Supercharges Leadership Performance with the Leapfrog Strategy

Does This Sound Familiar?

We expect you to do more, with less, but even faster and better than before!

This sounds ridiculous, but more and more this has become the norm for leaders. They are asked to work miracles and squeeze performance and production to its limits. Many leaders believe that once we fully recover from the great recession things will change. I disagree because the recovery will also come with even fiercer levels of global competition. What this means is that the high-performance, high-pressure, get it done expectation will remain.

But no fear, I want you to know that you can dramatically improve performance outcomes by every metric possible, all without a massive investment in time, resources, or even learning something new. Plus, the pot becomes even sweeter because if you teach the Leapfrog Strategy to your team, they will also RISE.

The Leapfrog Strategy is simple but at the same time powerful beyond measure. I’ve seen it used to close multi-million dollar deals, turn weak leaders into powerhouses, and even save lives. I’m not exaggerating! If you execute the Leapfrog Strategy, you should expect a profound shift in thinking and subsequent action.

Now that you’re sufficiently excited let’s begin.

Let’s Get Real About Your Challenges

To begin, bring to mind a big leadership challenge you’re actively working through. The bigger the problem, the better. Once you have something in mind, pull out a sheet of paper or something to quickly record your thoughts.

Now take 2 minutes to list all the reasons why your leadership challenge is difficult.

• List why it’s hard or seems impossible
• List the resources that you need but don’t have
• List the time constraints and other countless steps
• List who else agrees that this is a BIG challenge
• etc.

The goal is to write down your challenges, whether real or imagined. Don’t filter just write non-stop for 2 minutes.

Take 2 Minutes to Complete the Above Exercise

Time to Setup Your Leap

Next, turn your paper over and read until the end of this section. Be sure to read carefully as each step is critical.

In this step, you will ask the all important Leapfrog question. But first, let’s set the stage by bringing back to mind your leadership challenge. Only this time try to narrow in on a BIG milestone or victory you’d like to have in this area. Make it a big deal, something that if you hit, you’d not only be happy but surprised.

Take a second to write down your next BIG milestone across the top of your paper. What you write will fill in the blank in the below question.

Once you’ve written down, your next BIG milestone or victory continue.

You’re Going to Use The Above Milestone Victory to Fill in the Blank Below:

If TODAY, I ABSOLUTELY had to ___________ , what would I do RIGHT NOW?

Here are a few examples:

IF TODAY, I ABSOLUTELY

• had to close this deal, what would I do RIGHT NOW?
• had to get my boss to sign-off, what would I do RIGHT NOW?
• had to eliminate that silo, what would I do RIGHT NOW?
• had to deliver a successful presentation, what would I do RIGHT NOW?
• had to delegate five projects, what would I do RIGHT NOW?

This question is only as profound as your commitment to embrace EVERY single word. So let’s break it down, so we are on the same page.

If TODAY, I ABSOLUTELY had to ___________ , what would I do RIGHT NOW?

• Today (not tomorrow, but today)
• Absolutely had to (you have to get this done or else, think BIG consequences)
• What would I do right now (you can’t wait, you have to get it done RIGHT NOW)

Next, you’re going to spend 5 minutes repeating your Leapfrog question over and over. Keep asking yourself with the intent to get an answer. For this to work, It’s important that you whip yourself into an emotional frenzy so that you actually believe you have to get this done, right now.

Quick Tips: don’t filter your answers, just record everything that comes to mind. It doesn’t matter how outrageous or what your mind throws up. Just keep recording for at least 5 minutes.

If TODAY, I ABSOLUTELY had to  ___________ , what would I do RIGHT NOW?

Take 5 minutes to complete the above exercise

 The Leapfrog Epiphany

Before we get to taking action, consider few things that may have jumped out for you. Like:

• your timeline for achieving your goal was way too long
• you’ve underestimated what you could do with what you already have
• you’ve overestimated your challenges
• you can knock out a big chunk of your challenge TODAY

Those are all great takeaways, but they are just the icing on the cake. The biggest takeaway is rooted in Living Leadership. Namely, the fact that the biggest, boldest, and most direct path forward is often the least time and resource intense. Let me repeat that.

The biggest, boldest, and most direct path forward is often the least time and resource intense.

But don’t take my word for it. Look at your list to confirm. If your list of actions is big, bold, and direct then your next steps will

• Not take a lot of time to execute
• Not take a lot of money to execute
• Not take a lot of manpower to execute

But you know what your next Leapfrog will take a lot of? Balls, because these actions are not for the faint of heart. They scream,

I’m serious, direct, and fully committed to going forward RIGHT NOW.

In fact, as you consider these actions you may feel fear, worry, and part you trying to talk yourself out of it. Well, battling these feelings and taking action anyway is the price of being crazy productive.

In short, you’re basically making a high-leverage swap. You’re trading the expense of time and resources with the expense of leadership guts. We call this the Leapfrog Strategy because the minute you LIVE this you can literally Leapfrog past challenges and useless steps.

Plus the more you embody the Leapfrog Strategy as a way of LIFE and teach it to your team you all become more accountable, productive, and agile DOERS.

Take Action & Leapfrog Forward

The last step seems rather obvious, but it may prove difficult because you’ll have to overcome fear, worry, and the habit of listening to the chatter in your head. In future posts, I’ll give more strategies to overcome fear, worry, and doubt. Which by the way every great leader MUST feel. If you don’t feel it, then you take yourself too seriously or worse you take your mission and the people you lead too lightly.

A healthy fear and concern are essential and a natural reflex when you champion a mission you believe in and the honor of leading people you care about.

That said here are few tips to move past the fear and LEAP.

1. Isolate one Leapfrog action and focus on feeling the consequence of NOT taking action. Make it real and feel the weight of NOT taking action. After you’ve peaked the pain state move to focusing on pleasurable rewards by focusing on what you’ll get for taking action.  Be sure to utilize not just carrots and sticks but also the intrinsic value of living up to your values, of being a great leader, and all things important to you.
2. Share the expected result and your plan with others. Doing this should create social pressure and some support to help you execute.
3. Take a  small action RIGHT NOW that builds momentum. For example, maybe you have a difficult call to make, but you’re not ready to make it. So instead you send an email today that schedules the call for tomorrow. Now you’re on the hook.
4. Take on the mind of an experimenter. Say “I’m going to try this and see what happens.”
5. Try to embody the idea that  “Done is better than perfect.” Because you don’t need perfection “you need DID and DONE.” I know you have pride and want the best, but remember diminishing returns on input is a real productivity killer and a clever way to hide under the guises of being busy.

In the future, we’ll dive deeper into the taking action side, but rest assured that if you do leap you will land forward. And with each leap you’ll learn to LIVE as a leader who knows how to be loyal to your purpose and not the preference for seeming productive.

P.S. below is a video I did on Leapfrogging during our leadership retreat in Miami. Check it out! And if you want to work on this, be sure to ask us about rise of a leader. It’s a program designed to build strong leaders who LEAP!