Shifting the Odds in Your Favor: The Advantage-Maker Blog
Do you know how to shift the odds in your favor in the best of times and the worst of times?
Imagine that you are a commander of a fortress under a daily siege for six months, your supplies are down to two bags of grain and one cow. You have no way to communicate to the outside world for help. What would you do?
Expecting to hear the expected – ration as best you can, you can empathize with the quartermaster’s surprise and shock when told to stuff the cow with grain, and catapult it over the wall during the next attack.
What would you think of this bovine assault if you were on the receiving end? The field officer interpreted the counter attack as an act of disdain and defiance. There must be plenty of supplies – since the cow was well fed…
The result? Fearing a long, drawn-out battle, the enemy ordered an immediate retreat, ending the conflict.
As the leader, would you have been able to shift the odds in your favor under the duress of battle? More importantly does this have any application to 21st century leadership?
That’s the subject of my book, The Advantage-Makers: How Exceptional Leaders Win by Creating Opportunities Others Don’t. It’s also the subject of this blog.
Advantage-Makers see things differently.
Military analogies have their uses and limitations when it comes to business. What matters here is the illustration of changing the game.
The Advantage Maker Strategy is a radical new tool that changes the game by helping you see what your competitors do not, and act on these insights to gain and sustain the leadership position in your field.
Your ability to consistently create superior outcomes when a wall is placed in front of you separates the leaders from the followers, the advantage-makers and the disadvantage-acceptors.
Advantage-Makers consistently transform challenging situations (whether its competition, customer, organizational, team or people issues) into the best possible outcomes more often. Perhaps you are not under the harsh conditions of war, but your ability to strategically shift in the face of constraints is called into action repeatedly.
Derek Gordon (the CMO at Clorox) tells me “that’s what we have to do, to deal with the walls, and get over them.”
You have walls placed in front of you, how do you relate to them? Advantage-maker or disadvantage-acceptor?
Our fortress commander didn’t get over the wall, he tossed the cow over the wall.
Advantage-Makers see solutions others don’t even know exist.
It’s not news that the best leaders are those able to spot opportunities, create benefits, and influence outcomes.
What is new is knowing what is going on behind the curtain, what strings they are pulling to see opportunities where others see only problems, move forward when others are stuck, and create successes where others fail. It almost looks like luck, but it isn’t.
Advantage-Makers aren’t any more creative, intelligent, or determined than you. Advantage-Makers do not possess any specific personality type or traits. In fact, it’s not about positive or goal-oriented thinking, although there is nothing wrong with those things.
Advantage-makers are in a different league.
How do they do it? There is a secret code Advantage-Makers share and use. If you wants to play in their league this blog will help you learn the code, play and succeed.
