Firm Foundation: The Cornerstone of Effective Initiatives

Jan 31, 2025

You can’t build a great building on a weak foundation.

I’ve found this time of year is not just about making resolutions. For organizations, it’s also about engaging in initiatives. Maybe some brand-new idea taking shape into action or executing existing stuff in more efficient and effective ways. Regardless, executing initiatives requires that an organization has a firm foundation upon which to build its future success.

This is not just an organizational reality or team dynamic; I challenge each of us to embrace our own individual initiatives – the things we want to achieve personally this year – and then consider if we have a firm foundation before executing our plan.

What makes up a firm foundation?

In a recent leadership forum in Miami, I got to hear from a trusted colleague and friend, Richard Fagerlin. Richard is the President of Peak Solutions, Inc., a company focusing on leadership and culture development. In our time together, he shared his thoughts about cultivating three foundational facets when implementing initiatives. They are Clarity, Cohesion and Execution.

Clarity represents a degree of understanding; specifically, regarding the depth of understanding to ensure all parties involved know precisely the what, why, how and to what extent. “We know what to do”.

Cohesion represents the state or action of working together; specifically, regarding how all necessary people and actions operate as valuable parts of a united whole. “We’re doing it together.”

Execution represents the act of getting the initiative done; specifically, regarding the energy and effort required every day to accomplish targeted goals, actions and behaviors. “We’re getting it done”.

When all three of these facets are defined, understood, and fully engaged with passion and purpose, initiatives seem to move forward in a healthy way. It’s when one or more are absent or fall short, that’s when we have challenges and maybe even difficulties. For instance:

Having cohesion and execution, but no clarity, causes reckless behavior. Which can end up having a frustrated team wondering what, why, how and to what extent. If you have clarity and cohesion, and lack execution, you can end up getting stuck in analysis paralysis and never really getting it or anything else off the ground. If you have clarity and execution, and lack cohesion, it can feel right except all parties can end up doing their own thing and inconsistency becomes an acceptable norm.

So, what’s the goal? It would seem striking a balance and ensuring all three are in check is a healthy place to start.

“Organizational health is the single greatest competitive advantage in any business.”

This Patrick Lencioni quote suggests culture and its relative firm foundation is much more than just a three-element alignment for an organization. If you zoom out, I believe you can see all sorts of ways and means to ensure that one or many have access to professional and personal development. Consider the opportunities like systems, processes and programs designed to elevate success, learning, connectedness, awareness, mindfulness, health and well-being.

Co-Founder Kym Russell has always stressed that our greatest resource at Russell Cellular is people – every single team member that makes up our RC Family. And when we can support one another in our pursuit of the mission, priorities, objectives and calls to action, whatever our job function, we are not only successful…we are also healthy – operationally, organizationally and culturally.

When we all aim for the next right thing and we do it often as second nature behavior even and when no one else is watching, that is what is healthy can look like when flowing downstream from culture. It’s an upstream pursuit of caring for every person and providing the best wireless experience to every customer, every time… and best employee experience to every employee, every time.

Adoption & Maintenance of a Firm Foundation

Let’s say the vision and all the elements are in place, now what? Well, to be fair, that is the age-old question. Most organizations are rarely short on vision, although they are not always crystal clear.  They aren’t short on ideas, although many still lack wisdom. They are never short on intention, despite feeling the pain of slow results and not deviating from the plan when necessary. All of that to say, starting is hard, following through and sticking with it is harder.

Paying attention to and sticking with the three elements above is a great place to start. I would also, as either a leader or follower, evaluate and consider some of the following components that make up a foundation; like leadership, communication, self-discovery – team discovery, learning, goal setting, expectations, standards, coaching, feedback, measurement, performance reviews, support, conflict resolution, and surveys. Each lends perspective and attention to the levels and depth of any foundation.

Stating the obvious, build the foundation before you build the house. A house will only ever be as good as its foundation…so, make it solid, make it strong before you make anything.

As you contemplate what makes and maintains a firm foundation – organizationally or personally – consider the following questions.

Foundational Questions for Lasting Success

• What’s the ‘root’ why behind your initiative?
• What is the ‘truth’ for this to move forward?
• What’s the difference about ‘this’ time?
• What’s the ‘wise’ first thing to do?
• What’s the ‘one’ thing that needs to happen and keep happening throughout?
• What could go ‘wrong’?
• What’s the ‘best’ measurement?
• Who really ‘benefits’?
• During implementation…What’s ‘right’, ‘wrong’, ‘missing’ and ‘confusing’?
• How will we know we ‘won’?

Want to learn more perspectives about building a firm foundation? Visit our podcast or visit one of our locations.

New Year: This Year I Will Do “X”

Jan 2, 2025

It’s that time of year again when we promise ourselves some desired improvement or change to an aspect of our life in the coming New Year.

New Year’s resolutions essentially mark the start of a new year as an opportunity to set goals for personal growth. Committing to new habits or behaviors is a way of reflecting on the past and actively striving for a better future.

On or about every January first, we all seem to engage in this ubiquitous act. Said another way, resolutions are an act engaged everywhere by everyone done at about the same time. It is omnipresent. And to the surprise of no one, in 2024, the most common resolutions were improving health and well-being. Specifically eating healthier, reducing stress, exercising, spending time with family and friends, reducing time on social media, and saving money.

“I think in terms of the day’s resolutions, not the years’ (resolution).”

There are two challenges in making resolutions. One is conceptual and the other is about implementation. The first can be found in our definition of what we’re trying to accomplish; call it defining the why…the true why. It is about uncovering the physical, emotional, mental, and/or spiritual reason for inspiring us into the resolution.

The quote above by Henry Moore is a tremendous way for each of us to contemplate and go deep into what we want to accomplish. Very rarely do we measure the impact on our year, but rather in our day-to-day living. Resolutions, when vetted then and adequately engaged with a defined why in place, become daily aspirations towards specific actions with immediate outcomes. The goal is to reduce our vision into a reality of daily inputs with daily outputs.

“Making New Year resolutions is one thing. Remaining resolute and seeing them through is quite another.”

Alex Morritt is hitting the nail on the head. This is the second challenge, and it represents the biggest tripping point, which is staying committed to the resolution. It’s all about the follow through, even when and especially when it’s hard, inconvenient, disruptive, or it becomes boring and repetitive.

Lack of follow-up and follow through cause the majority of all initiatives to fall short. We can become disillusioned when what we thought we’d be doing doesn’t align with what we’re actually doing. We can get upset when things don’t happen fast enough. We can get agitated when the plan falls short. We can get bored with the same thing repeatedly being done. We can drift off course when other things take precedence. There are so many viable reasons why we should stop, which means our reason why we’re doing this, whatever it is, must always supersede and be bigger than any reason why we stop.

Effective New Year’s Resolutions have Parts.

As with any goal or objective with a clearly defined purpose, comes a requirement to have an equally clearly defined plan. Each element critical to the other like the one piece of the puzzle that is uniquely designed to fit in an exact place to reveal the finished puzzle.

Even though that ‘puzzle’ analogy may make complete sense, is not the way I would advise constructing a plan for a resolution. Resolutions need to be less concrete and unyielding, and more flexible and able to adapt to change. Maybe a better analogy is a game plan in sports. Games plans can be and, most often, are fluid by design. They have options and built-in contingencies based on probabilities, trends and unknowns. Call it, being proactive in being reactive.

Having said all that, there are some constants and best practices to consider in the midst of the unexpectedness, uncertainty, and disruption during resolution implementation.

New Year’s Best Practices

Figure out your why: Be willing, honest and open to defining the true root cause of wanting to improve or change a behavior or behaviors.

Make your resolution behaviorally specific: Be clear about what you want to accomplish. For example, instead of just “exercise more,” you could say “go walking for 30 minutes three times a week”.

Come up with a plan (not the plan): Determine how, when, where, who, and to what extent you want to accomplish your resolution.

Plan for tripping points and excuses: Consider what might derail you from your efforts and how you’ll deal with it. Create contingencies.

Get an accountability partner: Let a friend, family member, mentor, or peer know what you’re doing and why, and then ask them to check in with you regularly to hold you accountable.

Track and reward your progress: Keep a journal or diary to stay focused and recover from setbacks. Celebrate your progress with a treat or something special.

Mix it up and stay flexible: Keep things interesting by adding new activities, changing up some methods and inputs, or be sure to improvise when needed with your resolution.

No matter what, stay positive: Remind yourself of the desired outcome of your resolution to stay focused and motivated. If there are setbacks or failure…accept, learn and keep moving.

Resolutions come and go. The ones that stick and bear fruit are the ones that are designed on purpose-for purpose, done one step at a time-one day at a time and measured by progress not perfection.

What’s this year going to bring?

New Year’s Challenge Questions

I challenge you with the following questions as you reflect backwards to project forwards.

• Why even do a resolution?
• What have you done in the past?
• Pick a resolution and ask why this/why now?
• Can you define a clear expectation and all necessary/specific behaviors?
• What’s the plan…what, how, when, how often, by when?
• How will you acknowledge effort in failure, obstacles, achievement, partnerships, support?
• Which criteria will effectively measure your success?

Want to learn more perspectives about Reflection? Visit our podcast or visit one of our locations.

Reflect Backwards Project Forwards: A Year in Review

Dec 3, 2024

“Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards”

Soren Kierkegaard was definitely onto something when he shared this idea. While you and I reflect on what’s happened and what has been, we bring that understanding and what we’ve learned into our next steps. In a way, we reflect backward to project forward.

At this time of year, one cannot help but reflect. With all the stuff that’s made up our day-to-day work life and home life outcomes, we naturally end up reviewing all that’s happened throughout the year. We contemplate the impact and influence it has had in us, through us and around us.

Then comes a change of perspective.

Imagine looking behind. And then, to re-orient our gaze, we turn our head towards what lies ahead. In the turn, it’s there, right dab in the middle, where we find a precious space. It’s what Viktor Frankl identified long ago,

“Between stimulus and response lies a space. In that space lie our freedom and power to choose a response. In our response lies our growth and our happiness.”

This represents a pause between what has been and what may be. We leverage our outcomes to temper our future choices.

This means stepping out of an old year into a new and uncertain one with faith and hope. Which can be hard for many of us to do. It’s challenging because we don’t know what lies ahead, and it’s difficult to fully realize because what got us to this point may not get us to the next one. I am reminded of a pivotal quote by leadership guru Marshall Goldsmith.

“What got you here won’t get you there”

It’s acknowledging the behaviors, strategies, or habits that led to the outcomes in our past may not be sufficient to the thinking and doing for our future. Essentially, we will need to adapt and evolve as we step into the possibilities of our new year.

This may very well involve the process of ‘start, stop or continue’. For me, I’ve always done my very best to ‘abandon all hope for a better yesterday’, and acknowledge, accept, and then let go. I stay fully aware in that pause after reflecting to recognize that all the successes, failures, wins and losses…they’re historical. They’re in the past. The only thing with distinct clarity in this moment is the two inches right in front of me. Clarity is found in the middle of reflecting and projecting. I am here. Now what?

What, Why, How, To What Extent

Here’s the thing, we cannot just move forward because it sounds good. We need to avoid some blind statement like Do Better or Follow my Passion. It should be “Follow my passion…” and then add to it the specific aspect or aspects as to what that means, how it will be seen and give it some tangible measure. All too often, when we make decisions in the new year, we say something without rigorously defining it. We have to be honest with ourselves and avoid empty promises and platitudes.

We have to know WHAT we’re striving for, WHY that, HOW to make it happen, and TO WHAT EXTENT we will execute it and live it…each and every day. One must own the true understanding, by both believing and committing that this will impact ourselves and those around us. I know plenty of people who say it, and don’t live it or follow through with it. That has been me in past seasons.

Now layer this with what Tony Robbins says…set goals, not resolutions. And then create a plan and act. In fact, it’s not the goal we’re going after as much as it is becoming the person who can accomplish the goal. This creates a posture of grace to live it out, with the flexibility in being real and doing this the best way we can. Perfectly imperfect. Our mission and vision within the goal doesn’t change. The way and means to achieve it, can and will change. And that is OK.

Bottom line, now is the perfect time to reflect backwards to project forwards. We end well so that we may begin well; moving forward, unburdened by what has been.

I challenge you with the following questions as you reflect backwards to project forwards.

• Can you describe what happened… what did I achieved?
• What did I notice…what did I learn?
• Where did you encounter challenges… what held me back?
• Which habit defines me…what habit requiring change will help me the most?
• How will I respond…what is my focus as I move forward?

Want to learn more perspectives about Reflection? Visit our podcast or visit one of our locations.