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Read on to learn about adding another Critical Success Factor to put in place for your change work to work to the list of seven I have described in another article.

I got an email last week from my wife. It was one of those notes that’s been forwarded across cyberspace until it finds its way into your inbox. The story was about some guy who played his violin for 45 minutes in a DC train station at rush hour. 1,097 people passed by while he was playing. Only a half dozen stopped and listened. He collected $32.17 in tips. Scenes like this play out every day in train stations around the world.

But this day was different. So was the guy playing the music.

I recently did an interview with Michael Fischer from Lyondell-Basell about important change work to do during this economic downturn. The short list of to do’s is pretty straightforward:

Manage costs. Decrease them wherever possible

Protect your share of a shrinking marketplace

Conserve cash so that you can weather the financial storm

These make sense. But alone, they miss the mark.

There’s one good thing about times like these when the economy tanks. It encourages out of the box thinking. You get ahead by challenging fundamental assumptions. The more sacred the assumption, the more you need to call it into question.

What’s the most basic assumption in this economy?

Download the rest of "Partner With Your Competitors" in pdf format.

I work with senior leaders in companies around the world. They lead organizations from very diverse industries. Some work in the private sector, others in the public. I have consulted with brand new CEO’s and those who have been in their position for a decade or more.

They all have four things in common.

1. They are almost always over-scheduled.
   
2. Meetings stack up on top of each other.
   
3. They don’t get home from the office until late in the evening -- that’s if they are even in town.
   
4. Few have time for anything besides golf outside of work -- and even most rounds at the course are dedicated to working on a new deal of some type with their playing partners.

Leadership is an essential element of any successful change effort.

I’ve written elsewhere about the new style of leadership brought by President Barack Obama and how to develop leadership in organizations through coaching.

So that led me to wonder what can we learn from coaching about how to develop better leaders?

I recently read an article on John Wooden in The Los Angeles Times. Within the same few days I saw a video of his leadership philosophy from the TED conference. Then I remembered a book I’d read with my son about the Coach’s implementation of his life lessons called My Personal Best.

The single greatest complaint I hear from people is that communication in their organization is lousy. I recently did a podcast on what to communicate to employees during the economic downturn. This article is about three good ways how to do that. People in them feel like they’re kept in the dark. Tough issues get glassed over. Even well intentioned efforts fall short of the mark.

Dan and Chip Heath, the brother team behind Made to Stick wrote a recent column in Fast Company on viral marketing. Their focus was on getting the good word out to customers about your products and services. The same advice works for communicating organizational change, too.