Business advice: The Leader’s Guide

By Bill Caswell

Special to Ontario Construction News

As an author, I was proud of myself when between 2004 and 2008 I published a treatise on how to run a company in twelve volumes (2,569 pages),¹ then even more pleased when I condensed it down in 2011 to one book of 241 pages.²

I was thrilled beyond belief when my diatribe found itself reduced in 2021 to a booklet of only 35 pages.³ Imagine, dear reader, the excitement for me after sending an email to my son, Anthony, wherein the above thoughts were distilled down to less than two pages as our clocks move toward 2022.

So, below is this succinct leaders’ guide. Toss away all the other Caswell publications; instead, refer to this list of the steps a leader (business, political, or otherwise) needs to check off when overseeing a team.

• The leader needs to listen. To do so, objective listening mechanisms to subordinates need to be set up involving frequent listening meetings.
• As a minimum to operate an enterprise, the leader needs to ensure that a 5 per cent surplus is created each year (not rack up enormous deficits).
• The leader needs to share his (or her) information with subordinates (to avoid encouraging a parent-child business relationship).
• The leader needs to keep the doors open to, and engage in, innovation.
• The leader must avoid finger-pointing and blame. That leader needs to join in the solving of the subordinate’s problem (because, more frequently than not, the leader is part of the problem).
• The leader needs to install a proven problem-solving mechanism, all of which work on the Chaos Theory principle (that builds on the information already provided).
• The leader must grasp and apply the idea of four personality temperaments and the gift of tolerance for others, because we need all four. (Go back to Hippocrates.)
• Co-operation and open doors (rather than raised barriers) are basic building blocks for success. (We say: “Don’t piss off your employees.”)
• A leader needs to take the risk to delegate and then allow the delegated person to assume full responsibility for that assigned to them. (We call it: “The Big Divorce.”)
• The leader has to appreciate when centralization and decentralization each work better than the other. (We suggest you try decentralization, first.)
• The leader must retain the idea that, historically speaking: When performance slippage occurs, successful firms focus on increasing sales, not cutting costs.
• The leader must understand that the top human driver for individuals is control, to have control over assigned and implied responsibilities. If the leader does not satisfy the prime driver for each person that the leader interacts with, the leader will not get that person’s full co-operation.
• No government, no company, and no task can have two leaders. One person has to be able to exercise the final word. (Presumably that final word will be based on inputs from serious listening as noted in the first point above.)
• The leader has to appreciate that only about 10 per cent of the population can be drawn on to lead – that is, to innovate and think independently when necessary. In many aspects the population is weak, and that point must be continually tolerated and worked with as a reality.
• The leader must establish a single measure of success that everyone understands for the enterprise – and ensure that it is monitored monthly.
• The leader, with the co-operation of his (or her) full team, needs to lay out a plan for the next twelve months (and beyond) and monitor it every month thereafter. The plan must not break beyond the defined mission statement of the enterprise.
• If the leader’s company lacks having its values etched into its mission, company personnel will have no idea what to do during an emergency.
• The leader must ensure that all debate and discussion follow the rules of respect, which includes not interrupting the current person who is speaking. (We define respect as not trivializing the [strange] ideas of others.)
• The leader needs to identify one person as the leader’s replacement in case of an accident to the leader (and train accordingly).
• The leader must create a superior body that the leader reports to and from which the leader gets objective advice. This superior body (Board of Advisors) must have the power, through a majority vote, to veto the unacceptable plans of the leader.
• The leader must appreciate that usually it doesn’t matter how we got into this mess; what really matters is that we will find our way out. (Called: “The GPS Lady” line.)
• The observant leader will understand that emotions trump logic; that is, people frequently take action according to what the emotional part of their brains tells them, then wrap it nicely around the messages created in the logic part of the brain to justify their outrageous emotional choice. (We call it: “Two Brains.”)
• When the leader encounters another person’s hostility, the first step is to defuse emotions of the other person by showing empathy, not for the other person’s idea, but for the other person’s state of mind. Only after the emotion has been defused can the leader begin a rational conversation with the other person.
• Obviously in trimming company excesses, the leader needs to cut fat, not muscle. Muscle relates to strategic necessities. (The most direct action to reduce wastage is to increase co-operation and to set a priority to resolve outstanding problems.)
• All companies follow the same predictable path of growth and decline, which includes the good news of the possibilities for having “Excellence” at the apex and unending successful existence. (We call it the “Evolution Pyramid”.)
• The leader must grasp that every task starts with a critical mass having sufficient drive (Oomph), sufficient Authority, and sufficient Knowledge or otherwise it is predictable that the task will not reach a successful conclusion, which we call OAK.
• The leader can ensure the accountability of the employee only if the assigned employee personally accepts the quantitative numbers for his (or her) chosen goal.
• Leaders who don’t like meetings have been associated with too many badly managed meetings. Well-managed meetings operate on the basis of mutual respect, including respect for people’s time.  (We say that holding meetings makes things happen; not holding meetings allows issues to fall between the cracks.)
• There is no point in the leader’s trying to create “efficiency” (ensuring minimal wastage) until the leader has first ensured “effectiveness” (delivery of the product functioning the right way).

¹ The Respect Revolution, General Store Publishing House, Renfrew, ON, Canada, 2004–2008.

² How Humans Fight the Laws of Nature – and Lose, Asset Beam Publishing Ltd., Ottawa, ON, Canada, 2011.

³ Hey Leader! Secrets from the Trenches 2650547 Ontario Ltd., Ottawa, ON, Canada, 2021.

Bill Caswell leads the Caswell Corporate Coaching Company (CCCC) in Ottawa, www.caswellccc.com or email bill@caswellccc.com.