The Three C’s Of Leading Breakthroughs

All meaningful breakthroughs – from science to the humanities to technology – are born in the minds of individuals. Whether these breakthroughs translate into useful applications depend on the three C’s: Communication; Conversation and Concentration.

Let’s cut straight to the chase.

Communication
When you communicate, what you utter comes out of a gradient of perceptions and convictions – from the meaningless to the meaningful. Somewhere along this gradient there is a point of inversion, from you representing a personal issue to you being an agency of a cause, purpose or idea, with which you are intimate but may not be personal to you alone. This is the birth place of leadership. The higher and more profound and meaningful, the more potent and propositional the message, because it does not carry the energy of you alone – it now carries the signal and power of the cause that you have chosen to represent.

When the essence of a purpose or an idea comes to live and grow in a person, thereby creating a state of union between the person and the essence, it gives rise to the most potent forms of inter-human communication. Thus making it possible for the person to reach out for and draw like-minded individuals into the conversation.

Conversation
Read the many stories about the brightest entrepreneurs, whose pioneering innovations touch the lives of billions of people: It all starts – and continues – with the conversation. It’s the story of people sitting in a café, scribbling on napkins, gripped by seemingly half-insane ideas, giving birth to game-changing initiatives and projects. This is your second task as a cutting edge leader: To draw the best and brightest into the conversation and let it have its way. In my capacity as a consultant I am often being asked to help in designing radical change processes. Much of it revolves around bringing people together into the conversation. There are of course methodologies and insights to be deployed in catalysing the process to enhance focus, discovery and innovation thinking. Whether you are leading a start-up or a Fortune 100 company, your ability to bring together the brightest, most open minded willing individuals to pioneer the next step, to together turn on a dime in letting go of what does not work and figure out what does, determines the survivability and success of the project you are leading in times where no project is immune from being diminished in short order by competing minds conjuring up new game-changing idea.

Concentration
To get a fantastically visual of the idea of concentration copy and paste to your browser after you complete this reading the following clip: http://tiny.cc/tyhuzx; featuring a visit to the SpaceX factory. Ask senior executives in companies such as Boeing or Airbus about the Achilles heel of their biggest projects to hear about the stress levels and inefficiencies caused by a project becoming too dependent on over-diversity of suppliers from around the world. One of Tesla’s and SpaceX winning features is the way that the backbone of the operation is concentrated literally under one huge roof, with departments that are normally separated by distance – such as engineers and the blue collar workers – working side by side. It’s a winning way of thinking that enables them to solve problems and translate industry leading innovations into usable technologies in lightning speeds in comparison to their competitors. The message: Find ways to concentrate your resources to best effect. Not just physically – which is not entirely feasible in a global marketplace – but most of all, intellectually. The key here is the integration of outstanding talent, technology and resources in creating a critical mass of efficiency and cutting edge delivery capabilities.

Leaving you with the three questions: