Shawn D Moon - The Ultimate Competitive Advantage: Why Your People Make All the Difference and the 6 Practices You Need to Engage Them

THE
ULTIMATE
COMPETITIVE
ADVANTAGE

WHY YOUR PEOPLE MAKE
ALL THE DIFFERENCE
AND THE 6 PRACTICES YOU
NEED TO ENGAGE THEM

SHAWN D. MOON and
SUE DATHE-DOUGLASS

FOREWORD BY SEAN COVEY

A FRANKLINCOVEY BOOK

BenBella Books, Inc.

Dallas, Texas

THE
ULTIMATE
COMPETITIVE
ADVANTAGE

Copyright 2015 by Franklin Covey Co.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

BenBella Books, Inc.

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First e-book edition: January 2015

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Moon, Shawn D. (Shawn Daniel), 1967

The ultimate competitive advantage : why your people make all the difference and the 6 practices you need to engage them / Shawn Moon and Sue Dathe-Douglass ; foreword by Sean Covey.

pages cm

ISBN 978-1-940363-63-9 (hardback)ISBN 978-1-940363-64-6 (electronic) 1. Leadership. 2. Corporate culture. 3. Organizational behavior. 4. Organizational effectiveness. 5. Employee motivation. I. Title.

HD57.7.M6387 2015

658.3'14dc23

2014026426

Editing by Debbie Harmsen

Copyediting by James Fraleigh

Proofreading by Jenny Bridges and Harrison Flanders

Indexing by Clive Pyne Book Indexing Services

Cover design by Bradford Foltz

Jacket design by Sarah Dombrowsky

Text design by Silver Feather Design

Text composition by PerfecType, Nashville, TN

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C ONTENTS

A New Paradigm: In a Winning Culture,
Everyone Leads

The Framework: The Operating System
That Builds Effective Leaders at Every Level

PRACTICE 1:
Lead with Purpose

PRACTICE 2:
Execute with Excellence

PRACTICE 3:
Unleash Productivity

PRACTICE 4:
Inspire Trust

PRACTICE 5:
Build a Legacy of Sales Leadership

PRACTICE 6:
Create Intense Loyalty

Dedicated to YOU and to all those who seek
the ultimate competitive advantage.

Y OU CAN HAVE THE BEST technology, the most innovative marketing campaign, or the latest product that goes viraland it can all disappear overnight like dying fireworks. It can all be copied by another competitor or become instantly obsolete in the wake of something new and better.

In this world, all business success is interim. If youre a leader, the only competitive advantage you have is that combination of hearts and brainsyours and your peoplesthat can produce success again and again. The only assets you can depend on are human beings. The air they live on is passion, high purpose, and psychological, and when they dont get what they need, neither do you.

The fact is, people now need different things than they used toparticularly young people. They need to be leaders themselves. They need to make things happen. They deeply need to be able to trust.

They dont need a careerthey need a mission. A career is a profession; a mission is a cause. A career asks, Whats in it for me? A mission asks, How can I make a difference?

And your job nowyour missionis to ignite that kind of fire in yourself and your team. This book, written by my friends and colleagues, will help you ignite that fire. Its about leaving behind an ash heap of assumptions that used to work but now produce stagnation, and moving on to new paradigms that will spark the passion of your people.

Stephen R. Covey, my father, used to say, We see the world not as it is, but as we areas we are conditioned to be. As you read this book, youll be startled out of your old conditioning by a whole new set of possibilities. Instead of just being a leader, you can make everybody a leader. Instead of just doing more with less, you can do infinitely more with less. Instead of just creating value for customers, you can become the very key to their success.

Theres a lot to do in this book, but I challenge you to read it and start right away to identify at least one of the new practices (what we call the jobs that you must do now) and then create an action plan to improve your individual and team effectiveness in that area. Really work at it. See for yourself if it doesnt transform your work and your business results. Thinking tools at the end of each chapter will help you.

But theres more. If you take this book as a whole, it will help you install in your head a new operating system for effectiveness. An operating system is the software that makes your smartphone or laptop work. Most businesspeople have a terribly outdated mental operating system, so they lose efficiency, slow down, andeventuallytotally freeze up.

What you need is an operating system that never goes out of date, that you can rely on forever.

The operating system in this book is based on fundamental principles that are timeless and universalprinciples such as proactivity, integrity, trustworthiness, empathy, and valuing diversity. These principles are embedded in my fathers bestselling book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. If you build on these principles, if you make them the unbreakable foundation of your lifes work, your success as a leader is guaranteed no matter what happens.

Is your culture working for you or against you? The actions you take today will prepare you to lead yourself, others, your team, and your organization effectively.

SEAN COVEY

Author of the international bestseller The 7 Habits of Highly

Effective Teens and coauthor of the #1 Wall Street Journal Business

bestseller The 4 Disciplines of Execution

If you dont have a competitive advantage, dont compete.

JACK WELCH

O UTSIDE THE WORLD OF WOMENS collegiate soccer, Coach Anson Dorrance may not be a household name. But anyone who has even the slightest appreciation for womens socceror any high-level soccer league for that matterknows Coach Dorrance of the University of North Carolina (UNC) as a fierce competitor who has created a remarkable culture of winning. The seven-time National Coach of the Year not only has become one of the greatest collegiate soccer coaches of all time, he is also recognized as simply one of the greatest coaches ever in any sport. Period. At one point, his teams achieved a 103-game unbeaten streak. As of this writing, his teams have earned a .935 winning percentage, and thirteen different women he has coached have won a total of twenty

Coach Dorrance creates the framework for engagement and synergy, and the athletes integrate their individual contributions into that framework. His athletes understand their respective roles. They take ownership of their individual part of the team and weave it into the overall team scheme. They quickly realize the level of commitment required for Coach Dorrances system, and they work daily to live up to that commitment.

Coach Dorrance clearly attracts extraordinary talent to his program. There is a legacy of winning, a culture of peak performance that acts as a magnet for top talent. But most collegiate athletic programs have amazing talent. Great short- and long-term results require more than that. They require leadership at every level. They require a common language. They require all stakeholders to have clarity around goals and top priorities. They require a system for accomplishing these goals. They require trust and loyalty among (and beyond) the team. In short, they require a winning culture. That is what Coach Dorrance has established. His results are not simply one and done. He has sustained them for more than thirty years.