This too may seem like an obvious point, but it is a point many leaders miss as well. In leadership, greatest sin is greatest treason, to get right results for wrong reasons.

For example, many leaders think that they can cost-cut their way to achieving a robust organization. Don't get me wrong: Cost-management should be an on-going effort in any organization, but to rely on it as primary results-generator can lead to an organization being driven into ground. Achieving "more, faster, continually" means going beyond an exclusive focus on cost-cutting and getting results by tapping heart of what organization is all about.

And heart of any organization is purpose and people: combination of its central purpose and actions of people who manifest that purpose. Those people must be enlisted as cause leaders. Cause leaders do more than accomplish their jobs; they actually take leadership of those jobs and by doing so bring a special motivation, vision, and initiative to jobs.

Leadership is not position, it's performance. If you are a floor sweeper, say, you best accomplish your work not simply by doing floor sweeping but taking leadership of it: in other words, approaching job with distinctive initiative, care, and commitment that leadership entails.

These two essential premises beg question, how do leaders get more results, faster results on a continual basis?

The answer is simple: through Leadership Talk.

The Leadership Talk is a powerful results-generator, maybe most powerful results-generator you'll ever use. It works through your interacting with people so that they become motivated to be your cause leader(s) in achieving more results faster, continually.

Leadership Talks can be formal ways of communicating but mostly they are informal. Unlike a speech, they are usually interactive. They can be delivered anywhere: at a conference table, over lunch, at a water cooler, across a desk. (One of best Leadership Talks I have witnessed was given by a plant supervisor to one of his team members at a company picnic while they sat on back of a truck, sipping beers.) And in many cases, an effective Leadership Talk can be given when roles are reversed, when audience speaks to speaker.

Finally, though methodologies I've developed for The Leadership Talk are new, its roots go back into mists of history. Throughout history, when people needed to accomplish great endeavors, one thing had to happen, a leader had to gather them together and speak from heart. That leader had to give a Leadership Talk.

In next two parts, I'll describe essential elements of Leadership Talk, so you can start developing and delivering them right away.

2005 © The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

How does this rule help you focus you on right problem? For one thing, it gives you a template of where to put your time and resources.

I wish I had known about 20/60/20 rule early in my leadership endeavors. In military and later in other venues, I often gave inordinate amount of attention to people at intractable end. That people were upset with me and my leadership and direction I wanted to take organizations upset me – more than it should have.

I did not know that if you are not getting a portion of people upset with you, you are not challenging them enough as a leader. I did not know that anger of people you lead is door prize of leadership.

Apply 20/60/20 rule to a project you undertook in past. (Remember, those are not exact percentages but approximations.) Which category did you focus your time, attention, and resources on? Was it right category to do so? What would you do differently? How might you have moved people from intractable end to highly motivated end? How did you deal with people in middle, 60 percent? What category demanded your best resources and efforts? What could you have done differently to improve your results?

What are lessons you learned in applying rule to a past project? List at least three specific ones. Now apply 20/60/20 rule to a present leadership effort. This rule is about saving you time, money, and resources and getting you more results to boot. There are several ways to use it. First, as a straight up template.

How might lessons you learned in applying Rule to a past project now help you apply it to this present one?

Focus on one of three categories. How will you expend your time and resources? It does not matter which category you focus on. The importance of rule is that you have option. Without this rule, most leaders scatter their focus.

Don't get caught applying diligent solutions to wrong problems. Apply 20/60/20 Rule, and you'll focus on getting right results in right way at right time.

2005 © The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. All rights reserved.