Maddox 's Key Ideas from Barefoot in the Boardroom
by Shara Hutchinson

Leaders need to regularly assess their organization's current state across factors like operations, team capabilities, resources, culture and more.

Understanding the gap between the present and future state enables leaders to craft data-driven strategies and plans to reach the next level.

Rather than relying on assumptions, leaders should gather data through assessments, analysis, staff and customer surveys and more. 

Leaders are only as effective as their teams.

To successfully execute on strategy, leaders must ensure they have the right talent in the right roles.

This requires an understanding of each team member's skills, work styles, strengths and development needs in relation to the skills and behaviors needed to drive strategy forward.

Leaders may need to restructure teams or reposition team members to align with strategic objectives.

With a vision defined and the right team in place, leaders need to create a detailed action plan that outlines exactly how the future state will be reached.

This includes defining key activities, owners, milestones, resources required, risks and mitigation tactics.

An accountability framework should outline metrics and key results each team and leader will be measured on to ensure alignment and motivation to execute the plan.

Markets, technologies, competitors and customer preferences are continually evolving. Organizations must build a culture and capability to anticipate changes ahead of the curve and embrace them.

Rather than reacting, leaders should proactively predict industry shifts using market analysis, competitive intelligence, customer insights and more.

• Leaders should intentionally expose themselves to new environments, people, concepts and ways of thinking to spark creativity. Insular thinking within one company or industry inhibits innovation.
• Leaders must diversify their information sources and experiences to strengthen imaginative muscles.

Customer motivations, values, challenges and desires continually evolve. Leaders must deeply understand target customers to create differentiated value propositions that evolve in line with emerging needs.

This requires continuously gathering customer insights through surveys, interviews, advisory groups and journey mapping.

• In today's complex, dynamic environment, leaders should resist relying on intuition or past practices when making strategic decisions.
• Decisions should be grounded in real-time assessments and data analytics that provide an objective view of realities and future probabilities leaders need to navigate uncertainty.
• Data illuminates customer needs, competitive threats, market trends and more.
• Leaders must create a culture and systems to democratize data, enable insight sharing and drive data-driven decision making across the organization.

Change management provides structures, processes and tools to help employees across an organization understand the need for change, embrace new ways of working and adopt change.

Because humans are wired for certainty and habit, leading change requires thoughtful change management.

Leaders must clearly communicate "the why" and alleviate concerns.

Coaching, training and organizational alignment are key enablers.