-Based Assumptions
One of the most profound underlying concepts of success as a Trusted Strategic Advisor is the imperative to set aside all your staff-based assumptions and orient your life, your thinking, and your recommendations to the perspectives, viewpoints, and issues of those you advise.
See The Whole Board
If you have been tutored by or have taken classes from a skilled chess player, you know that one of the most important lessons is to keep the entire board in mind. You have to look at the whole board constantly as you plan and make your moves, assessing, analyzing, and forecasting the other moves that could result.
Tolerate Constructive Ambiguity, but Strive For Certainty
Consultants and advisors are fundamentally option and alternative finders rather than solution finders. This is because leaders recognize that having a solution is oftentimes the least of their worries. What really matters is finding a process to get to something that works-almost anything that works. This is another area where the trusted advisor plays a crucial role.
Maximize Your Prerogatives
Being influential means having power. Getting things to happen today, when you want to or need to, is about creating immediate, visible impact through actions or decisions by the boss. You can also choose to be influential over longer time frames-whichever strategy best fits the objective you seek to achieve.
Develop Real Expertise Beyond Your Staff Function
If you want to gain access beyond routine staff consultations by operating executives, you must possess, perhaps above all else, some real, recognizable business expertise. This expertise generally needs to move beyond your area of staff knowledge. The reasoning is that most senior operators feel fairly confident of their knowledge base in your area and assume that your competence in that area comes with the territory. If you stay within the box of your staff expertise, you will be called only when the boss thinks that your staff expertise is required, usually, it’s to validate something he or she already wants to do in your area.
Pick a topic or field of interest you like at work or in your industry. Develop real expertise, it’s how you earn entry to the top levels of your organization.
Eight Steps to Rebuilding and Rehabilitating Trust
Seeking Forgiveness is society’s requirement for relationship, trust, and credibility restoration. Adverse situations using this template remediate faster, cost a lot less, are controversial for much shorter periods of time, suffer less litigation, and help the victims come to closure more quickly. Obtaining forgiveness involves completing the nine steps below. To achieve success in the shortest possible time, these steps should be initiated and completed as quickly as possible: like, start them all today. Skip a step or be insincere and the process will be incomplete and fundamentally fail.
Step #1Candor: Outward recognition, through promptly verbalized public acknowledgement (or outright apology), that a problem exists; that people or groups of people, the environment, or the public trust are affected; and that something will be done to remediate the situation.
Step #2Explanation (No matter how silly, stupid, or embarrassing the problem-causing error was): Promptly and briefly explain why the problem occurred and the known underlying reasons or behaviors that led to the situation (even if we have only partial early information).
Step #3 Affirmation: Talk about what you’ve learned from the situation and how it will influence your future behavior. Unconditionally commit to regularly report additional information until it is all out or until no public interest remains.
Step #4Declaration: A public commitment and discussion of specific, positive steps to be taken to conclusively address the issues and resolve the situation.
Step #5Contrition: The continuing verbalization of regret, empathy, sympathy, even embarrassment. Take appropriate responsibility for having allowed the situation to occur in the first place, whether by omission, commission, accident, or negligence.
Step #6Certification: Promptly ask for help and counsel from “victims,” government, the community of origin, independent observers, and even from your opponents. Directly involve and request the participation of those most directly affected to help develop more permanent solutions, more acceptable behaviors, and to design principles and approaches that will preclude similar problems from re-occurring. Accept outside oversight or independent monitoring to certify that what you say you will do is what you do.
Step #7Commitment: Publicly set your goals at zero. Zero errors, zero defects, zero dumb decisions, and zero problems. Publicly promise that to the best of your ability situations like this will never occur again.
Step #8Restitution: Find a way to quickly pay the price. Make or require restitution. Go beyond community and victim expectations, and what would be required under normal circumstances to remediate the problem.
Meetings are held up, waiting for you to arrive to make important contributions or interpretations of current events or questions.
People remember what you say and quote you in other places.
People remember what you say and quote you in your presence.
People tell your stories and share your lessons as though those stories and lessons come from them.
People learn things from you that they acknowledge are yours and use them to convince others.
Others share their agendas and beliefs with you in the hope of influencing you to change the behavior or decisions of others more senior or powerful than them.
Bosses listen, hear and react to what you observe and advise.
Bosses often select the action options you suggest, but also often use your insight to go in a different direction. Doing something is usually better than doing nothing.
As America’s Crisis Guru®, I am preparing to launch an A.I. twin which will dramatically improve access to my writings and thinking. Of the nearly two million words I have published in my lifetime, it is The Three Minute Drill™ published almost 40 years ago that stands powerfully, urgently, and with lasting influence. This single document has powerfully changed the relationships between trusted strategic advisors and those that they coach and counsel.
Supercharge your career in more critical ways, more powerful ways, more practical ways using The Savvy Thinking of The Three Minute Drill. Good luck. Remember, I’m always available to talk about how to make your time matter more.
The crucial reality of being a trusted strategic advisor is that the best and most critical advice is often needed in a brief period of time (on-the-spot) under enormous event pressure. The Three Minute Drill is a compact, direct process for giving those who rely on your focused, accurate, and complete information – framed in a strategic way – as options – from which leaders can choose a course of action, or not. Emphasis on, “they choose.” That’s where your power lies…providing clear options for the bosses to decide to use, or not.
The discipline is to use this highly focused, structured, time-sensitive approach to get your recommendations promptly put forward and clearly understood. This allows the balance of the brief discussion time, meeting time, or face time with those you advise to be productive and directed toward helping them make better decisions. Here are the six elements of the process:
Step 1: Situation description (60 words):Briefly describe the nature of the issue, problem, or situation. This is the factual basis for “what we know now,” “why we need to take your time, now, to discuss this,” or “This is a new and important topic we need to talk about, now.” The Three Minute Drill process gets the boss up to speed quickly.
Step 2. Analysis (60 words): Briefly describe what the situation means, its implications, and perhaps, how it threatens or presents opportunities. Include one or two key assumptions that validate the analysis. Managers need to know the why, plus useful details. They’re also interested in the intelligence you’ve gathered or know that supports your analysis, assumptions, recommendations, and option selection.
Step 3: The goal (60 words): A clear, concise statement of the task to be accomplished. Goals keep everyone focused forward. The goal should be stated as the behavioral, emotional, or intellectual change in your target constituencies. Useful goals are understandable, brief, achievable, positive, and time/deadline sensitive. The boss always wants to know when they will score.
Step 4. Options (150 words): Always present at least three options for action. You can suggest more, but three is optimal for management to choose from. The goals you suggest are to, “do something, the 100% option,” or “do something more, the 125% option,” or “do nothing, the zero percent option.” Having multiple options keeps you at the table and avoids the “death by question” syndrome that often plagues the “magic bullet” or single recommendation approach. Lose that single recommendation through a crucial unanticipated question or concern, and you’ll find yourself outside of the discussion for the duration. CEOs learn early there are always more than one way to accomplish everything.
Step 5. Recommendation (60 words): Be prepared to stay in the room and say what you would do if you were in your boss’ shoes, and why. The recommendation is usually selected on the basis of which option will cause the least number of negative unintended consequences. This is where you earn your paycheck and a place at the table. The boss will always want to know what you would do if you were in his/her shoes. Be prepared to stay in the room to walk through a similar sort of analysis for each of the options proposed.
Step 6. Justification (60 words): Identify the negative unintended – but fully predictable – consequences of each option, including the option to do nothing. These are the reactions or circumstances that could arise resulting from the options you suggest (including doing nothing). Every management decision or action has consequences that can be expected. Each also has unintended consequences that can also be forecast. Inadequate provision for consequences is what sabotages otherwise useful strategies.
Striving to provide advice in this 450-word format (three minutes) is powerful, conserves management time, and coupled with the discipline of suggesting three action options every time, will get you invited back to the table again and again. Savvy Thinking means writing to time, talking to time…the boss will notice and invite you back or to stay.
All ethical, moral, compassionate, decent, civil and lawful behaviors are intentional. The choice is always clear and always yours.
Lukaszewski Ethical Truism # 2
The Second Principle of Ethical Conduct:
All questionable, inappropriate, unethical, unconscionable, immoral, predatory, improper, victim-producing and criminal behaviors are also intentional.
The choice is always clear and always yours.
Lukaszewski Ethical Truism # 3
The Majority of Bad and Erroneous Decisions in Crisis are Intentional
Which means they’re probably unethical
Will Durant’s extraordinary definition of ethics that appeared in an introduction to his 1926 book, “The Story of Philosophy,” is among his greatest gifts to us.
This quote often elicits comments from academics and others who study philosophy to tell me why Spinoza, Socrates, Plato, and other ethical luminaries in history were more significant. Will Durant put the most practical definition of ethics into the English language. I have a corollary thought:
Lukaszewski Ethical Corollary #1
If what you’re planning or doing or did is appropriate, constructive, crucial, helpful, important, necessary, positive, sensible, sensitive, simple and useful, it’s also likely to be ethical.
Lukaszewski Ethical Truism # 4
Lukaszewski Ethical Corollary #2
Pathological Leadership is the opposite of ideal conduct: Intentionally Making Bad mean, Wrong Decisions, that intentionally hurt, frighten or kill people, animals and living systems.
And then there is…
The Lexicon of Preemptive Self-Forgiveness
How Perpetrators, Predators, Criminals, and Bad People Hide in Plain Sight…We Let Them, we hide them, and we seem to support them.
Where in the world is the school where managers and leaders study apology avoidance or, as I prefer to call it, arrogantly applied Self Forgiveness (AASF)? It is no surprise that perpetrator and predator-like managers and leaders early in their careers develop an obvious and impressive array of personal apology avoidance habits and language. I’d bet that even their mothers are surprised, but then again, maybe not. We’ll get back to moms later.
In my experience there are four general approaches for AASF:
Self-forgiveness
Self-talk
Self-delusion
Lying
You’ll recognize each one by the language perpetrators use. Remember, apology avoiders deny that they are perpetrators or predators until they are exposed. Even then they blame those around them. I always recommend talking about these avoidance excuses, if given the chance, as widely and as soon as the subject, or argument, about apology arises, usually early in crisis (where there are victims) and reputationally damaging situations. It is crucial that those around leaders and managers be able to identify, speak up and call attention to these falsities and fallacies repeatedly as crisis response elements are developed.
Let’s begin with the lawyers.
“The lawyers won’t let me apologize.”
Look, lawyers are consultants like every other staff advisor in the play. Remember, like other internal or external staff counselors, they can only advise. Key decisions are always client decisions.
Apology is always a leadership decision, rather than just a legal decision. Wait a minute. Yes, an apology is always an admission whatever the circumstances and has legal implications — that’s the reason we have attorneys.
Lukaszewski Truism #5
Apology is Ideal Conduct
I define apology as the Atomic Energy of Empathy because, when apologies are given, bad things can start to stop happening. Some bad decisions can be stopped before they begin. One of the most common things that can stop happening is “get even” driven litigation. There is almost always litigation for damages – that’s what insurance is for. Following an apology, the tone is different, and settlement can become the focus. Your insurance company will play a very large role.
You do have to prepare for trial, but here’s another powerful twist: hire a second independent law firm to start settlement talks immediately. Even though it is commonly done, law firms litigate until they can’t and then negotiate a settlement. Settlement can occur a lot faster than the traditional pre-trial defense litigation steps. Besides, the odds of litigation getting to trial in the U.S. is small (like one out of more than a hundred). Courts encourage and support settlement talks at the earliest possible time.
Lukaszewski Truism #6
An effective apology has five must-be-done components:
Admission of doing something that hurts or victimizes;
Explanation of specifically what the harm is/was/will be;
Discussion of lessons learned and behaviors that will change to prevent future occurrences;
Direct request of the victims for forgiveness;
Penance or compensation agreed upon to be performed to atone for the damages done and to come.
Having said this, you still need to know the four apology avoidance strategies. Here they are. All should sound familiar.
Strategy 1. Self-forgiveness:
“It’s an industry problem; we are not the only ones.”
“This isn’t the first time this has happened and it won’t be the last time.”
“Let’s not blow this out of proportion.”
“We couldn’t have known.”
“It’s not systemic.”
“Don’t our good deeds count for anything?”
Strategy 2. Self-talk:
“It’s an isolated incident.”
“It couldn’t have been done by our people.”
“Not many were involved.”
“If we don’t do it, someone else will.”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
Strategy 3. Self-delusion:
“It’s not our fault.”
“It’s not our problem.”
“We can’t be responsible for everything.”
“It won’t happen again.”
“It was only one death, in one place, at one time. Why is everyone so angry?”
“Life can’t exist without risk.”
Strategy 4. Lying:
“I don’t know.”
“We’ve never done that.”
“It hasn’t happened before.”
“It can’t happen again.”
“We won’t give up without a fight.”
“I’m not a crook.”
“I did not have sex with that woman.”
“I am not a racist.”
Share these lists with every executive so they know all these excuses are off limits. Don’t worry – the urge for avoidance is so strong, bosses, lawyers and communicators will begin thinking of new ones immediately. As you hear the new avoidance language, build another list and circulate immediately to executives to re-inoculate them against future apology avoidance.
Most of all, have the boss call his/her mom (they probably have already) and ask their advice before trying any of these avoidance strategies. We both know what her advice will be. Take it and have a better life, maybe even keep your job.
The attorneys may be upset; some in your cohort will call you a sissy. Some colleagues may beg you not to apologize because, if you do apologize, they may have to sometime in the future.
Lukaszewski Truism #7
Practicing apology, humility and compassion are the real work of leaders, especially when victims are created.
Ten Relationship Competencies the Trusted Strategic Advisor Must Master to Stay a Vital Leadership Partner
Over the years, through conversations, observation and coaching with trusted strategic advisors and their clients, a list of powerful competencies emerged that clearly help to build the effectiveness, reliability and trustworthiness of the trusted strategic advisor. Early in my career as I observed these key advisors doing their jobs, it struck me that there was a pattern of competencies the trusted strategic advisors should strive to achieve.
The purpose of the competency list is to establish successful patterns of achievement. To be more successful requires providing crucial strategic assistance to senior people, leaders and to up and coming employees.
The Ten Ingredients of Operational Excellence for a trusted strategic advisor are really a series of questions that the TSA asks themselves as they go about giving advice, being helpful and providing other strategically important services. The question TSA’s are asking themselves are very simple, “Is what I’m doing right now and how I’m doing it going to address important issues and questions for my client and in the process improve my access to this particular individual, organization or business unit?” “Or, is what I’m doing right now going to improve my acceptance going forward and helping me gain even more access to be helpful to other important people?” So, the technique is to consciously apply usable questions to each of these ten very desirable attributes so they become second nature to the TSA’s daily activities.
Access: success often depends on easy access to those you are serving. Sounds simple, but we often feel that we are at risk working on especially difficult or challenging subjects. Deal with it. What are the response options to each scenario encountered?
Acceptance: The key here is remembering that you do what you do to help these people achieve their objectives from their own perspectives. Expect gratitude to come slowly at first. Your acceptance and your value increase as these people you are helping begin to recognize that you are helpful, reliable and trustable.
Engagement: often this is the toughest task because it requires that you speak up. I often recommend “laggership.” Be the second person or more importantly the last person to speak, to enable the perspective that the person you are advising needs as they leave the room.
First call: people in trouble or in need will come to you sooner. Train your clients to always call you sooner rather than later.
Impact: impact is about being memorable. We often are put in the position of routinely providing and reporting data and other information. Your responsibility is to promptly report the information required, but do it in memorable ways, be a storyteller, find out some specific useful angle of what you are describing so you will know that they will leave the room with something fresh and useful in their brain.
Inclusion: you might find that occasionally you have to keep tabs on what the people you are supposed to be leading or guiding are doing. Perhaps from time to time you need to invite yourself or see that you are invited. Step up rather than wait (yes, this seems to be the opposite of laggership). Be flexible. Look for opportunities to help leaders lead. Step up.
Influence: keep in mind the real value of your presence is as a source of important information, ideas, inspiration, interpretation, and feedback. My guiding principle here is to say less, make it more important, write less but make it essential, memorable reading, and as always make it interesting, useful or surprising.
Interaction: the more familiar people become with you and the work you do the more places you will be invited to add to your itinerary of places to be or things to think about. Time to be a little forward here and if there are places you think that need attention, mention it and ask to be assigned or permitted or invited.
Last call: generally speaking the goal of the trusted strategic advisor is to be consulted early and to be perhaps the last person spoken to by your principle before he or she steps out into the limelight and puts their career on the line.
Respect: respect is earned predominantly through demonstrating with your every interaction that your advice shows that you are in it for them, for their goals and objectives. Remember, the successful ideas you provide will be attributed to your clients rather than to you. Get used to it, encourage it, and be comfortable with it.
Strategists, Advisors and Leaders are Constantly Searching for Unique Skills
The 11 Action Principles of The Trusted Strategic Advisor
Eight Tests That Prove You are a TSA
Do You Really Have the Stomach to be a TSA?
Welcome
Welcome to the first chapter of the first edition of the Trusted Strategic Advisor Fieldbook. I’ve been meaning to develop this document for many years. This Fieldbook is meant to be just that, things that work in the field. I will publish soon the table of contents for this Fieldbook and ask you to critique it and make additional topic suggestions. Here we go.
The Constant Search for Unique Skills
The higher one rises in management and leadership the more difficult it is to locate and be helped by people committed to your interests, needs and goals. Lots of competing agendas at the top.
Senior people and leaders are constantly in search of:
Individuals with common sense.
Individuals with a sense of humor.
Individuals with their ears to the ground.
Individuals who can tell which way the wind will blow.
People who can spot the stinkers, fakers, and charlatans.
People who are iconoclasts, rule breakers, and productive mistake makers.
Pragmatists to help manage the inherent over-optimism of leadership.
True strategists, inconsistent thinkers who ask the toughest questions.
People who can find and tell the truth, first, fast, always.
Where do you fit among these categories? Few people have all of these attributes but most all these traits can be learned. Plus, an even bigger question for you: Are you willing to change yourself for the benefit of others, from their perspective?
One of the most intriguing aspects of being a Trusted Strategic Advisor is developing the habit and the skill of looking at the world through your boss’s eyes. Then, helping the boss see their world more clearly. The lessons are:
Whatever your area of special expertise, chances are the boss needs more from you, beyond your knowledge base.
The boss may ignore your advice, meaning seeking different advice or advisors, or just the notion that other kinds of advice are needed.
Will you expand your vision and thinking beyond what you came with?
Are you willing to find the help needed, even if that reduces your presence in the C suite? If you do this your time in the C suite will expand.
Among the greatest skills of a Trusted Strategic Advisor is the ability to anticipate the direction of leadership thinking and be ready to walk down whatever road is chosen very quickly or block the new direction with a better direction.
The TSA’s Working Principles
Always say things that matter.
Say less but make your messages more important.
Talk to time; Three-minute bursts, 450 words
Write less but make your words powerful, compelling, and memorable.
Write to time; one page, one side; beginning to end, 450 words, 3 minutes.
Suggest less. New ideas are less valuable than getting yesterday’s lingering problems solved.
Be worth hearing because you are memorable, sensible, and say what needs to be said, when it needs to be said.
Being memorable means suggesting crucial, incremental, achievable options from which leaders will choose . . .or reject.
Remember, they choose the option, unless they choose to do something else. Be the first to support their initiative, or to constructively challenge.
It’s their bus. You are a valued guest until you’re not.
Eight Tests You’ll Have to Pass that Demonstrate You Have Become a Trusted Strategic Advisor:
People remember what you say and quote you when you’re not in the room.
People quote you in your presence.
People tell your stories and share the lessons, giving you the credit.
People tell your stories and share your lessons as though those stories and lessons belonged to them.
Others seek your opinions and ideas, then share their agendas and beliefs with you in the hope of influencing you to influence the behaviors and decisions of others more senior than either of you.
The boss asks others to run their stuff by you before running it by them.
You are among the first called and the last consulted for important decisions.
Meetings are held up waiting for you to arrive to make important contributions or interpretations of current events.
Before You Seek to Become a Trusted Strategic Advisor, Ask Yourself:
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** “To the extent that any single [leadership] quality determines success, that quality is adaptive capacity.” - Warren Bennis and Robert Thomas, “Geeks and Geezers: How Era, Values and Defining Moments Shape Leaders”, 2008, Harvard Business School Press, page 91
