THE FORMULA

I have been pining to discuss a little-known technique that the best leaders use to maintain growth and increase the value of their organization. We agree now that failure to cope with human and organizational issues, first and foremost, can bring your company smack-dab against the Barrier of Complexity. The question is: How do you inure your company against human and organizational issues that prevent you from being an Eagle? In today's market, to become an Eagle you have no choice but to build an advantage over your competitors. But competitive advantage essentially means providing superior service to the customer. This is what underpins competitive advantage. Customers must consider your service superior; otherwise they will never reward your organization with their business.

There are three fundamental principles of competitive advantage:

1. Leveraging the company's capabilities.
2. Positioning within the industry.
3. Neutralizing the competition.

The key is the first principle: leveraging capabilities and people. Remember: It is through people that performance of any kind, good or bad is posted. Moreover, competitive advantage begins with the selection of the leaders, who must share the vision and values of the company and then set to work trying to develop them. Without strong, future-based leaders, neither your service center nor the company will achieve this advantage triad in the face of competition.

In our industry, leaders for the most part are trained to be generalists - to lead and to function in several areas. In the course of his career, a generalist works inbound, outbound, breakbulk, sales, and administration, all of which should teach him or her how to manage a service center. Which is fine. Earlier, I stated that a leader in the phase of rugged individualism should develop strong traits that will, without a doubt, be beneficial throughout his career - even if, at some point, he reaches a barrier that forces him to change from rugged individualist to member of a unique team. Making the transformation is the key to sustained growth. Let's look at how this works psychologically.

Each of us has the potential of mastering some aspect of life, or even exhibiting genius. But since most of us find it difficult to imagine ourselves as geniuses or are downright intimidated by the thought, I will use this word sparingly. Let's call musicians like Mozart, Edison, Andrew Carnegie, and Henry Ford masters of their domain. There are also masters of space - architects, painters, and sculptors. And there is athletic mastery - Wayne Gretzky, Dan Marino, Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods. They are all masters because they learned to use and develop their unique ability to become great in their respective fields.

When we think of genius we normally think of a score high enough (usually 140 or above) on the standard IQ test to earn the person that epithet. Most people don't understand that the standard IQ test measures only one kind of intelligence: logical reasoning. There are other kinds of intelligence that could never show up on an IQ test, but in which some masters could qualify as geniuses. One especially poignant example is Mohammed Ali. When he was a teenager, he was administered a standard IQ test and scored a measly 78 points, which is considered subnormal. Imagine - Mohammed Ali, one of the best- known men in modern history, the greatest boxer of all time, a man with immeasurable charisma and charm. There is just nothing "subnormal" about this guy! Why not? Because he has a unique ability. He and others recognized it and, fortunately for him, there was a support structure to help him focus on this unique ability.

This level of mastery is available to anyone devoted to developing it. The only catch is that you have not only to identify your area of unique ability but also to create a support system that permits you to focus on it.

How about another definition of mastery? Mastery as the continuous development of a unique ability to ever- higher levels. Is this definition more complete?

As we move into the 21st century, I think the concept of genius or master will acquire more depth of meaning. Today we still associate it with rugged individualism. We have been conditioned to believe a master is a practitioner who chooses a life of isolation to concoct his leading-edge theory, product, or service, which alters some paradigm and fosters a whole new way of looking at things. In information technology Bill Gates or Michael Dell immediately come to mind. However, the dynamics of changes taking place today are such that the masters of tomorrow will be the products of extraordinary teamwork rather than just extraordinary minds.

This is the crux of another secret I want to share with you. Look at the latest changes taking place in Microsoft. Bill Gates recently announced he was removing himself from the day-to-day management of Microsoft in order to focus on developmental challenges. Yet by changing its internal structure Microsoft is actually repositioning itself. Having anticipated a change in the rules of the game, Bill Gates aims to focus his energy more in areas where his abilities are unique. Microsoft is reorganizing its strategy around the unique abilities of its greatest human resources to create a competitive advantage designed to change the rules of the game in its favor once again. I'll bet my money on this!

This is a powerful strategy, the future repercussions of which we could only guess at. I hope you can see that.

In the end, it is not so much the particular individual who is the master or genius, in the sense still recognized today, but how that individual can match up his unique abilities with other peoples' unique abilities to produce the next generation of masters in the business world.