Focus on Constant Progress

After a morning meeting with the senior management team, the CEO and I were sitting together in his office when he asked me an important question: “Given what you saw this morning during the meeting, what do you recommend?”

I paused to pull my thoughts together, and then said: “You need to define your message for the coming six months given what we have discussed during the meeting about the emerging and current strategic trends in your industry.”

He looked at me, nodded, and then responded: “I agree. What should it be?”

I smiled and thought to myself, “Well played. Make the consultant answer the question.” So, I gathered my thoughts and shared. Once I was done speaking, I realized that my answer was not very good, and that I had wandered into consultant-speech rather than down-to-earth practical application. 

He smiled and said: “I think it all comes down to two words: constant progress. If we are better today than we were yesterday, and better tomorrow than we were today, then we will do more than reach our goals. We will create a flywheel and a culture that is unstoppable. We just need to be making progress each and every day.”

George Leonard in his book, Mastery: The Keys to Success and Long Term Fulfillment (Plume, 1992), writes that achieving a level of mastery reflects a commitment to the fundamentals and the willingness to take risks to achieve a higher performance. i.e. the willingness to be a beginner and to keep learning. 

From my experience and observations, the best leaders and the best performers  in their work are always eager to learn, unlearn, and relearn how to do what they do. With a beginner’s mindset to their practice, constant progress is a commitment and a discipline that transcends time and place. They are hardwired to improve and to learn from any one at any time and in any situation. They are willing to be the student no matter who is the teacher. 

As the CEO and I wrapped our meeting, we agreed that “constant progress” was the theme for the coming six months. Years later, I realized that his comments about the importance of constant progress had become a keystone to the cultural foundation of the organization. And that their long term success could be traced back to this single insight. 

This week, I encourage you to choose constant progress as a commitment and a discipline for the coming six months. Make it the keystone to your long term success. 

© Geery Howe 2025

Geery Howe, M.A. Executive Coach in Leadership, Strategic Planning, and Organizational Change

Small Acts of Loving Kindness

Many years ago, my father had open heart surgery in his early 90s. The procedure was successful, but the surgery took longer than expected. My older brother was there for the first part of his recovery, and my wife and I were there for the transition from the hospital back to the assisted living/nursing home where he was living. 

On the day we arrived at the hospital, he was still in the cardiac intensive care unit, recovering from his long surgery. He was asleep when we walked in the room. I sat down in the chair beside the bed, and just looked at him. Always well dressed and often wearing his signature bow tie, he was in a hospital gown with a blanket over him. His always neatly combed hair was very messy. So, I tucked the blanket under his chin and realized that all I wanted to do was comb his hair. However, given I am I bald now, I don’t carry a comb anymore. It was then that I again realized that life is fragile and resilient, all at the same moment. 

Later that week, he was discharged back to his apartment in the assisted living/nursing home where he lived. During the first couple of days, he would need to be in the skilled care unit before returning to his apartment. Once he was loaded into the ambulance to return home, we went on ahead in our car to meet him there. 

When we pulled up to the assisted living/nursing home, minutes before the ambulance arrived, I noticed an older man sitting in a wheel chair by the front door. As the ambulance drivers unloaded my dad, all wrapped in a warm blanket and sitting in a wheel chair, the other man called out, “Where have you been? I have been waiting here for over an hour. You missed lunch and at this rate, you might miss dinner. Hurry up!”

I was shocked by this man’s comments, and the continuous teasing and commentary that followed us into the nursing home, and down to the room that my dad was going to stay in for a couple of days. Once settled in his bed, and after this person left the room, my dad began to laugh. He then said, “That’s my best friend, Bill. Every day we visit, and often he is late for the meal. I am always getting on his case to hurry up. He is a kind and thoughtful man. He’s just giving me what I often gave him.” 

Minutes later, Bill returned with an entire group of people who lived on my father’s hall. Everyone in his assisted living unit showed up to offer support, and encouragement. I just sat in the chair beside the bed, and realized that we are way more connected to each other than we realize, and that dear friends make a big difference in life’s journey. I also realized that small acts of loving kindness have a dramatic impact and can make a major difference as people move through difficult times. 

Our challenge in life is to build and maintain these shared connections. They make life meaningful and special. We also need to regularly seek out, discover and hold on to wholeness. For when we find this wholeness in our current fragmented world, we can respond rather than react to all that is happening around and within us. Then, we can choose small acts of loving kindness and recognize that life is fragile and resilient, all at the same moment. 

© Geery Howe 2025

Geery Howe, M.A. Executive Coach in Leadership, Strategic Planning, and Organizational Change

The Culture Is The Strategy

Over the course of my career, many people have quoted to me the following phrase by Peter Drucker: “Culture eats strategy for lunch.” On one level, it is true. The culture of a company can shut down the execution of strategy. However, when great leaders hear this phrase, they know that it is only happens in dysfunctional teams, departments, and companies. 

Years ago, Jason Jennings in his book, Less is More: How Great Companies Use Productivity as a Competitive Tool in Business (Penguin Putnam, 2002), wrote: “In productive companies, the culture is the strategy…. Unlike other companies, productive companies know the difference between tactics and strategy. The difference is the foundation that allows them to stay focused and build remarkable companies. They have institutionalized their strategy.”

This is a mind-blowing insight. In productive companies, they understand the phrase: “They have institutionalized their strategy.” They recognize that it is directly connected to the company’s ability to institutionalize it’s a specific culture, resulting in a high degree of clarity and alignment over time. 

The classic definition of culture is an integrated pattern of shared knowledge, beliefs and behaviors translated into a collective commitment toward shared values, goals, and practices/systems. The late, professor of management at MIT Sloan, Edgar Schein wrote the following definition of organizational culture: “A pattern of shared basic assumptions invented, discovered, or developed by a given group as it learns to cope with its problems of external adaptation and internal integration that have worked well enough to be considered valid and therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think and feel in relation to those problems.” 

Now, within both definitions are some important and key points about culture. The first one is shared knowledge, beliefs and behaviors. The key is in the sharing and building of a collective understanding and commitment. 

The second one is that have worked well enough to be considered valid and therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think and feel in relation to those problems. The key is that teaching this culture to new members, namely new employees, is the right way to make sure they perceive, think and feel the correct way when dealing with external adaptation and internal integration. 

This week, remember that the culture is the strategy in highly successful companies. And that this culture needs to be taught in order to be successful over time. 

© Geery Howe 2025

Geery Howe, M.A. Executive Coach in Leadership, Strategic Planning, and Organizational Change

The Three Boxes On Our Desk

“Every day as leaders, we have three boxes on our desk,” write editors Howard Morgan, Phil Harkins, and Marshall Goldsmith in their book, The Art and Practice of Leadership Coaching: 50 Top Executive Coaches Reveal Their Secrets (John Wiley & Sons, 2005). Box 1 is for managing the present. Box 2 is for selectively abandoning the past. Box 3 is for creating the future. As they explain, many  organizations spend most of their time in Box 1 and call it strategy. However, in reality, strategy is really about Box 2 and Box 3. Still, Box 1 overwhelms most leaders and they never have time or space for the work of Box 2 or Box 3.

The first important thing to realize about strategy is that the day strategy is introduced into the organization is the day it starts to die The only question is how fast. 

Time marches on in the world of strategic planning and execution, and markets evolve and change quickly as we have witnessed over the last couple of years. Recognizing the decay rate of strategy means we need to keep our eye on all three boxes, and, at the same time, realize that Box 2 and Box 3 have a significant impact on what is taking place in Box 1. 

The second thing to realize about strategy is that a company’s strategies are almost entirely transparent today to competitors and potential customers. The  ease with which strategy can be imitated and commoditized makes it nearly impossible to stay ahead of the competition. As Edson De Castro, CEO of Data General, wrote in 1978: “Few corporations are able to participate in the next wave of change, because they are blinded by the business at hand.” For us here today, it is only by staying innovative at the strategic and the operational levels that we can be successful over time. 

The third thing to realize about strategy is that strategy impacts communication. It can confuse people and/or overwhelm people. Or it can give people at all levels the tools and perspective to redefine the ideas that shape their choices and actions on a daily basis. Furthermore, strategy can create language for people to solve problems and improve decision making up and down the organization. Finally, strategy can provide meaning as well as guidance to the work of the organization. All of this happens when strategy is explained and understood. 

The three boxes on our desks are not going away any time soon. Now is the month when we must not let everything happening in Box 1 overwhelm us and define what we think is strategy. Now is the time to work on Box 2 and Box 3 if we want to be well positioned for the coming 1 - 3 years. 

© Geery Howe 2025

Geery Howe, M.A. Executive Coach in Leadership, Strategic Planning, and Organizational Change

Understand Your Systems

I have listened to people working longer hours with greater focus, and still not being able to keep up with the demands of their job and the expectations that are placed on them. Often, even when they get more organized, they still fall behind. As a result, they are stumped on how to proceed. 

Unfortunately, this is a common experience. When hard work, effort and organization are not making the difference, I routinely explain that they are more likely working within a poorly designed, or dysfunctional system. Nine times out of ten, this is not a people problem. It is a system problem. 

Many years, when I was a kid at summer camp, I remember gathering at the dock to go canoeing on the lake. Before we partnered up to go canoeing, the counselor made all of us get into one canoe that was tied to the dock. As each person got into the canoe, it sank lower and lower into the water. Finally, it was below the surface of the water and we all were standing or sitting in it. The canoe did not sink to the bottom of the lake, but it also was completely dysfunctional as a canoe. 

She explained to us that each boat has a carrying capacity. When rescuing people because their canoe flipped over, it was best not to try and pull everyone into the boat. Instead, ask them to hang on to the sides, and then canoe them to shore. 

I think of this often when coaching people who are overwhelmed. Every system has a purpose. For example, a canoe is designed to move through water and the foam blocks at either end are designed to not let it sink. However, each system has a carrying capacity, too. This is the same with a canoe, i.e. the number of people it can carry and still be effective. When you max out a system by overloading it, then, at some point, the system will be functioning, but it will only generate dysfunctional results, i.e. the canoe did not sink to the bottom of the lake, but once the water was over the gunnels it wasn’t functional either.

Currently, more and more people are working within overloaded systems and trying to compensate for the overload. 

The cost of this choice is high for all involved. If this is the case, then it is time to ask the question: Has this system

achieved it’s carrying capacity and does it need to be redesigned? The other question we need to ask is this one:

Why are we tolerating dysfunctional systems that are resulting in a decrease in employee engagement?

This week, I encourage you to understand the systems you work with on a daily basis. Get to know what original problem they were designed to solve. And then, determine if the system is still functional or needs to be redesigned in order to meet today’s problems and challenges. This will make a world of difference on so many levels. 

© Geery Howe 2025

Geery Howe, M.A. Executive Coach in Leadership, Strategic Planning, and Organizational Change

Driving With The Four Way Flashers On

When the semester ended during my college years in Indiana, I always left the moment my last exam was finished. I was heading home to the suburbs of Philadelphia. It was a 12 hour drive from college to home and my goal was to only stop for gas.

One time, at the end of a spring semester as a friend and I were driving back to Philly, we were stopped by the state police half through the western mountains of Pa on I-70.  It was the middle of the night, and we were not speeding. 

The officer informed us that the rear lights on my car were not functioning properly. Together, the three of us figured out that a fuse had burned out and needed to be replaced. Knowing it was the middle of the night, he gave me a warning and asked that we drive the rest of the way home with our four way flashers on. Once he left, we turned on the four way flashers and continued onward, knowing that we had 6-7 more hours to go. 

After 20 minutes of this constant blinking on the dashboard, we were going a bit crazy. So, we dug out the car’s first aid kit and put multiple band aids over the blinking lights so we could not see them. We also turned up the music on the radio to drown out the noise. Then, it was smooth sailing all the way home, and within an hour we did not even notice the distraction. In short, the warning lights no longer registered, and we just let the miles fly by. 

Right now, many leaders and organizations are driving with the four flashers on, and they have the band aids in place. They are totally oblivious to the consequences or the impact of this choice. The band-aids that were a short term coping mechanism have ended up becoming long term blinders. The challenge now is to take off the band-aids.

The first step to doing this is to define optimal or best performance at each level of the company even in the midst of these challenging times. The greater the level of clarity and understanding about this level of performance, the greater our ability as leaders to create the right environment for optimal performance to take place. However, when we choose to do this, we must recognize that this level of understanding can only be achieved through common language and a common understanding of the strategic intent of the company. 

The second step is to give yourself and others permission to ask for help. As venture capitalist Eugene Kleiner noted, “in a tornado, even a turkey can fly.” We should not be waiting until the tornado has overtaken us and generated complete and total chaos before people can ask for help. 

Years ago, Norman Vincent Peale and Ken Blanchard wrote that we have two selves, namely our external task-oriented self, and our internal reflective self. Most people are only focused on their task-oriented self. They do not give themselves permission to take time for their internal reflective self, mostly because this is a longer and more deliberate process. Instead, they choose to live in a world of constant interruptions, hoping things will get better. Yet, in reality they are drowning in minutia and often feel broken and alone.  

Years ago, Ken and Margie Blanchard also noted that we need to “gain a balance between success and fulfillment.” Fulfillment is about “connecting your life and work, connecting spirituality, and balancing time at work with your family and friends.” Along a similar line of thought, Rabbi Kushner, author of When Bad Things Happen to Good People, contends that there are two acts in life. In Act 1, we focus on “Achieve,” and in Act 2 “Connect.” The Achieve act is about setting goals and completing them. For many this is all that matters. The Connect act is about fulfillment, and can be found in relationships, health, and spirituality. 

But in the beginning, we need to have the courage to ask for help. We need to create a network of support that helps us gain perspective and insights about our choices. We need to do this in order that we do not live a life where the four way flashers are blinking out a danger signal, and we are ignoring them in order to achieve a goal or destination that may be detrimental to our health, relationships, and well being over time. 

In the end, my college friend and I did make it home safe and sound. The following day, we removed the bandaids, and replaced the burned out fuse. But from that day forward, I made sure that a collection of spare fuses were tucked away in the glove compartment of that car. Being prepared for the next journey allowed me to be a better driver, and in time a better person. 

© Geery Howe 2025

Geery Howe, M.A. Executive Coach in Leadership, Strategic Planning, and Organizational Change

Now What?

After a morning of four meetings in a row, she turned to me and said, “Let’s get out of here. I need pizza and a chance to visit with you alone.” So we walked out to her car, and went for pizza.

In a crowded restaurant, she just unloaded all her frustrations. “I pushed myself through college and got the best grades. I pushed myself to get into the best internships and got them. I pushed myself to get into this organization and got a position. Once in, I pushed myself to become a department head, and ultimately a member of the senior management team. I married the right man. We bought the right house. I got the right car. I gave birth to a beautiful and healthy child. I have sacrificed and worked hard to raise him up right. So, here I am, nearly burned out, almost bitter, and more than a bit cynical. All my goals have been reached before 30. So, now what do I do?”

The question is an important one. The answer is not a simple one. The realization that this has happened is a painful one. 

Her question and our subsequent discussion reminded me of the phrase, obsessive-complusive productivity disorder, coined by Joe Robinson in the March 2007 issue of Fast Company magazine. It is the “I should be doing something all the time” tape that runs in our heads. It also is the feeling of “work guilt” when we are not working. It is based on the belief that our identity as a person is driven and dependent on our productivity, and our position. Therefore, we just keep pushing ourselves. 

I think the same phrase could be applied to our life choices. There are times in our life when we become so focused on meeting the expectations placed on us by others and ourself, and by society as a whole, that we enter into an obsessive-compulsive form of living and working in order that we meet all these self-imposed and society supported goals. Rarely do we stop and reflect on whether or not these are the things we actually wanted to do. Instead, we do them because we feel we should be doing them. As a result, we just keep pushing even if the outcome is feeling burned out, bitter, and cynical as a result. 

Given my personal and professional journey, I have been given the opportunity to visit with a wide diversity of courageous leaders, patients, nurses, parents, doctors, and even children, all whom have taught me important life lessons about living in a healthy manner. Here are two lessons I have learned from them. 

First, it is important to define our priorities. In our rush to get everything done according to other peoples’ definitions of success, and in order to look perfect as we do this, we forget that everything in the world is created twice, once in the mind as a vision, goal or strategy, and second, as a sequence of personal choices. In computer terms, we are the programmer and the program. The challenge for all of us is that we have to let go of others’ expectations and rethink what we actually want to do. We need to reclaim a life based on our priorities. Goals may come and go over time. Goals may change as we move through the different seasons and stages of our life. But priorities can be the line of continuity through all of the ups and downs. For in an overcrowded life, we have adapted so many times that we have often loss a sense of what we really wanted in the first place. In essence, we have lost what makes life meaningful. 

Second, it is important to practice renewal instead of just stress management. The poet Mark Nepo offers two important questions to help in this process: “How do I regain my wonder at being alive? What must I do to keep my heart from sinking?” When we ask the question, “So, now what do I do?”, we have become focused on our doing more than our being. We are running hard and harder to just stay in the same place. But if we embrace renewal rather than just stress management, we return to the place of wonder, and recognize the gift of being alive. We also choose to live more from our heart rather than just from our head. In short, we reclaim the gift of life and find that the gifts inherent in life. 

Over the course of our life journey, there will be days when we will need to ask the question, “So, now what do I do?”. And there will be days when we struggle to move forward. Nevertheless, with time, patience, support, and perspective, we can rebuild the foundation of our life to be greater than just being productive. Then, we can rediscover the miracle within these days and the beauty of the gifts we have before us. For when this happens, we will discover a community of courageous people who are all seeking to create a life of meaning, purpose, and gratitude. And this will make a profound difference in all that we do, and all that we will become. 

© Geery Howe 2025

Geery Howe, M.A. Executive Coach in Leadership, Strategic Planning, and Organizational Change