It’s the R that matters

Jack Welch’s 4-E model of leadership is worth knowing. It distills the meat of what constitutes and effective leader into a few core elements. I have always liked key principles coupled with brevity as it makes a model easy to understand and remember. Here’s a model you might find useful: IPAR. It capsulizes – at least for me – the key elements of effective individual contribution to an organization.

Ideas – are the ability to present and visualize possibilities and end results. Leaders and organizations need a clear sense of imagined outcomes – to see the organization (the product, the business) in a desirable future place and state. Those who have the ability to create and put forth compelling possibilities and visions about the future outcomes provide the energy behind strategy.

Plans – An idea with no useful bridge to a desirable and feasible end result is not valuable. The value lies in the connections. Those who can see options for crossing the bridge – the steps required, resources needed, timetable, complexity, dependencies and risks – create the bridge that takes an organization forward from ideas to achievement of ideas.

Actions – are what converts plans to reality. Actions based on a combination of capability, skill, knowledge, productivity, enthusiasm and dedication are what gives a plan life. Astutely and expertly executed actions, consistently demonstrated, are what make individuals valuable to an organization. The capacity to act correctly and well give an individual and and organization potential.

Results – In the final analysis only results matter. Great ideas, lacking a cogent plan or timely execution, cannot be converted to achievement. And likewise, beautifully articulated plans and a symphony of coordinated action that miss the mark, and keep an organization off the winners pedestal, matter little. There are those who, under difficult circumstances or challenging odds, more times than not have a track record of turning a great idea into a terrific result.

Contributors and managers who are skilled at generating good ideas, drawing up superb plans, and coordinating highly productive activity and high-performing teams are enormously valuable. Those who consistently get results are singularly valuable.

Written by Michael

Michael Douglas has held senior positions in sales, marketing and general management since 1980, and spent 20 years at Sun Microsystems, most recently as VP, Global Marketing. His experience includes start-ups, mid-market and enterprises. He's currently VP Enterprise Go-to-Market for NVIDIA.