Chess Not Checkers

Introduction

Leading has never been easy. From our first experiment trying to get our classmates to follow us or receiving our first official assignment at work, leadership has always demanded our best effort. That hasn’t changed—but something else has: the complexity of the problems we face and the organizations we lead has increased exponentially.

Perhaps this complexity finds its energy in the scope of your enterprise, or it may merely be a function of increased volume. These are great problems to have … if leaders can orchestrate an appropriate response.

Unfortunately, for many leaders, our past successes just don’t translate. The game has literally changed before our eyes. The methods that worked extremely well in the past no longer have ...