Leading with A Sense of Paranoia and Urgency

Andy Grove, the legendary CEO of Intel wrote a best selling book called Only the Paranoid Survive. The core concept of the book is that people need to constantly prepare themselves for moments of crisis. The book calls these Strategic Inflection Points - and that by following his ideas, companies can not only overcome these moments of crisis, but also exploit them to create wild success.

This concept directly correlates to leading teams, and to managing a sales process. On the management front, we lead people who we trust to get a certain job done. But we’re also aware that they often need help removing obstacles, or that they have blind spots that we could fill based on our experience or simply having a different point-of-view. Operating with a sense of paranoia doesn’t mean that we’re worried all the time - the point is that we have our antennas up to things that could be getting in the way for our team members. This could be a staff member struggling to gain buy-in from their peers, an internal process or procedure that’s out of date, or budget restrictions that are getting in the way.

Trust Your Instincts

The key in these scenarios is to trust your instincts on that paranoia, and then have a high sense of urgency to do something about it. If you’re concerned that someone on your team may face some internal process oriented obstacles, rather than just hoping it will work itself out, proactively reach out to them to confirm all is going smoothly. Did you ask someone on your team to get something done for you, but are worried it could slip through the cracks? Then grab your notebook or calendar and jot down a reminder for yourself to follow-up a few days later to check-in. I’d estimate that 25% of my to-do list is to confirm that things are getting done. In a perfect world, everyone would do exactly what they say they’ll do, but it’s not a perfect world. People get busy, they have their own priorities, and they may not match up to your own priorities. A gentle nudge or reminder can actually HELP your teammate stay on task.

Brainstorm Your Blockers

I really learned this as a salesperson early in my career. I would regularly go through my list of sales opportunities and ask myself, “If this deal doesn’t close, why would that be?” So as opposed to the common salesperson attitude of optimism and confidence, I was always doing a reality check to figure out what could get in the way. Then when I’d identify why that deal might not close, I would have a high sense of urgency to take action on it.

For example, a common concern I would have is that the client was overly busy and distracted and that the project we were talking about would get delayed or linger in the land of no-decision. In response, I’d draft up a project timeline with key dates and actions for the client. More often that not, this simple step would motivate the client to act because I gave them a clear plan to make it easy on them.

In other scenarios, I might be worried that the senior leaders that my contact reports to aren’t bought in to our idea or our company. Rather than just hope my contact could convince them, I’d draft up a simple executive summary document that they could share internally. Time and again, the client would thank me for being so proactive and helping them keep the momentum. Yes - the client would thank ME for helping THEM close the deal. It’s like magic!

Winning, Not Worrying

Operating with a sense of paranoia doesn’t mean that we’re always worried. Rather, it gives us a healthy view of what could get in the way, so that we can plan accordingly - and do so with a high sense of urgency. Because we never want to look back and say to ourselves… “Darn, I had a sense that was a potential issue and only wish I had done something about it.” Operating with paranoia and a high sense of urgency means you’re taking control and doing everything in your power to achieve the results you are truly capable of capturing.