The Art of Strategic Leadership

Chapter 9The Art of Agility

The Story: Kim

After hiking the length of Elephant Canyon under a blazing sun and dining on beef tenderloin at a local diner in Moab, Alex planned to turn in early. He was impatient to get home to his family, but he reminded himself that these few solitary days on the road were allowing him to gain invaluable perspective on his Dallas team's ability to shape the future. From his hotel room, he sent Julie photos of the spectacular vistas he captured along the trail, and then talked with her by phone to report on his progress and promise that he'd be in Seattle in a couple days.

Early the next morning, Alex was the first guest in the hotel's sunlit breakfast room. Always a morning person, he peacefully replayed the previous day's adventure in his mind and looked ahead to a long day behind the wheel that would take him through southern Idaho into Oregon. If this were an ordinary workday in Dallas, he would be reviewing yesterday's unresolved issues and setting the agenda for the 10:00 a.m. staff meeting with his team leaders. Two hours from now, he knew, Robert would be opening the daily plant leaders' meeting; unless there was a crisis, Alex wouldn't hear anything about what they discussed until late in the afternoon, when he called to touch base with his team.

Soon enough, Alex knew, he would be back in the chaos that was business as usual at the plant: to-do lists that always seemed to add new items faster than he could check the old ones off; conference ...