The Three Most Important Ideas In My First 900 Articles On Forbes

The new leader play book

Perplexity AI thinks the most important ideas in my Forbes articles over the past thirteen years have been: 1) Focusing on bringing out others’ self-confidence, 2) Managing executive onboarding through seven stages, and 3) Jump-shifting strategies, organization, and operations during points of inflection.

Focusing on bringing out others’ self-confidence

As a leader, your job is to inspire, enable, and empower others to do their absolute best together to realize a meaningful and rewarding shared purpose. Great leaders emphasize confidence-building in their approach to delegation, understanding that people are motivated by doing good for others, excelling at what they’re good at, and doing good for themselves. Effective leadership is not about you, but about how you instill self-confidence in others to achieve what matters most.

Manage executive onboarding through seven stages

During the seven stages of executive onboarding think marketing, selling, buying, preparing, converging, evolving, and adjusting – in that order 1) before the first contact, 2) between the first contact and offer, 3) at the offer, 4) during the Fuzzy Front End between acceptance and start, 5) during the early days, 6) at the pivot from converging to evolving, and 7) when things change.

Perplexity notes these stages range from pre-contact self-assessment to navigating changes post-onboarding. Key aspects include understanding one’s strengths and preferences, mastering the interview process, conducting due diligence, creating a 100-day action plan, building relationships, co-creating future direction with the core team, and adapting to changes

Jump-shifting strategies, organization, and operations during points of inflection

Recognize and lead through strategic points of inflection – pivotal moments that fundamentally change how we think and act. Take a holistic approach to these inflection points, simultaneously reassessing and adjusting your strategies, organizational structure, and operations. The BRAVE framework (Behaviors, Relationships, Attitude, Values, Environment) can help you navigate these critical junctures.

What’s new?

I asked Perplexity which of my ideas were new to the world. It ducked that question, but was able to “highlight some frameworks that appear to be unique contributions or significant adaptations of existing concepts.” According to Perplexity, they include:

The Seven Stages of Executive Onboarding

While onboarding processes have been discussed in management literature before, Perplexity thinks the specific seven-stage framework (marketing, selling, buying, preparing, converging, evolving, and adjusting) appears to be a unique and comprehensive approach to executive transitions. This framework provides a detailed roadmap that spans from pre-contact to post-start adjustments, which is more extensive than many traditional onboarding models.

The BRAVE Leadership Framework

The BRAVE (Behaviors, Relationships, Attitude, Values, Environment) framework for navigating strategic inflection points is a distinctive approach to leadership during times of significant change. Perplexity thinks “This framework appears to be an original synthesis of various leadership concepts applied specifically to points of inflection.”

The Current Best Thinking (CBT) Framework for Career Development

While the CBT framework was originally designed by Roger Neill for problem-solving, Perplexity thinks the adaptation of this framework to personal career development appears to be a novel application. It says the approach of combining future possibilities, current reality assessment, and gap-bridging problem-solving for individual career planning is a unique contribution to the field of personal development.

The Six Levels of Delegation

The six level framework for delegation, ranging from “Do well yourself” to “Do never,” provides a nuanced approach to task allocation and leadership empowerment. While delegation concepts exist in management literature, Perplexity thinks the specific six-level framework appears to be a unique contribution to the field.

  1. Do well yourself – Individual contributors’ main area of focus
  2. Do yourself, but just well enough – Individual contributors
  3. Delegate and supervise – The realm of managers
  4. Delegate and trust – inspiring, enabling and empowering others
  5. Do later – deprioritization saving others time now
  6. Do never – the ultimate deprioritization, saving others time and attention

Perplexity notes that while these frameworks may incorporate elements from existing management and leadership theories, the specific formulations, applications, and comprehensive approaches to these topics appear to be original contributions to the field of executive leadership and organizational strategy. The novelty lies in how the various concepts are synthesized, applied to specific contexts like executive onboarding, and turned into practical, actionable frameworks for leaders to follow.

Not sure how I feel about you being able to get the most important ideas and frameworks in five articles out of 900+. But at least there’s something worth reading.

Read More Articles

Why You Should Have More, Not Fewer Meetings | Meeting Effectiveness for Leaders

Meeting effectiveness is not about having fewer meetings. It is about having the right meetings, with the right people, for the right reasons, done in the right way. When leaders…

Read Article
The Artistry in Communication: Where Leadership Comes Alive

Executive communication is often taught as a process of alignment — aligning messages with culture, strategy, operations, and tactical missions. That’s necessary but not sufficient. The artistry lies not in…

Read Article
How Mission Briefs Accelerate Progress by Clarifying Direction, Resources, Authority, and Follow-Through
How Mission Briefs Accelerate Progress by Clarifying Direction, Resources, Authority, and Follow-Through

Teams fail when direction is fuzzy, resources are ambiguous, or authority is blurred. Too often, leaders assign tasks without enough context for teams to make smart, independent decisions. The result?…

Read Article
High Stakes Landmines for Technology Executives

By Jeff Scott with George Bradt High-stakes onboarding landmines are everywhere for new technology executives, but few are as deadly—and as fixable—as a misaligned role. Being the right technology leader…

Read Article
Preparing For The Next Point Of Inflection With Contingency And Capability Plans

The next point of inflection is coming whether you’re ready for it or not. Your success as a leader doesn’t hinge on your ability to predict the future, but on…

Read Article
The Baked Ziti Approach To Making The Implicit Explicit

Sometimes it’s best to hint at things implicitly so others can interpret as they see best. Sometimes it’s best to explain things explicitly so others can follow precise directions. And…

Read Article