Most business professionals have grown up thinking and believing “The customer is always right.” In his groundbreaking book, “Customer Centricity: Focus on the Right Customers for Strategic Advantage” Wharton School Professor Peter Fader presents methods and approaches for companies to focus on the right customer and deliver a value proposition that exceeds their expectations.  True Customer Intimacy means that you understand your customer’s business as well as if, or not better than they understand it themselves, and you provide them with products and services that help them execute their strategies and achieve their business goals and results.

Lebron James, Kawhi Leonard, Joel Embiid, Anthony Davis, and DeMarcus Cousins.  An all-star basketball team ready for a game?  Well, not exactly.  These are five NBA players who participate in new phenomenon called “load management.” Load management is part of an evolving part of “sports science” that is utilizing data and data analytics to prepare elite athletes for high performance and injury prevention.  Basically, it is the science of preserving the time athletes can perform at their peak by managing the amount of time they train, practice, and play.  Cynics of this new approach, however, will say that keeping athletes out of games and managing the amount of time they practice and play makes them soft, deprives people paying good money access to the stars, and is helping to create a new generation of “snowflakes” afraid to put in the time and effort to be successful.

A business leader in today’s complex business environment is facing challenges that are coming at the speed of light.  Never before in the history of business has there been this much change so quickly on the global stage. Many of the leaders I work with are on the brink of total exhaustion as a result of the 24/7 day that starts in Asia, migrates to Europe, and ends on the West Coast of the US.

This week, I am working with a group of emerging global leaders to develop their business leadership skills that will enable them to work in this chaotic world.  One of the tools that we are using for development is a business leadership simulation where teams of participants are running their own global company making all of the decisions ranging from setting strategy to executing that strategy through tactical and operational decisions.

I am just going to come out and say it. I have a hypothesis that the excellent leadership tool “The Yes, AND” approach that is utilized effectively by many leaders around the world may be overused.

Last week I had the privilege of working with an amazing group of emerging leaders getting their first real taste of professional leadership development. The focus of the week long workshop was an integration of Business Acumen and Business Leadership skills all centered around a customized business simulation.  In the business simulation, teams of emerging leaders took control of their own company and were responsible to setting and executing the strategy of their business over three simulated years.  As important as the business drivers, outcomes and financial metrics were as part of the learning experience, so were the business leadership and interpersonal skill lessons and opportunities for development gained through team dynamics, creating alignment in their simulated teams, and making decisions that impacted the “employees” working in their simulated companies.