Author: Fernando Germes

Couple of weeks ago I was attending a Forum where the topic gravitated around Responsability vs Accountability in leading Businesses. Good arguments were popping up. Then, one of the participant share his frustration about managing pressure from customers plus the challenge to meet unreasonable deadlines.

I raised my hand to intervine sharing an idea about the importance of assessing internal capabilities and based on that set a “Pace” for execution. Why? Because, good communication is not enough but a constant flow of updates and follow ups with a fluid frequency matters more when managing complex requests.

So, in a personal setting I tend to struggle with overseeing a Pace of execution because of not differentiating when I feel Anxiety (imagining a bad outcome) or Impatience (assuming just more speed is needed) when facing an assignment that require collaboration.

That is why instead of letting space to frustration, leaning towards visibility and context from the Source (be it the Board or upper management layers) act as stabilizers. Clean prioritization, in reality, looks more like an utopia than a judgement practice.

Therefore, the challenge I set for myself is assume agency to redirect energy to make the simple “next step” in every domain I’m leading or taking part. In most context, the main obstacle is alignment but when alignment is agreed we tend to be burned out to set execution in place.

Will you be open to new possibilities by just be willing to take the “next step”?

Couples of weeks without posting, several things are running and demanding focus and attention. Being on high mode eventually will make me encounter with some doses of reality that generate signs alerts on my way!

Then, after every crash experience I activate my favorite tool for sense-making, that is the iteration cycle of:

1. Live experiences
2. Reflect
3. Extract lessons
4. Repeat

I came to realize the importance of “pacing” in my own mission-driven execution mode in personal and professional arenas. This is where comes in the lesson here: “When your own Pace drift from the Leadership and Organizational Pace, you will crash if not manage correctly”.

Those crashing and reality doses tend to be frustrating. Makes you doubt about the coherence between what the System express is heading to and what its actions represent. However, I used to say that “always there is something I’m not seeing” (protecting peace of mind).

That’s why depending on your positioning in the organization chain of command, and the quality of the communication channels you can count on in the system. That can help you could calibrate the pacing of your initiatives and execution speed, making more manageable the path and avoiding potential burned out.

Therefore, the invitation today is to Level up influence through execution and discipline. We can always push for clarity and recall the Vision and Mission we are pushing to. Always be aware of ideas and actions to move the Team to reach the goals.

Handling setbacks through constructive conversations and embracing Hope, this is what helps me when I’m going through situations like these (Is becoming quite frequent lately 😄).

So, will you embrace Vision and Mission? Will you keep setting the example via execution and discipline? Will you reflect, learn and repeat?

Couple of months ago, I started to develop a strong interest on the “Execution” require to materialize the Reality I aspire to live in.

That paradigm shift don’t emerge by coincidence, it was the result of personal reflections about a pattern that gained traction during conversations and meetings.

It goes as follows: “It is common that when a problem is under scrutiny, and leaders and teams are inquired about the reasons or causes. Most of the time there is an Analysis in process, a Diagnosis that is almost ready, that same day a Meeting was schedule to discuss the issue and my favorite one is when ‘Alignment’ is needed and the meeting for that too is already set 😄.”

None of the above are action oriented statements, but procastination and loops that put the vision even farther.

So, the posture I’ve been working is that “Vision means Direction”, this is important because when direction is in place, taking action position us closer to that desire state. Those actions when anchored on Execution increases the odds of bringing the Vision closer instead, not just by Analysis alone.

Lets not confuse “Means” with “Ends”. Vision is aspirational, however Execution is what gives us the chance to bring to life those futures states that are built with the actions of today!

Will you be more execution oriented? Will you play to Win? Or will you play not to lose?

Last week, I was walking the Pico Duarte Trail, that for me is a kind of a personal ritual. I’ve been doing the trail since 2021. Beside the views, nature beauty and being outdoors, I want to highlight a reflection on “Why embrace the Path, not just focus on reach the Peak”

My personal argument is that doing the trail is the prize of the experience. Because once you reach the peak, is just that. You take a picture and go back because of the cold and strong breeze. Therefore, in any endeavour you decide to strive for do your best to #EmbraceThePath there is where life happens.

Next, fight for “Clarity” is a non-negotiable. Be it personal clarity, relationship clarity, group clarity, organizational clarity, society clarity. Why is that? Simple, having clarity give us optionality and freedom to act. Also, it allows for dimension potential consequences of our own decision making.

So, the invitation is to stay aware of what is happening in our surroundings.

Lastly, a challenge to you to consider is to “connect” with a relentless intention the Flow of your life rhythm + Being present in every single moment + Enjoy everything (You either Win or Learn, not Lose) + Be sure that your actions collaborate to the Greater Good.

Intentions are not enough, Execution is live action!! 💯

I’ve been having conversations with special people these days, one of the major remarks I shared with them is:

“Everyone of us is where we are today because someone gave us an opportunity, someone put a word on our favor. So, being grateful and pay it forward is a must.”

Therefore, I’ll go a bit further with additional thoughts on mentorship:

Why Mentorship? Receiving guidance, instructions, orders are not mentorship. These are activities oriented actions, focused on standardization and consistency.

In Process Management human touch is an “input”, however in Decision Making judgement is the “differenciator”. In this context, Mentorship is the most effective vehicle to improve judgement over time.

It is a matter of Value sharing. This is an important one, mentorship principal resource is the time of the mentor and the mentee. Therefore, Value sharing both ways is fundamental because of the opportunity cost factor.

Focus on the long-term. Mentorship is not a one time conversation and done! It is more a transformational continuum. Every life experience, conversation, reflection are inputs for iterations.

All of the above comes down to Relationships building and, that’s why this is the assignment.

In order to share the best from us, we must first fulfill our own with clarity of purpose, strong values foundation, genuine relationships, people who bet on us. Individualism just bring the spark, keeping the flame alive is a collective effort where heat nurture everyone who collaborate with that endeavor.

Will you do a real effort to forge long-term relationships? I hope you do!!

Ben Horowitz argument in his book “The Right Thing About Hard Things” the following:

“The right kind of ambition is ambition for the company’s success with the executives’s own success only coming as a by-product of the company’s victory.

The wrong kind of ambition is ambition for the executive’s personal success regardless of the company’s outcome.”

This is powerful stuff, “Leadership” on my opinion, is a privilege that have been and will be always earn because the group (be it Family, Work Team, Organization, Society, Community) decide, consciuosly or unconsciously, to follow and support the vision and execution guidelines the Leader promote.

This cannot be taken from granted, for the simple truth that in a blink of an eye Leadership badge can be remove.

Therefore, I would like to share a personal posture on “Ambition” as a foundational element of drive to excellence and for a life well lived:

Position yourself to success is a non-negotiable. However, it cannot be at all cost because if you get it burning bridges along the way, once you’re done. How will you enjoy the rewards if nothing left behind? 🧐

We get into the real challenges when balancing the sweetspot between perfoming and goals accomplishments.

Getting confuse about your personal contribution as part of whole or your contribution as the definite element of success. Is the main factor that disrupt the natural flow of things.

The call to action here is that “ambition” must be contrasted with the wellbeing of the “greater Good”. If taken out of the sight, the bucket of the wrong kind of ambition will keep receiving adherents. And it is not what we are striving for.

Will you make your call and reflect about the right kind of ambition and its impact for the greater good?

When sharing ideas with the Mastermind group, I had a breakthrough argument that went like this:

“To put things in motion Vision, Strategy, Roadmaps, Alignment are non-negotiables when make things happen is the desire Goal. However, achieving that demand tons of resources and energy that could motivate confusion between the end goal (Value generation) and a simple phase (Planning process).

If the above mention not translate into Value to Society and Businesses. It doesn’t make sense at all.

So, my main question is ¿When will narrative make it through words, arguments, vision boards, planning sessions? And switch to execution mode with the direction and intention agreed in all those planning activities.

Some drivers that motivates this huge gap between narrative and execution are:

• No effective translation mechanisms and tools.
• Avoidance of commitment from key players.
• Weak decision making dynamics.
• Inability to present transparently power shifts needs and trade-offs.
• Misalignment of incentives and behaviors.

It can be frustrating when posturing, politics and accountability shortage take the lead in driving group (countries, societies, businesses) behaviors.

Aspects to take into account to strength the execution-driven lines of action are:

• Acknowledge that Groups optimize for different reward systems (time horizon, autonomy, meaning, security).
• Clarify Decision Rights (who decides what, and how fast).
• Incentive Design (the real driver).

In a nutshell, planning and direction are non-negotiables to accomplish big goals. Nonetheless, not a sufficient condition to assure making things happen. Therefore, execution must take lead to effectively support Value creation and delivery.

Will you take the opportunity to understand the direction and priorities of your current context? And, then put you in #ExecutionMode where real magics occurs. 🗯️

I’m reading Annie Duke’s Thinking in Bets book, when going through this paragrah:

“Self-serving bias has immediate and obvious consequences for our ability to learn from experience. Blaming the bulk of our bad outcomes on luck means we miss opportunities to examine our decisions to see where we can do better. Taking credit for the good stuff means we will often reinforce decisions that shouldn’t be reinforced and miss opportunities to see where we could have done better. To be sure, some of the bad stuff that happens is mainly due to luck. And some of the good stuff that happens is mainly due to skill. I just know that’s not true all the time. 100% of our bad outcomes aren’t because we got unlucky and 100% of our good outcomes aren’t because we are so awesome. Yet that is how we process the future as it unfolds”.

Leads me to a reflection about the situations (Business meetings, Friends circles, Study groups) where “Pretending” becomes the path to reach good positioning and visibility.

Relying on superior skill when context is not stated in a transparent way open doors to missleading expertise or mastery.

What we can control are the actions, being more specific, the immediate next action to the intended goal. Based on that, Luck is often define as the intersection between Opportunity and Preparation. Preparation is in our control, however, Opportunity can be nudge but not controlled at will.

Therefore, being open-minded and humble about the role of luck in our day to day accomplishments is liberating and gives us room to enjoy life.

Will you be more aware and humble about the role of luck vs pretending superior skills?

I was listening couple of days ago an interview with Tony Robbins, where he shared three powerful skills for improvement: Pattern Recognition, Pattern Utilization and Pattern Creation.

I’ll keep the first one to anchor the point I’m focus to bring home. Participating in several forums, business conversations and knowledge sharing spaces. I started to get annoyed with the conflicts, tensions and frictions with people divergent arguments.

After observing my repeated reactions, I started to reflect about what triggers those reactions, questioning whether is a personal reaction or Noise being taking as Signal.

I arrived to the following rationale:

“Most conflicts are not disagreement about reality. It’s disagreement about Timing”.

For me, this was a soft landing to help calm those past urges.

Why is that? Again, incentives matters, life is too short to be wasted. So, short-term results and risk aversion tend to drive us and set the tone when decisions are posed at the table and demand execution.

However, separating in layers and express transparently when the context + collective interests rest on:

• Survival
• Positioning, or
• Franchise

Must help to build bridges between conflicting arguments and push for directed actions towards the collective GOOD.

When embarked in important missions, those connected to personal wellbeing, business management, public service positions. Identifying the time horizons where the Collective are nudged to will generate more collaboration and push in a healthy way towards better outcomes for everybody.

Will you get into collective decision making with your Time Horizons crystal clear?