How to NOT Execute Your Strategy (S1E2): Martyn Lewis

by | Jan 22, 2024 | Leadership, Podcast Leader Guide, Strategic Execution

Failure is an absolute essential…

Martyn Lewis is the Founder and CEO of Market Partners. In this episode, we explore how failure is an absolute essential for successful execution.

Three key concepts:

  1. Your mindset should be that failure is part of the process; it’s part of the execution. Make sure that your entire team sees failure as opportunity. The goal is to maximize the opportunities – not avoid failure. When we fail the same way over and over again, that is a different problem.
  2. Culture is the bedrock of execution. We need to be really honest about the status of our culture and make sure that it’s not getting in the way of our execution.
  3. The best leaders will not only create clarity, but they will seek clarity for themselves by engaging the front line personally to understand why the execution is bogging down.

BONUS – Leader guide: Use the following questions for (a) self-reflection as a leader and/or (b) a great discussion with your team.

1) Listen to the full episode before this discussion.
2) Martyn made a provocative statement: Failure is an expected part of execution. Do you agree or disagree with him?
3) Define the difference between incremental failure and catastrophic failure in 10 words or less. Share your answers.
4) Let’s breakdown the concept of incremental failure further. What are the signs of incremental failure being healthy? What are the signs that incremental failure is on its way to becoming catastrophic?
5) Looking at the initiatives that you were personally involved in this past year, how many of them involved incremental failure? For those initiatives that had incremental failure, did you make sure that it was dealt with in the healthiest way possible? Could you have done anything more to make those failures a win?
6) Looking at the initiatives we are working on now. What lessons and/or principles should we be applying to them?
7) Option: Take time right now to define exactly what that looks like (the outcome(s), metrics, and requirements).

If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with at least one person. And leave me a review on whatever platform you engaged this podcast. Your feedback is invaluable to me.

Holomua. Onward and upward.

All the best ~ Tim

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