About 2 hours’ drive west of Frankfurt is the town of Nürburg. The grand Prix track in this town is called Nürburgring Nordschleife which is 20 kilometers long; it’s the most challenging because it has 154 corners! The hardest corner (unanimously agreed upon) is the Schwedenkreuz bend.
Race car drivers have known one thing for as long as racing has existed – the fact that one who controls and wins the corners wins the race. This is true 90% of the time. They also know that they must ‘open corner exits’ every single time they navigate corners to reduce lap time.
What is ‘opening a corner exit’, you ask? This is basically when a driver comes in wide and then hugs the corner in the turn and then goes wide again for minimal loss in speed and greatest recovery of momentum into the straightway. To do this they use a technique called 'blipping the throttle and downshifting.'
What is ‘blipping the throttle and downshifting’, you ask? Here is a quick visual for easy reference. In the movie 'Ford v Ferrari’ there is a scene between Ken Miles and Lorenzo Bandini early in the Le Mans race where Ken Miles blips the throttle, downshifts to open a corner exit, wins the corner to win the lap and then goes on to win the race.
This technique, ‘blipping the throttle and downshifting’, is basically where the driver presses the clutch while simultaneously revving the engine, continuing to press on the accelerator, drives up the RPM’s and then downshifts the gear and releases the clutch slowly. These are the reasons drivers deploy this technique:
• Recover speed as quickly as one can after having to “slow” down to control the corner
• Keeps the rear wheels from skidding out of control
• Saves the engine from significant wear and tear
When drivers do all the above well, they win corners and when they win corners, they have a 90% chance of winning the race. Imagine that!
So how does this analogy relate to the leadership development landscape? Think about all the “Schwedenkreuz” corner leaders face on their own race tracks every single day. Here is the amazing thing, we can teach our leaders to open corner exits, reduce lap times, and ultimately win races with optimal speed and skill they can garner.
However, if we continue to operate from paradigms of existing mindsets then we have no prayer of achieving this goal. It is our obligation to redefine the leadership development landscape by equipping leaders and organizations with techniques that are analogous to race car driving.
We must bring this to life by giving leaders the confidence to decide and direct continuously. We must teach our leaders to develop muscle that makes them astute observers and respond, not react, to evolving situations with intelligence and optimal reflexes. We must develop ecosystems to allow leaders and organizations to grow together via continuous and constant feedback loops. This has all been done.
I would highly encourage you to reach out to learn more about how The Rejuvi Venture Inc. is equipping leaders and their organizations to address questions. These range across appropriately infusing culture change that does not feel like watching paint dry, adapting strategic roadmaps, building capabilities that get used vs. sitting on the proverbial shelf, impacting engagement scores, improving revenue metrics, etc.
Exhilarating? You bet it is!
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