Here is the language of people who have no intention of solving a problem: 

Enduring Excuses 

1. “These things are very complicated, and we are trying to get our hands around the issue,” 
2. “We are just starting to study the issue, and have not gotten very far.”  

Accountability Requires Action  
I have heard coworkers, peers and supervisors report these statements to our bosses for three to six year periods of time.  I also have solved the problems they were referring to and similar problems. Since my organizations overcame them, I have wondered when our bosses were going to say, 

“Well, if one organization can overcome these issues, why can’t yours?”  
OR 
“Consult with the leaders of the program that have overcome those issues, and come back with a report detailing the steps you will put in place to improve your organization’s performance.”

Without a demand for action, people will continue to get paid for not making progress in solving problems.  

The Smoke Screen 

I wonder what it is that makes leaders accept these smoke screens. Perhaps some leaders never have identified the mission they are paid to oversee, so they meander through the fog, not seeing clearly enough to even know where the organization is to ask intelligent questions that could compel positive direction.   

Demystifying Complexities 

The Three-Dimensional Leader: Negotiating Your Mission, Resources and Context, says, “Great leadership brings structure where ambiguity exists by providing straightforward and simplified approaches to explaining the various elements within a context that can seem so daunting.  While it may make us feel important to [say] our jobs are complicated, difficult, and tough, great leadership demystifies complexities to provide simple, actionable direction so complexities are handled in bite-size, actionable chunks.”  Thus, Albert Einstein negotiated very complicated information by simplifying it to E=MC2.  

“Even during times of economic downturns, products that provide innovations that meet customers’ changing needs will prevail in the marketplace.  Innovation keeps companies relevant to consumers.”  So says The Three-Dimensional Leader: Negotiating Your Mission, Resources and Context, which also lays out four ingredients to bring out a team’s creative potential.  

Innovation requires 1) conception, 2) coordination 3) synergy from diversity, and 4) getting the customer’s view.  

Conception: 

No one thinks out of the box apart from imagination. Imagination envisions how to make the theoretical practical. It sees what others don’t and organizes structure out of ambiguity.  It’s the foundation for connecting the dots to accomplish innovation. 

Coordination: 

Desirable leadership models and gets teams to communicate, cooperate, and coordinate. This triple-c synergy is necessary for openly sharing ideas and piggy backing off those most useful to the current project.  Organizations obtain synergy when all communicate, cooperate, and coordinate.

Cooperative Synergy:

Synergy is achieved when the coordinated output of the parts is greater than their mathematical sum, so 1 + 3 = 6. Synergy means that one leader and three followers who operate in sync will accomplish the work of six people who work individually in an uncoordinated way.  Synergy requires synthesizing various perspectives and viewpoints. 

The Customer’s View:

The reason teams innovate is to arrive at the next generation of products and service-delivery that customers value and will choose.  

One-dimensional leaders are preoccupied with power, and stifle creativity by heavy handedly imposing their limited views.  I-D’s never let you do what they don’t know.  2-D’s don’t embrace innovation because they fail to see its relevance within the context. 3-D’s facilitate people to achieve innovation that customers value.  Your creative team may be working for you now, but you must lead them three-dimensionally.

Expect Toyota to rebound from its recall challenges of 2009 - 2010. Toyota, the world's top carmaker since 2008 is noted for a culture of innovation and quality.  As the cultural values that invented the Prius prevails, and its quality focus is reinforced, Toyota will overcome challenges and keep its competitive position.  Toyota already has followed the 3-D Leader’s five R’s model to rebound from product problems:

1. Toyota Reestablished Trust. President, Akio Toyoda, grandson of founder, Kiichiro Toyoda, publicly said he “can’t begin to express remorse,” over the grave concern this has caused. “I apologize from the bottom of my heart for all the concern that we have given to so many of our customers." 
2. Toyota Recalled Problematic Products to mitigate further injuries, liabilities and damage. This impacted sales, which declined by almost 9% since the massive recalls began September 2009. Yet the sales drop was far less than analysts predicted. 
3. Toyota Replaced Defective (or Suspicious) Items in about 10 million vehicles recalled globally for faulty floor mats, sticky gas pedals, braking software glitches and steering malfunctions.
4. Toyota is Reinventing Products with new features and safeguards that ensure the problem is fixed and never happens again. Recently Toyota unveiled the new 86 coupe to appeal to sports car lovers, and displayed a plug-in version of its best-selling Prius hybrid. 
5. Toyota Reported andPublicized recall fixes, and dealers stayed open all night to accommodate customers seeking them. 

Toyota recently reported $1.2 billion quarterly profits as sales rose the first time in seven months, but must overcome supply chain disruptions from natural disasters and over 300 U.S. lawsuits because of alleged defects.  Toyota attributes current profits in part to cost reductions. Its culture of efficiency, innovation and quality leads me to believe it will recapture market share.

The Three-Dimensional Leader: Negotiating Your Mission, Resources and Context provides an interview of Bill Dake, the architect of the Stewart’s convenience store chain that achieves $1 billion in annual sales. Dake emphasizes the relational aspects of selling through what he calls the “GREAT” sale strategy.  GREAT stands for greet, read, evaluate, associate and try.  He trains store partners (sales staff) that selling is achieved by striving to meet customers’ needs by doing the following: 

1. Greet the customer by acknowledging them with eye contact, a nod, and a smile Greetings include speaking with the customer about the weather, a local, regional, or national event, etc... 
2. Read the customer to determine if he or she is a “rusher,” a “shopper,” or a “regular.” Do not detain a rusher, but engage shoppers and regulars.
3. Evaluate effectiveness by determining the ROI on sales from your efforts, such as the gross profit (GP) from products.  Evaluate if marketing and discounts achieve multipliers (increased sales of non-discounted items), and if a “tail,” or residual increased sales continue after items no longer are discounted.  
4. Associate selling achieves up-selling by reminding customers of products they may have forgotten that go well together with their primary purchases. So recommend milk or orange juice to a customer buying eggs, a hard roll to one who requests chili, and suggest dry gas to a gas buyer. 
5. Try Again is a requirement for anyone experiencing frequent rejections. So for each successive customer keep asking questions, offering samples and making suggestions.

These techniques not only apply to in-store shoppers. These steps can be followed during any sales meetings.  Frequent attempts and the deployment of multiple strategies will lead to “GREAT” sales.  Why not respond to this blog and share your favorite sales strategy?

Companies like Toyota can bounce back from adversity (such as the sticking accelerator pedal problem) if they follow these five steps, modeled after how Johnson and Johnson bounced back from the Tylenol tampering scare of 1982.  The Three-Dimensional Leader: Negotiating Your Mission, Resources and Context, notes that “Many readers are too young to remember how Johnson and Johnson bounced back from the Tylenol tampering, but analyzing it’s response to the crisis gives us a template that all should follow.” 

J&J modeled these steps to overcome adversity:

1. Reestablish Trust by Acknowleding the Challenge Today (ACT), or as soon as possible. 
2. Recall the Problematic Product to mitigate further injuries, liabilities and damages
3. Replace Defective (or Suspicious) Items at no expense to the consumer 
4. Reinvent the Product with New Features and safeguards that guarantee the problem is fixed and never happens again.  
5. Report andPublicize Your Good Corporate Citizenship 

Remedy and ACT

Johnson and Johnson responded to Tylenol tampering localized to the Chicago area by undertaking a nationwide notification. 

Recall the Product

It is estimated J&J recalled 31 million bottles of Tylenol with a retail value at that time of over $100 million. 

Replace Defective Items 

J&J offered to exchange solid tablets for any or all capsules consumers had purchased.

Reinvent the Product with New Features

About a month after the recall, J&J reintroduced new, triple-sealed capsules, a safety feature in which consumers had confidence.  

Report/Publicize 
Over the next several years, Tylenol was effectively priced and advertised to become the most popular over-the-counter pain medicine in the nation.

Johnson and Johnson’s conscientious, straightforward, values-driven action, coupled with its ability to negotiate the new context posed by the threat of product tampering, resulted in an amazing product rebound less than a year later.

The Three-Dimensional Leader explains the mission of negotiation is to reach an agreed upon mutually beneficial course of action using the resources of all the parties involved.  The opportunity for negotiation occurs when two or more parties have missions that converge in such a way that requires their agreement, cooperation and participation to be successful. 

To negotiate is to interact with others to reach agreed-upon courses of action. Negotiation is not manipulation. It is bargaining, consulting, and discussing to reach settlements where mutual, collective advantage or outcomes occur that satisfy the various interests represented.  The goal of negotiation is to keep the compatible agendas and missions moving forward in a win-win manner, while ensuring they do not collide.    

Negotiation is a continuous process that parties must engage and reengage in as their contexts change. A change in context or circumstances require renegotiation to adjust to variables to arrive at or maintain the circumstances that facilitate mutual organizational mission fulfillment. 

One-dimensional leaders will negotiate to make deals that only work for themselves, or their personal agenda, and not the other parties.  Two-dimensional leaders set up “us vs. them” dynamics to divide and separate negotiating parties in order to pursue a side agenda that is not acknowledged to all parties.  Three-dimensional leaders focus on negotiating to secure achieving the missions that matter most to the success of all the partnering parties.  Three-dimensional leaders focus on making deals that are fair both ways (or more).   

Once you determine that two or more parties have missions to fulfill that require their mutual cooperation, it is essential to deploy people with a three-dimensional mindset to negotiate the agreements that make mutual participation successful.  This gives each party the best opportunity to arrive at the negotiation nexus.