Obviously, technology has provided instant and unfettered access to each other in ways unimagined just a few years ago. It's nearly an addictive struggle not to look at your iPhone or laptop when texts or emails arrive. Admitting to the addiction is the first step to recovery.

Getting answers almost instantly, communicating with the boss, regardless of where he/she is, or where you are, and sharing work with the office may have hindered our ability or willingness to find the answers on our own, take responsibility for projects and grow as individuals and leaders.

Our connectivity has formed a culture of "group-think." Think I'm off base? Think about all of the "Just an FYI," "Wanted to run this past you first" or "CC-ing," and worse yet, "BCC-ing" our teammates in almost every communiqué we touch. In many cases, acting on your own is a political faux pas for excluding your teammates from every aspect of every decision.

I am clearly an advocate and even an evangelist of a culture of inclusion, but to a point.

When we fail to think and act on our own and accept the responsibility for doing so, we miss an opportunity to learn and grow in significant ways. When leaders fail to encourage this behavior they stifle growth. Technology and group-think have contributed to the Micro-Manager phenomenon.

As leaders, we often ask, "Why can't they think or do anything on their own?" Well, take a hard look at you and your organization's culture of "over-inclusion." I just made up that word. You may not let them think on their own.

Is your team possibly too reliant on you and each other, especially when traveling or otherwise remote? Do you contribute to this dependency? Be honest. Take this week's CEO Challenge:

As we enter the summer vacation season, demand that your leaders of ALL levels set clear objectives before they go on vacation and then turn off the laptop and iPhone. No kidding. No texts, emails, phone calls or drive-by visits. We did it in the old days when the boss went away. Baptism by fire, with clear direction will develop your next tier of leaders. Moreover, don't be a jerk when you or your leaders return.

It's relatively easy to learn from your mistakes, but a CEO and his/her team should also learn from mistakes they didn't make. The team ought to occasionally review bad decisions that weren't made to not only reinforce your decision tree and the good decisions you have made, but also to understand what mechanism kept you from making a bad decision.

Highly effective teams regularly avoid bad decisions - there's a mechanism that keeps them from making bad decisions and they know what it is. They have a strict discipline by which they make decisions, checking off their list at each point along their decision tree.

Take the CEO Challenge. Deliberate with your leadership, or ponder it yourself, and then dissect what it was that made your last potentially bad decision not happen - was it consulting with someone who has more expertise in the area? Bringing in subordinates you wouldn't normally bring in? Was it bringing in a consultant? Consulting with a CPA or attorney?

Look at choices that weren't made, the sale that didn't occur, the merger or acquisition that almost happened, but didn't. Talk about great failures you didn't make. What was the trap door in the organization that caught you and kept you from heading down the wrong road? Something positive happened to keep you from making a bad decision.

Once you determine the triggering event, use it to develop a checklist by which all future decisions will be made. Your checklist should include questions such as:  

• What's the worst thing that could happen? Can we live with that?  

• What's the best thing that could happen? Is it worth it?  

• Is this core to what we do and who we are?  

• Does this fit within the strategic plan? If so, where?  If not, why?  

• If we don't do this, what's the worst that can happen?

There's a lot to learn from bad decisions you didn't make.

Many lessons can be learned from unfortunate failings of the world's larger corporations, and there is no shortage of lessons to be learned from the recent BP situation.

I'd like to stress the importance of the question “what could possibly go wrong?; A strategic plan should include as many of the potential scenarios as possible and a plan of action for each.

How do you and your organization respond/react to tragedies, disasters or embarrassment?

For example, the worst thing you can have in the airline industry is no plan of action for the loss of one of your airplanes.  When I was with Southwest Airlines, though we had not experienced a downed aircraft, we developed a very comprehensive plan for how we would respond to an aircraft incident or accident. The plan included everything from family contact to public and media relations, as well as the other sensitive aspects of an air crash. We reached out to our colleagues at other airlines who had previously dealt with this situation to solicit their best practices, as well as mistakes they made and things they would do differently.

In many cases, and in BP’s case, there is either is no plan of action, the plan isn’t followed, or the plan didn’t work (it was a bad plan). In fairness to BP, irrespective of their plan, working 5,000 feet under the sea is going to be a challenge.

If you are challenged by your shareholders as to what your disaster recovery plan is, would you have a good answer?  Worse yet, if the worst thing that can happen to your company happens, how are you going to handle it?  Historically, companies who handled disasters with transparency and humility, faired well in the media and the courtroom. You will recall, Tylenol did an excellent job, Toyota didn’t.

Take the CEO Challenge.  Identify which scenario your company could be faced with.  Do you have a plan of action for the worst thing that could happen?  Do you have a great plan with which you’re confident ?  Or do you have a bad plan?

How do you know your plan is good?  Has it been scrutinized?  As we’ve said before with your strategic plan, invite outsiders (attorneys, CPA’s, media specialists, your competition) to look at your plan to the extent that you can with confidentiality.                           

Just a few examples of the worst things that can happen to your company include:

- an attack on employees

- a natural or man-made catastrophic event such as a tornado, plane crash, or something happening to the building

- misinformation or a public relations scandal

- a defective product (Toyota)

- loss of a major resource (oil, steel, sugar, copper, etc.)

How will you and your organization be judged if the worst thing happens?

A reason that CEOs rarely get unfiltered information is that they are often inadvertently surrounded by sycophants, and you may not even know it.

If you were surveyed about your performance and one of the questions asked was “do you play favorites,” you might not do as well on that question as you think.

Unfair access to the CEO can happen for several reasons.  You will spend more time with your immediate reports, such as your CFO, CIO, etc., based on their functionality.  This is perfectly acceptable and employees understand it.  You may spend a lot of time with your star performers, those who regularly deliver outstanding results - Creativity, Productivity and Effectivity - this also makes sense and inspires employees to do better so that they too can get more attention from the CEO.

What is demotivating is the CEO spending an inordinate amount of time with someone you have a relationship with outside of the office due to interests - cycling, church, children, a working relative, etc.  Or sycophants who are just darn good actors, complimenting you and laughing at all of your jokes.

It’s statistically likely that you spend an unfair amount of your corporate time with people who seem to really like you than you do with the people who are really productive and contributing the most to the organization.

To use Marshall Goldsmith’s (author of What Got You Here Won’t Get You There) example, think about the family dog.  For most folks, the pet will receive more affection than even the spouse, because the pet loves unconditionally.

Your leadership can be undermined by the fact that you show unreasonable favoritism, whether or not you know you’re playing favorites.  

High-performing leaders don’t play that game.

The head coach might be on a cycling team with the second string place kicker, their kids might attend the same school, they might live in the same neighborhood and arrive to the training facility at the same time.  Yet the coach is focused on his assistant coaches (your executives) and his star players (your high achievers) at practice, on the field, and on the sidelines.  The head coach does not spend an inordinate amount of time with his/her second string place kicker at work.  

Your CEO Challenge this week?  Identify who you spend the most time with and why.  Step back and look at it from another angle.  Are these people the most Productive, Creative and Effective?  Or do you share your time with those with whom you are most comfortable?

I'll preface this blog by stating that it is the rare CEO who will actually take this challenge. Read on if you believe my slogan, "Because good isn’t good enough."

"Good is the enemy of great." It is debatable as to who originally came up with that quote. Several have used it and so will I. The problem with "good" is that it is really nice and quite comfortable. Being great is a pain in the neck and can make good look very good. Staying good is easy when compared to being great.

Therefore, this week’s CEO challenge could be pain in many regards. Most CEOS don’t really get adequate and unfiltered feedback.  A means by which CEOs can get unfiltered feedback is by creating a Personal Board of Directors (PBOD).  You must enlist colleagues and friends to become your Personal Board of Directors and you must meet with them quarterly.

Set personal and professional goals and present them to your PBOD for review. Challenge them to challenge your goals for relevance and their degree of difficulty.  Be very clear on this point, these goals are not your corporation’s goals such as revenue or growth. Your PBOD will hold you accountable for your personal and professional growth.  Your goals may include face time spent with clients, one-on-one employee interactions, faith-based commitments, family interaction, physical fitness, diet and weight loss, charitable giving (again, personal not corporate), mentoring, or even education. Yes, even you can still take or teach a class. You might even commit to reading a book about business or leadership. Then you would report to your PBOD on what you took from the book and how you have implemented some of what you learned.

Meet quarterly to report to your PBOD your results and their impact. Do not talk about effort, only results.  The rewards for achieving the results will be obvious.  You must also be held accountable if you fail to accomplish your goals.  Establish and agree to a significant monetary consequence for failing to meet your goals for the quarter. Allow the PBOD to participate in the establishment of the penalty and how the money should be spent.

Choose friends and colleagues who will be firm and confidential. Identify a Chairperson or a facilitator who will keep it on track. Don’t allow this to turn into a social event. Do not drink or eat at these meetings. Establish some guidelines in the beginning and stick to them.

You can expect them to ask you to reciprocate and you must serve on their board(s) if asked.

Take this CEO Challenge and develop your Personal Board of Directors.  I promise that you will NOT go to these meetings with anything less than impressive results. Admit it, it’s a pain just to contemplate this week’s CEO Challenge.

Including outsiders in your strategic planning and/or having outsiders review your existing strategic plan can be tremendously beneficial.

The timing is right on this - the mid-year is approaching and that's when most companies begin modifying their existing plans for the remainder of the year.  

Let's assume, because we're in the second quarter of the year, that you have a strategic plan.  Because you do, take the CEO Challenge and identify a fellow CEO whose insight you value and whom you know would respect the confidentiality of your strategic plan.  Invite your CEO to join you on your turf, review your strategic plan, ask questions about it, and critique it.  But remember, there are rules.  You have asked for feedback, so the only response you can give is "thank you."  There's no bigger jerk than someone who asks for your opinion and then argues with you about it.

Are you living by your strategic plan?  It's a state of being and should be adaptable and able to meet the needs of an ever-changing market place.

During your fellow CEO's visit, as he/she experiences a little bit about how your operation works, would he or she be able to tell that your employees live by this document just by asking a few simple questions?  If an outsider can't easily see that you're living by your plan, it may be time to revisit the plan.

If you have yet to formulate your strategic plan (shame on you), challenge yourself to invite your CEO or a valued executive colleague to help you create it.  They don't have to be a subject expert, and in fact, it would add tremendous value to your plan if they weren't.

The reasons for leaving your office are obvious - you'll never have a brilliant innovative idea staring at last quarter's results.

Get out there for a fresh perspective on customer engagement, marketing, cash management, employee relations, manufacturing efficiencies, meeting strategies or any other concept that needs a little lift.

Your CEO Challenge this week: Reach out to a fellow CEO and ask for a "day in the field" where you spend at least half a day with him/her.  Sit in on a staff meeting and ask your CEO to share with you what keeps him/her up at night, and share some of your challenges as well.  Offer to reciprocate the day.

There's value to staying within your industry, but you'll find tremendous value by getting outside of your industry.  Either way, the most important thing is to get out from behind your desk and play in someone else's sandbox.

At this point, we've become aware of the progression of the first four Stages of How the Mighty Fall and now we're spiraling down towards Stage Five.  Let's recap how we got here.  In Stage One, we were arrogant from too much success.   In Two, we were buying things we shouldn't.   We had an insatiable appetite to do more and buy more outside of our core purpose and core strengths.  Third was denial that the wheels are falling off the wagon and in Four, we accepted that the wheels were falling off the wagon but made unwise and irrational decisions out of fear.

We can turn it around in any of the first four Stages, but in Stage Five there's nothing that can be done.  We've accepted our demise and will either sell the business, become irrelevant, or simply close the doors.  If you're looking into buying a company, do the research to determine whether your acquisition has suffered through one or more of these Stages.  As long as they haven't hit Five, there's a good chance a stronger company will prevail as a result of the mistakes made in One - Four.

Your CEO Challenge this week is to think about the CEO's you've known, the great companies that have fallen, and evaluate their mistakes.  See if you can place their mistakes within each of the five Stages and become keenly aware of the decisions you make going forward.  If at any point it looks like you might be suffering from any of the symptoms we've been discussing over the last several weeks, dust off the old business plan and work on getting back to doing what you do best.

In the first three stages of a failing company, the signs are relatively difficult to detect and the CEO/President is unknowingly acting out of arrogance, making the signs extremely difficult for him or her to detect.  However, once we get to Stage Four, we're cognitively operating out of fear.  We're in panic mode and making decisions hastily.

Jim Collins refers to it as "Grasping for Salvation" because that's what we do here.  We realize that there is a problem and we have to act quickly.  So we begin searching for that magic pill, be it a merger, an acquisition, a celebrity CEO, a consultant (yes, I am a one), a technological solution or any other variety of quick fixes.

In this Stage, it is critical to be keenly aware that you are susceptible to making bad decisions quickly and to keep a level head and work on getting back to basics.    

Instead of going after the shiniest new toy, much like the current social media craze, or implementing radical change, we simply need to get back to the basics of being great.  At this point, jumping on board with the latest technology or trend, when you're not prepared, is a certain death spiral.  It's the dot com theory where everybody was going to launch a dot com and become a trillionaire, but that didn't happen.  To be fair to the current social media craze, it can be an effective communication tool, but it's not salvation.

Your CEO Challenge this week is to identify the measurable and observable affirmative actions you've taken to get back to the basics.  What back-to-basics initiatives are taking place in your organization right now that will keep you from lunging and lurching?  Have the "what could go wrong" conversation with your staff and identify what potential paths the company might take out of desperation and agree on the paths that should absolutely not be taken.  And then commit to them.

And most importantly, keep a level head.  Don't panic.

In Stage Three of a failing company, the signs from Stages One and Two start to become apparent but CEO's often deny them, citing the market, the competition, or any other external factor as reasons for failure.  Rather than looking for internal or structural reasons for failure, we play the blame game and reason that it must be something outside the organization which we cannot control.

Diagnostics can really help us in this stage.  Identify where the organization is taking the most risks.  Determine what is the best thing that can happen by taking that risk, and what's the worst.  If the worst possible outcome is what actually happens when you take that risk, is it something the organization can live with?

Most companies don't take diagnosis of risks and just jump right into whatever the next risk happens to be.  Ask your staff "is this core to what makes us special?  Does it tie into what we do really well, or are we going off into territory we don't know about?"

Are your employees completely unguarded when it comes to risk aversion?  Are they candid enough with each other and with you that they can speak up and say, "the emperor has no clothes" or "this is bad and it's going the wrong way?"  Is that behavior rewarded?

Your CEO Challenge this week is to determine what was the last risk the organization took.  How inclusive was that decision? Were the right people at the table?  Were you able to get over personality conflicts to make the right decisions?

You may not find yourself in a Stage Three situation, but if you and your staff exercise cognitive dissonance in your decision-making and risk-taking, you might soon find yourself in Stage Three.  I urge you to do the diagnostics before you start to fall.