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