Founded in 2007, the mission of Windward Leadership is to cultivate the leadership and organizational wherewithal necessary for an IT organization to gain and sustain competitive advantage.
Competitive advantage comes from “numerator leadership,” and the impetus for our founding was our real concern over the worship of denominator management, and the dearth of numerator leadership.
We all know that productivity is defined as outputs divided by inputs. In business productivity is measured as revenue divided by costs—the value of your outputs divided by the cost of your inputs.
Unfortunately, too many leaders, found at all organizational levels, are "denominator managers.” The problem with the denominator management mindset is that their organization's problems are over managed while their people are under led.
Further, as you approach the asymptote of maximum efficiency, there's not much room for meaningful improvement. Making a widget for $0.00001 less isn't going to boost your profit a whole lot. Worse, the nature of denominator work is profoundly unremarkable. If you fear special requests, if you staff with cogs, if you have to put it all in a manual, then the chances of amazing a customer are really quite low.
Meanwhile, numerator leaders—leaders who strive to create customer requirements to which competitors must respond, leaders who focus on cost effectiveness, rather than mere cost reduction—seem to be in short supply, in some organizations they’re even an endangered species.
The alternative for which we strive in our work is to organize and execute for joy—to create an organization that gives people the freedom (and yes, the expectation) that they will connect, create, and surprise; to create an organization that embraces people who make a difference.
This requires what we call "windward leadership."
