From Academy Leadership Affiliate Bob Larkin

Change happens around us all the time. So — how do we look at it as a leader? I suggest that it can be reduced almost to a mathematic equation:

C=ABD>X, where

C= Change will occur, when the combination of
A= Level with dissatisfaction with the present state
B= Level of clarity of the future state
D= Clarity of the first step
All exceed
X= Perceived cost of the change.

The value to a leader in thinking this way is to evaluate each part of the equation and determine where the leverage is. ,

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Blog post by Ed Ruggero

Have you ever bragged about how many hours you’ve worked in a week, or how little sleep you got before you showed up at a meeting a continent away after taking a red-eye flight? Have you ever said of someone, “The guy doesn’t sleep,” and meant it as a compliment? Have you ever said, as I used to when I was in the Army (certainly the height of my machismo posturing), “I’ll sleep when I’m dead”? Does your organization’s culture lionize people who are available day and night?

Here are a couple of interesting tidbits to consider the next time you board the overnight flight to Wherever: if you manage only four hours a sleep a night for four or five days, you’ll experience the same level of cognitive impairment as if you’d been awake 24 hours straight—the same as if you were legally drunk. Go ten days on short sleep, and it’s as if you’ve been awake for 48 hours straight. Reaction time, judgment, and problem-solving skills fall off dramatically, and a single beer can have the same effect as if you’d consumed a six-pack. ,

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When I was a young lieutenant in the Army, deployed to Korea, our unit’s supply system fell behind when we went to the field. The chow wasn’t where it was supposed to be, troops didn’t arrive on time, even the mail wasn’t getting through. (This was back when letters written on paper were important to the morale of soldiers far from home.) The trucks were my responsibility, and there were lots of factors—many of them, like the weather, out of my control—contributing to our poor showing. A no-nonsense senior officer (his first name was Shelby; we lieutenants called him “Bad as Hell-bee Shelby”) told me to get to the bottom of things. I did some cracker-jack poking around; I was all about root cause analysis and getting the right data. I got the numbers on how old our trucks were and how often they were breaking down; I detailed the over-scheduling and overly optimistic time estimates, which led to missed maintenance and tired drivers who got lost on unmarked country roads. I wrote everything down in my spiffy little notebook and reported to the major. He listened without comment or expression, then asked simply, “What are you going to do about it?” ,

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