Power Sheet – June 1, 2016
CEOs and heads of state aren’t the only leaders we should look to for inspiration. All around us are people who see opportunity where others don’t and who have the courage to go there, not caring that they’re out of step with their peers. Three current examples:
-Hoops fans know they’ve been watching something extraordinary in the performance of the Golden State Warriors and particularly in Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson. But you needn’t know basketball to appreciate the daring they and coach Steve Kerr have shown in reimagining how teams succeed. Their fundamental insight – simple to say, hard to do – was that three-point shots are worth more than everybody else thought. Behind that guiding strategy, Warriors players and Curry in particular spent countless hours practicing shots from three-point distance and far beyond, extending the effective scoring zone to dimensions no other team envisioned.
Result: The Warriors won an NBA record 73 games in the regular season and head into the playoff finals tomorrow. More important, they’ve transformed the game. Analyst Bill Simmons pointed out that in the whole 1986 six-game final series, Boston and Houston between them made 17 three-pointers. In the just-concluded seven-game semifinal series, Thompson alone made 30 three-pointers and Curry 32, a record. The Warriors have forced every team in the league to play in a new way. That’s leadership.
-The TSA’s recent immiseration of air travelers seems like one of those problems that no earthly force can change. Airport security lines are getting longer; deal with it. Except that Delta Air Lines decided maybe it could do something, so it spent $1 million to help the TSA solve the problem. The result is a slightly redesigned security checkpoint that, Delta says, doubles capacity without requiring more staff. It’s remarkably simple. Instead of passengers sequentially arranging their carry-on bags to go through the scanner – so that one inexperienced traveler or one family with baby and stroller can delay everyone – there are five stations where travelers arrange their things simultaneously and go when ready. A conveyer belt underneath continually returns empty bins to the start of the lane. The new lanes are being tested at Delta’s main hub in Atlanta; see video here.
But wait. The TSA is still in charge, and an official says if the tests look good, the agency could roll out the revised system – in five years! Delta COO Gil West told CNN, “Five years is way too long to scale this. We will help enable the acceleration of the deployment.”
–Michael Dann died on Friday. You’ve probably never heard of him, but he was one of the all-time great TV programmers, helping to lead CBS to a a level of dominance in the 1960s that no TV network had achieved before, or has achieved since, or will likely ever achieve again. There were entire seasons in which 14 of TV’s 15 most popular series were on CBS.
He succeeded the same way as everyone who picks winners, which is to say, like all successful leaders: by seeing what no one else sees and having the courage to bet on it.
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Quote of the Day
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