Damian Pitts

Asking better questions that unlock new answers to the working world’s most complex issues is Skipper’s business. His trends include people (emotional intelligence), continuous transformation (process evolution), Leadership 2.0 (adaptability and collaboration), operations (change), development (opportunity), sustainability (reduction) and frameworks (tools) to move to the next-level. Although performance has graduated into Performance-driven Execution™ (PdE), Skipper ONLY focuses on frameworks to help leaders and teams get much better to improve, including:

The FOUR Horsemen℠ System

Changing Hearts and Minds to Improve Outcomes and Behavioral Results

The FOUR Horsemen℠ System shorter to: The FOUR Horsemen℠ System is Protagonistic, as it uses a step-by-step process that aims BIG and FAST with valuable insights for leaders embarking on transformations to create momentum over a sustained period of time. Updated, it changes or improves viewpoints, mindsets, and attitudes and moves them to the next-level, changing performance to Performance-driven Execution™ (PdE). It also introduces technological, Ancillary Strategies (opportunities and threats from the inside-out), and Customer-facing Experiences (CX) to commit to a journey that realizes differentiation and changes perspective, viewpoints, and attitudes to cause real transformations to happen. And it delivers results to Speed-to-Value FAST, while creating success using The Sustained Actions: TIME℠ Strategy, The Disruptive Modeling: 5-Ringz℠ Strategy, The Incremental Improvements: FISH℠ Strategy, and The Radical Breakthroughs: Pivotz℠ Strategy.

The Sustained Actions: TIME℠ Strategy features the actions that require leaders to perform gut wrenching analysis using a four-step recipe for success. This strategy determines how customers interact with products and services to take them to the next-level by experiencing, understanding, and doing the motivations people use to be successful.
The Disruptive Modeling: 5-Ringz℠ Strategy helps to leverage and understand the action because it adjusts behaviors to tip them towards critical mass and make things turn into major differences. This strategy makes small shifts that cause the body to nudge in favor of the whole body, allowing delicate equilibriums toward a precipice.
The Incremental Improvements: FISH℠ Strategy c hanges outcomes through gradual and continuous actions that are inevitable because they cause entities to evolve or adapt to internal and external shifts. The actions, four of them, have a responsibility to be catalysts for positive organizational change.
The Radical Breakthroughs: Pivotz℠ Strategy achieves Better-Best results and outcomes by defining future-specific execution tactics that empowers people, uncovers new initiatives and objectives, and guides strategic actions to work where new normalcy “goes beyond best-practices” to compete in a more contested environment.

The FAST-Galloping Ghost℠ Leadership

Leadership 2.0 and Intelligent Elevated Leadership℠ (IEL)—Protagonists Theory

The FAST-Galloping Ghost℠ Strategy includes EVERYTHING about Protagonists and is ONLY based on reaching the next-level. This action creates next-generation leadership to unleash an era of sustainable, inclusive growth in organizations that seek to outperform in the era of disruption. The FAST-Galloping Ghost℠ focuses the work on Customer-facing Experience (CX) Strategy and Intelligent Elevated Leadership℠ (IEL) that reflects future-specific talent capabilities, organizational health, and financial performance in the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR). It also facilitates “Ancillary Strategies” that refer to approaches to generate additional skill sets beyond the core tactics like self-awareness, the Six People-types Blueprint℠, technology, and uncontested opportunity. These strategies help diversify a person and organizational sources that lead and exceed growth, while warding off threats from the inside and out. W We’ll explore the key aspects that represent the tactics used within the full strategy. The FAST-Galloping Ghost℠ only focuses on Leadership 2.0 and the next-level.

The 5Ws of Operational Excellence (OpEx)

Provide the North Star, the Navigation, and the “How-to” as the Tipping Points for People and the Organization

If leaders and decision-makers keep their energy focused, they ensure to drive comprehensive improvement or change across the elements of the operating model. The key is to drive transition with speed and rigor, and not to get stuck on a productive path.

The 5Ws focus first on the “Where:” where to play, what are the resource-allocations, and what’s the rigors?
Second is the “What:” what does transformation look like and how must we achieve them?
Third is the “Why:” why technologies, processes, and people must be pursued simultaneously and what’s the priority levels?
The fourth is the “When:” when do you plan to arrive at the intersection of the “current (the Future), the gaps (the Event Horizon) and the desired outcome (the Future-Picture).”
And the fifth is the “Who:” who is responsible for developing the costs and who pays?

These 5Ws for OpEx are common manifestations and must be willing to go wherever the journey of continuous improvement takes them. The real differentiator is what organizations do when they realize the transformation is stuck. Do they keep spinning their wheels and hope for the best, or do they reassess the situation and make big enough moves to regain traction? In my view, a wait-and-see approach seldom or doesn’t work and that’s why I’m offering these 5Ws.

The Heptagon Framework℠—Communications

Great Workplaces Create Even Better Environments that Win Every Time Regardless of Circumstance

The Heptagon Framework℠ is all about making communication better between parties using different frameworks to improve habitual listening and reaction skills that resolve issues and increases Emotional Intelligence (EQ). It understands and manages one’s own emotions, as well as the emotions of others and plays a crucial role in various aspects throughout life and across the organization.

The Risk Actionable Strategy Plan℠ (RASP)

Risks are Throughout Every Aspect of Business; Manage them Accordingly or they WILL Manage You!

This strategy identifies, understands, targets, eliminates/executes threats that are seen and are uncertain. RASPs are the things that bring exposure to the entity, causing profits to fall and financial objectives not to be achieved; sometimes coming from the inside or outside as missed factors. The four key factors encountered causes future strategies to be put into place to reduce, mitigate, or impact risk when they arise. By documenting the sources of risk and creating a RASP strategic plan that can be repeated, organizations can reduce the overall impact of risk and deal with them more efficiently and effectively to influence impact to the Future-Picture.

Lean into Ambiguity℠ Strategy (L2A)

Manage Operational Efficiency to Enact Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

This strategy offers tactics that widen the aperture by doing three things. First, leaders must strategically execute a series of actions that reshape existing conditions. Second, leaders must turn the actions into dominant force-multipliers (strategies that impact limited resources in operations) to make them Points of Main Efforts (POME). And third, leaders must influence favorable motion within the Future-Picture. All three things must pivot to address ubiquitous uncertainty (widely adopted tactics used everywhere but are uncertain) across the organization’s operations at every turn. When decision-makers use the strategy, they should follow three simple principles: actions—reshape existing conditions, strategically; POME—turn actions into dominant force-multipliers; and Influence—favorable motion to the Future-Picture.