These paradoxes get to the heart of process and execution. We will look into how great leaders manage customers, relate to competitors and ” best practices,” allocate resources, balance speed and deliberateness, and use a changeless core to drive constant change in everything else.

Nurture Customers & Fire Customers

Since customers are our lifeblood, we know instinctively that we need to nurture our customers. We don’t always do it perfectly or even well, but we know that we should.

There are actually a lot of reasons to fire customers, but none of them will have any meaning or impact unless we change our mindset from “Any customer is a good customer” to “Any good customer is a good customer.”

Benchmark Competitors & Ignore What They’re Doing

No one, it seems, doubts the value of copying. Not even when the small voices at the back of our minds say, “You can’t mimic your way to greatness.”

No one, it seems, doubts the value of taking a different road. Not even when the small voices at the back of our minds say, “You can’t win by reinventing the wheel.”

Increase Spending & Reduce Costs

Increasing spending is often considered bad, but can be the very best thing to do. Reducing costs is often considered good, but can be the very worst thing to do. So is increasing spending good or bad? Is reducing costs good or bad? Absolutely.

Move Faster & Take More Time

First to market. Fast follower. Should we run hard to get out in front, or run hard to catch up? The answer is probably “yes.” We can feel like we need to do both at the same time. Everyone’s expectations of speed and delivery and service have grown relentlessly in recent years. And no matter where we are in the competitive landscape, it can seem like we’re losing ground. We can go from being ahead to being behind, even while we’re running flat out.

We sense that we need to slow the game down. We need multiple cameras and slow motion and instant replay. We need timeto dissect what we’re doing or about to do and ensure that we’re taking a reasonable risk, a risk that has been reduced to a very low and manageable level.

Be Consistent & Change Everything

Even if we select the right type and size of change, start it in the right place, and have a plan to overcome resistance, we can still lose if we don’t tether the change to the unchanging. Somewhere, there has to be something consistent that the proposed change can’t touch.