Emerson Exchange 365

by Jim Montague

How You Can Be That '10x Performer,' Even in Staid Industries

Many of life's lessons are well-known, but sometimes a reminder is just what we need to help us refocus and redouble our efforts. And when those reminders come in the form of trials faced by legendary business figures, such as Apple’s Steve Jobs, Virgin Group’s Sir Richard Branson, investment advisor Charles Schwab, they can serve as guides and inspiration to others struggling on the road to lasting success. And, undoubtedly the best person to present some of their stories is someone who knows them as well as Mark Thompson.

Presently the CEO and cofounder of Virgin Unite Mentors, Thompson is the New York Times best-selling author of Success Built to Last and two other books. He was the special guest keynoter at Monday morning's general session at the Emerson Global Users Exchange 2013.

“How do you take existing tech companies and service organizations and reinvent them? How can you build organizations that can grow through crises, chaos and disruptive change, and become 10 times better producers (10x) compared to their competitors?” asked Thompson. “How can you take industries that suck, and find the great performers in them?”

Working with Stanford University’s Venture Design Labs, Thompson reports he helped study data from about 27,000 companies in 100 countries over 20 years to identify the characteristics of those that can seize opportunities even when their beset by otherwise debilitating problems, and go on the become those 10x producers. He reported that every “10xer” has four main leadership methods for staying in control in an out-of-control world:

• Maintain a fanatical discipline and devotion to detail and quality.
• Don’t just be productive. Be paranoid as well, but don’t be frozen by it.
• Be empirically creative. Make decisions that will move your process forward, but still work to make it stable.
• Try to develop Level 5 leadership, which means be ambitious, but maintain humility.  

“You have to blend relentless creativity with the discipline to achieve great results,” added Thompson. “But, even after achieving 10xer status as a most admired company, it can be even harder to maintain it. Our study found that only one in 15 of the 10xers was able to stay at that level after three years.”

Perhaps surprisingly, Thompson reported that a good leader’s “fanatical discipline” includes asking other people for advice, and finding and motivating the right people and project managers. This means looking for people that are passionate about what they do, helping them find and perform a job they can strive to be the best at, and helping them to drive their own economic engines.

“Apple is often perceived as all Steve Jobs, but he actually invested in a group of brilliant engineers and other people over the years. And, they’ve been able to carry on after he’s been gone, and that’s why Apple is still the world’s most valuable company today. Leaders must be willing to realize that success is all about the people they’re working with, and that we can never succeed just on our own.”

Similarly, Thompson’s “productive paranoia” is exemplified by Nike, which is among the most expensive brands in its market, but is still able to secure more market share than all its competitors combined. “This means embracing risk, while still maintaining stability,” said Thompson. “But, this isn’t easy because we have a biological drive to resist, and so the dirty secret of innovation is that business often punishes change. The solution is to not bet everything, but to take many small bets, and don’t wait to do it. Not many people remember that Apple released 22 versions of the iPod before finally releasing the iPad, so they fired a lot of bullets before cannonballs.”

Another crucial leadership skill and productivity enhancer is to develop and build trust, according to Thompson. “Trust is under promising, over delivering and exceeding expectations. It’s also consistency, admitting when you’re wrong, and being willing to make it right. “For example, Sir Richard Branson wanted to reproduce the experience of Southwest Airlines. So, Virgin Atlantic started out with one airplane, but then on its first flight, with all of the press attending, one of its engines exploded. Despite this setback, both Virgin Atlantic and Virgin America have gone on to be successful airlines.” In a video clip during Thompson’s presentation, Branson himself added, “I just thought other airlines were unpleasant and that there should be a better way to do it.”