Notes from "Chief Maker - The 5 Step Blueprint to rising above the pack and getting a seat on the executive team” by Greg Layton

G.R.E.A.T.

Step 1 - Game Plan:

• Without a game plan, your career trajectory is out of your hands.
• A game plan is built from the ground up starting with your purpose.
• To uncover your purpose, ask yourself what kind of difference you want to make and how you want to make it.
• Your career should be at the point where your purpose, your abilities, and your work intersect.
• Prepare a vision board to gain clarity around exactly what you want out of life and your career. Include the people who are most important to you in this process.
• Your game plan should be as objective as possible, so it’s important to step back - way back - and take an honest look at your career trajectory as it actually is.
• Start thinking about your boss as your true customer. Prepare a customer profile to sharpen your understanding of your true customer’s most pressing concerns. Doing this has powerful and wide-reaching effects.
• You’ll also want to take an objective look at your competition. To do this, prepare a competitor analysis table that lists their strengths, weaknesses, qualifications, etc. and compares them to your own.
• Early on, make a big part of your game plan distinguishing yourself from the pack.
• Separate yourself from the competition by cultivating a reputation for doing one thing exceptionally well. This will place you head and shoulders above your competitors and keep you above the fray of politics.
• Your game plan should be perfectly congruent. Each part should reinforce every other part.

Step 2 - Routine:

• Routines automate the pursuit of excellence.
• The corporate world can learn a lot from the world of elite sport - especially their attention to the routine-oriented process that informs performance.
• A faithfully executed game plan is one that is more concerned with process than content.
• Routines bring clarity and relative ease to complex, constantly changing environments.
• To improve results, use the P2R2 system: Prepare, Perform, Review and Recover. Skip any part of this process and you’ll be limiting how high you can climb.
• Value is created in Prepare and Review; it is protected in Recover;and it is realised in Perform.
• Build daily focus sessions into your routines. Use these sessions to review, to plan and schedule, and (perhaps most importantly) to rehearse key messages.
• When it comes time to perform, seek flow and you’ll find focus.
• Include both critical and active recovery in your daily routines. They’ll provide the mental and physical reset you’ll need to continue performing week after week, month after month.
• Use review as a powerful tool to drill down on and address costly, performance-sapping mistakes.
• To make that leap to the next level, you’re going to have to show that you’re already doing the things that produce success at that level.

Step 3 - Entourage:

• The right entourage used in the right way can be one of your biggest results and career opportunity multipliers.
• Chiefs consciously decide to surround themselves with the best people.
• If you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room. Seek out people who know more than you do.
• If they’re not in your entourage, they’re in someone else’s.
• If you treat your entourage as a one-way street - asking more from it than you ever give back - it will quickly disappear.
• Your entourage should have at least five parts: executives, trusted advisors, peers, your team, and your friends and family.
• There can be no cutting corners when building relationships and engaging a powerful entourage. It demands a sizable investment of time, goodwill, and trust.
• Turning peers into allies can be difficult, especially when they are your competitors for the next role. Faithfully follow the 10 Peer-Recruiting Commandments and you’ll be able to keep (as much as possible) out of the political muck.
• Your team is a powerful driver of results. Build a highly skilled team by recruiting the best you can find and developing your people.
• Family and friends will make sacrifices on your behalf so long as they feel they are a part of the game plan. Reward them and give them all your attention whenever you can.
• Cut the deal weight. Chronic underperformers and toxic relationships often play some part (sometimes a large part) in stalled career progress. Either distance and insulate yourself or send them packing.

Step 4 - Assets:

• Our assets combine to form the value proposition we bring to a company and our role.
• When we seek out knowledge and the growth it brings on our own terms, we create assets that are entirely unique. These separate us from the pack.
• Companies are now looking for leaders with high levels of self-awareness character. Start with gaining a deep understanding of who you are.
• Chiefs are almost always world-class experts in at least one thing. This is sometimes related to the industry they’re in, but many times it is not.
• Once you have cultivated an asset, don’t let time blunt your competitive edge. Stay sharp by building time for practice and utilization into your daily and weekly routines.
• Invest heavily in education, coaching, and self-improvement. These investments will pay massive future dividends.
• For light-speed learning, use a combination of three different types of reading: traditional reading, speed reading, and photoreading. Apply the right technique to the appropriate material and you’ll be growing and learning remarkably quickly.
• Wide-ranging experience is the ultimate asset.
• Diversify your asset portfolio by seeking out new kinds of experience. If you have always been in the same department, consider a transfer.
• Chief’s asset portfolios are always brimming with stories of international work and adventures. Broadening your horizons and seeking out new experiences will give you a substantial competitive edge.

Step 5 - Track Record:

• Those who have risen to the top almost always leave behind them a clear record of transformation.
• The four steps that preceded this one have all prepared you to take this last step. Your track record of transformation will be result of your new approaches to business and life.
• A track record of success and transformation virtually guarantees that you’ll be making that jump to the executive team.
• Transformation starts with the dissatisfaction with the status quo. Chiefs are never content with business (or life) as usual.
• Building your track record begins with understanding the playing field. The deeper your understanding of the environment in which your organization operates, the more likely it will become that you will be able to pull the right levers in the right corner.
• Align your transformation to a common vision and purpose and you’ll enjoy widespread support rather than resistance from those around you.
• Pull the right levers for maximum impact in a short period of time.
• Laser focus (on one thing at a time) is necessary to make changes powerful and lasting and achieve flow in the process.
• When selling transformation, use storytelling to win allies and boost your reputation.