The New Method Of Leadership Thinking

“All businesses sooner or later face the need to reconstruct their future,” explain the authors of the book, The Phoenix Encounter Method. “They will need to destroy part or all of the incumbent business model in order to build their breakthrough, future-ready organization.”

Therefore, this book shares a new method of leadership thinking – the Phoenix Encounter – relevant to all organizations in today’s ever-changing environment. Readers will learn how to proactively bridge the gap between perceiving a threat and doing something about it.

Written by three INSEAD professors (Ian C. Woodward, V. “Paddy” Padmanabhan, Sameer Hasija) and Rum Charan, you’ll learn the steps needed to create a wider range of options to:

Defend your organization
Fortify its core business
Build specific renewal initiatives

The steps are grounded in transformation that includes these three elements:

The Phoenix Attitude: a set of mindsets, habits, and behaviors that allows a leader to embrace disruption as a path to organizational renewal.

Proactive Scanning: an intense and anticipatory curiosity that is always on the lookout for new ideas, trends, insights, threats and opportunities. Scanning while learning to think and inquire new ways to better recognize future threats and opportunities. This combines scanning with perceptual acuity and strategic inquiry.

Completely Opposite Viewpoint Debates: a form of strategic conversation that requires leaders to engage with diverse viewpoints, sometimes unwelcome ideas, and a wider range of radically different options before setting a strategic agenda.

As you read the book, you’ll also benefit from the book’s specific exercises, checklists and reflection questions to challenge your thinking and encourage growth and success. Be prepared to transform your attitude, mindset and habits to break against the status quo. The authors also ask that you hold an intense desire for renewal and change.

Phoenix Attitude Leaders are:

Dreamers and doers
Decisive with agility
Self-aware with humility
Confident to overcome fears and unleash change drivers
Courageous to bust through bias, blockers, and bureaucracy

This week, the authors shared these additional insights with me:

Question: How can leaders embrace the Phoenix Attitude?

Authors: By cultivating a set of personal attributes—mindsets, habits and behaviors—that allows them to embrace disruption as the pathway to renewal and transformation. Practicing the Phoenix Attitude enables leaders over time to see, think, and act very differently from the ways they were before.

Our field research shows that 80% of executives fall into one or more of the following four segments of strategic leadership thinking: the complacent, the arrogant, the cautious and the overwhelmed. These types find handling or imagining disruption very difficult because they are stuck in the old legacy traps of thinking and action that were encouraged and rewarded in their organizations. The unfortunate reality for these leaders is that they need to turn their mindsets and behaviors away from confirmation seeking and towards contradiction seeking.

This is the hallmark of the fifth category of leaders we have seen in our research whom we call the dreamers and the doers. They are neither overzealous imagineers nor obsessive micromanagers. They are willing to envision a future where change is a constant and they know they don’t have all the answers. They are explorers and navigators who are forward thinking, find uncertainty stimulating and outside viewpoints exciting. These are the leaders with the Phoenix Attitude.

Question: What are the new rules for succeeding in today’s unpredictable world of business?

Authors: Many of the new rules for succeeding in today’s fast-paced, unpredictable world of business are captured in the frameworks and tools of the Phoenix Encounter Method: the completely opposite viewpoints debate; proactive scanning, radical ideation, separation imperative, combinatorial innovation, embedding and dreamer-and-doer leadership.

While the book takes readers through all of these, we would like to highlight the importance of the “Completely Opposite Viewpoints Debate”. It is about orchestrating a new kind of strategic debate that starts with a very simple but extremely uncomfortable question, “what could somebody, somewhere in the world do to put together what it would take to kill our business.”

As Shigetaka Komori, CEO Fujifilm who took it to all-time highs in 2020 unlike its perennial rival Kodak who filed for bankruptcy, observed, “If the goal was simple survival, many things could be done...but I wanted Fujifilm to be a leading player in the 21st century”. His words when he assumed the CEO job in 2000 to his staff was, “In our present situation, we are Toyota if cars were to disappear. We have no choice but to confront it, and confront it head on.” Or as Jeff Bezos directed Steve Kessel (then head of its traditional media business - books, music, DVDs), “Your job is to kill your own business. I want you to proceed as if your goal is to put everyone selling physical books out of a job.” In short, one of the essential new rules is to get people with diverse viewpoints and ideas, to work through the Phoenix Encounter Method to generate a much wider set of options for future innovation, transformation, and change by imagining burning the business to the ground, and then conceiving ideas to rise Phoenix like from those ashes.

Question: What’s the first step any leader could take to start applying your advice tomorrow?

Authors: As a first step, we encourage leaders to step into a Completely Opposite Viewpoints Debate - just try to get a group together and experience an Encounter for themselves. Get their team to experience Radical Ideation and scanning. Confront the blinkers of the past; and reimagine a Phoenix-like future.

In the book, we walk readers through what we call “the Phoenix Encounter Method journey.” To give interested readers a flavor of this we sketch below the steps in the journey of one of our Encounter participants, Amy Kreutzer, the CEO designate of a successful healthcare business.

Amy had walked into the Phoenix Encounter with mixed feelings - what value will an exercise premised on destruction bring to me? Yet once she experienced working through the method and the debates with her team colleagues, she understood the urgency of transformation - herself and her organization. It made her redo her key strategic priorities, strengths, weaknesses and develop a totally new blueprint for renewal and transformation.

Finally, the authors recommend that as a leader you have to consciously work to create an environment, structure, and systems where Doers and Dreamers can coexist and leverage one another’s talents and complements.

Comments

How To Rewire Your Mind To Build Your Adaptability Quotient

Alec Litowitz argues that the most valuable skill of the next decade isn't IQ or even EQ (Emotional Intelligence). It's AQ: your Adaptability Quotient, the ability to question assumptions, update beliefs, and respond effectively when reality changes. Litowitz is the author of the forthcoming book (releasing on September 15, 2026) The Adaptability Quotient: Rewiring Your Mind For Success In The Next Human Era . And he shares that “AQ is a learnable way of using your mind like a high-performance machine: to model risk, absorb feedback, make faster corrections, and create repeatable advantages in conditions where most people stall out—or drown.” In short, it’s all about how to move from “making the right decision” to “making decisions right.” “As artificial intelligence, media, and scientific advances reshape the cognitive landscape, adaptability becomes the essential discipline for reclaiming human agency,” adds Litowitz. “And a s AI resha...

Leadership Quotes From John C. Maxwell's Book, Everyone Communicates Few Connect

The real gems in John C. Maxwell's book, Everyone Communicates Few Connect , are the abundant leadership and communication quotes, such as these: To add value to others, one must first value others. People may hear your words, but they feel your attitude. All good communicators get to the point before their listeners start asking, "What's the point?" The first time you say something, it's heard. The second time, it's recognized, and the third time it's learned. In the end, people are persuaded not by what we say, but by what they understand. People pay attention when something that is said connects with something they greatly desire. Maxwell also says that: Management is about persuading people to do things they do not want to do, while leadership is about inspiring people to do things they never thought they could . The book covers five principles and five practices to help readers so they can connect one-on-one, in a group, o...

Daily Intentions For Leaders

Everyone can benefit from the book, Dear Friend , which features bite-sized, daily notes for contemplation, inspiration, connection, and clarity. Busy and stressed business leaders can particularly benefit from the 365 profound, heartfelt reflections from author Michelle Maros , founder of Peaceful Mind Peaceful Life and cohost of the podcast, Life Happens with Barb and Michelle . Dear Friend invites readers to go deep and use the notes as a daily practice that compounds over time, nurturing strength, resilience, and clarity. In just a few minutes each day, this book will offer you a daily reprieve when you feel burned out, beaten down, or overwhelmed by the strains and stresses of modern life. The heart of Dear Friend began in the quiet mornings Michelle shared with her mom, Barb. Every day, they would sit together, reading affirmations or passages from Barb’s beloved books. These small rituals—simple but powerful—set the tone for each day, grounding them in g...

Learn The Power Of Probabilistic Thinking

Dive in for a fascinating read as you discover the life-changing power of probabilistic thinking, taught by Kyle Austin Young in his book, Success Is A Numbers Game . “Every goal that you’re pursuing has two hidden numbers attached to it—a probability of success and a probability of failure,” explains Young, “If you can make the first number bigger and the second number smaller, you can rewrite your predicted outcome.” “Whether you’re trying to start a business, run a marathon, get a promotion, earn a pilot’s license, grow a bumper crop of tomatoes, or sign an acting deal, these two percentages are always lurking in the shadows predicting what is going to happen.” But, adds Young, "Most of us never think about them. We assume our odds are unknowable and unchangeable. This dangerous lie leads millions of people to fail at goals where they were perfectly capable of succeeding. You can choose a smarter path,” encourages Young. In Success is a Numbers Game , ...

How To Deliver Excellent Customer Service This Holiday Season

Leading a customer service team? Have the team members use these 9 tips for delivering excellent customer service this holiday shopping season: Rely on winning words and soothing phrases. A simple but sincere “Thanks for your patience” or “I’m listening” can go a long way toward defusing a holiday shopper’s frustration, anxiety, or panic. Develop a repertoire of short, easy to remember phrases around issues that are important to customers. Practice until the words come naturally. Communicate with silence. Remaining silent while your customers are talking is a basic courtesy, and nodding tells them you’re listening and understanding what you hear. An occasional “uh huh” or “I see” tells them you’re still listening without interrupting. Make customers feel seen. Making eye contact acknowledges that you see your customers as individuals. But there’s a balance to be struck here: staring can make your customers uncomfortable, too. Also keep in mind that...

Inspiring Leadership Quotes To Start Your New Year

These quotes truly inspire me and hopefully they will inspire you as well : “The three common characteristics of best companies -- they care, they have fun, they have high performance expectations.” -- Brad Hams “The one thing that's common to all successful people: They make a habit of doing things that unsuccessful people don't like to do.” -- Michael Phelps “It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit." -- Harry S. Truman “The leader of the past was a person who knew how to tell. The leader of the future will be a person who knows how to ask.” -- Peter Drucker “Leadership: The art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.” -- Dwight D. Eisenhower “Good leadership isn't about advancing yourself. It's about advancing your team.” -- John C. Maxwell "People buy into the leader, then the vision.” -- John C. Maxwell ...

Flashback: Best New Leadership Book Of 2015

Flashback to this post from early 2016 : After reading nearly 30 new books about leadership this year, my pick for 2015's best new leadership book is, Advisory Leadership , by Greg Friedman , Although the book is authored by an award-winning financial advisor and primarily written for professionals in the financial services industry, this book is a must read for any leader who wants to create a nurturing heart culture that hinges on the human-centric values the next generation of employees hold in high regard. And, what exactly is heart culture ? Friedman says, "At its core, heart culture symbolizes how a company values more than just an employee's output. It's not about the work, but rather, the people who do the work." He further explains that leaders can no longer afford to ignore the shift toward a people-first culture and its direct influence on a healthy, effective work environment. Friedman teaches that there are seven s...

The Questions To Ask To Move Your Company Forward

Years ago in an issue of Inc. magazine, was a fascinating list of 35 questions from business owners, entrepreneurs and management thinkers. Each offered the one question they would ask to move a company forward . From the list, my favorites are : Are we relevant? Will we be relevant five years from now? Ten? What prevents me from making the changes I know will make me a more effective leader? Are we changing as fast as the world around us? Who, on the executive team or the board, has spoken to a customer recently? And, my most favorite is : How can we become the company that would put us out of business? What question do you ask to help move your company forward?

Best New Leadership Books Of 2022

This time each year, I select from all the leadership books I read during the year my pick for the best new leadership book of the year . It was a tough choice, so for 2022, I'm picking two books: Both books are timely, highly relevant, full of great teachings and well worth reading for leaders at any stage of their careers. Here is a recap about each of these two best new leadership books for 2022: Leading With Heart Those who lead with heart consistently have discussions with their teams about their unexpressed needs, fears, desires, gifts, and sense of purpose , explain the authors of the timely and compelling book, Leading With Heart . CEO coaches and authors John Baird and Edward Sullivan share that anyone can learn how to make an authentic connection with their teams in order to drive better outcomes. And their book provides readers clear and practical insights to help them succeed in making those connections. Be sure t...

How To Be An Inclusive Leader

“No matter your title, or how advanced you already consider yourself to be as an inclusive leader, I believe this book will help you evolve and motivate you to take action,” says Jennifer Brown about her book, How To be An Inclusive Leader: Your Role In Creating Cultures Of Belonging Where Everyone Can Thrive . The book is the second edition of the bestselling title from 2021. This newest installment includes a new introduction and addresses challenges posed by the pandemic—including remote work, flexibility, and mental health. “It also gives increased attention to embedding equity, empathy, and anti-racism in the inclusive leader framework,” shares Brown. “I’m proud that this second edition will help leaders and organizations respond to the changes unfolding around us in relevant, culturally competent ways and take action to address systemic inequities that persist in the workplace.” In her book, Brown explores how power and authority are changing fu...

Eric Jacobson On Management And Leadership

Search This Blog