How convenient that we have popular sports in the public eye, where – by aid of radio, HDTV, sports reporters and stadium seats – we witness organizational effectiveness, with scrutiny and score-board accountability.

Organizational effectiveness is about being laser-like: aligned, focused, purposeful, targeted, efficient, accountable.  But, today many organizations are more like incandescent light bulbs: indefinite scope, limited vision, shadowy… and, naively presumptuous, until a laser light appears.

Take Futbol Club Barcelona (founded in 1899; popularly called “Barça”), arguably “the best soccer team the world has ever seen.” Ranked number two in Deloitte’s league of the world’s highest-grossing football clubs, it has doubled its revenues over the past four years.

In “The Catalan Kings: The management secrets of Barcelona Football Club” (The Economist, May 19^th 2011), you may be pleasantly surprised to learn Barça’s winning strategies:

(1) In a sports world of prima donnas, Barça believes in collaborative teamwork.

(2) Instead of the practice of multinational player rosters, Barça focuses on growing its own talent.

(3) In a world that struggles to rationalize the arrogant pseudo-leadership of TARP-supplemented multi-millionaires, as The Economist points out: “Barça has used the idea that it is ‘more than a club’ to cultivate a two-way relationship with its fans. After a recent win more than a million people turned out to cheer.”

(4) In a time of celebrities, sociopathic leaders and big bucks [euros!], Barça management teaches players the importance of core social values.

Organizational effectiveness involves focusing on the play in every moment – of getting to insight – and acting brilliantly to fulfill the mission successfully.  Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, Built to Last and How the Mighty Fall, argues that enduring corporate success depends on core values playing a practical role in the corporate conversation every day.

Last week, I wrote about a remarkable person who – with courage, love and advice – transformed her life from a time of personal darkness, to light the way for women with breast cancer. Tamela Rich’s strategy is about Leaning into Life doubtlessly.

This week, I celebrate the doubtlessness with which the FC Barcelona organization focuses on mission and values, kicking many lesser leadership models in the grass.

Do you lead an organization in a way that promotes fearlessness, mutual respect and mission focus, disproportionately?  What are your leadership strategies for growing concerns?

Tamela Rich is one of the most fearless women you’ll meet. No, check that. One of the most fearless people you’ll meet.

In 2010, bankrupt in business, her relationships strained and cracking, she considered chucking it all. Financial ruin had shaken the 48-year-old ghost writer in unspeakable ways. She was literally standing on the ledge. Yes, that ledge.

She did what any human being would do under pressure like that: She strapped a pink bra to a motorcycle and rode across America, raising money for breast cancer research and meeting women who were living courageously with cancer.

Mind you, Tamela Rich wasn’t a motorcycle veteran when she made the leap. She’s a financial writer. She didn’t even know how to ride a motorcycle. Veteran riders — loving friends — warned her of the dangers. Yet despite their worries, she began Leaning Into Life.

Beneath Fear and Psychology

Last week I wrote about the importance of surrendering all concerns and focusing on the play in the moment. I outlined three contexts where business leaders must be doubtless in their pursuit of insight: Personal doubtlessness, organizational doubtlessness and doubtlessness in the marketplace.

Tamela Rich is the embodiment of personal doubtlessness. She chooses to operate in a truly grounded manner, to experience the flow of insight – there, beneath her fear and psychology.

“Did you ever see a motorcycle racer going into a curve with a knee on the tarmac and wonder why ride this way?” Tamela Rich writes.

Leaning into the curve is about faith. It’s about trusting the physics of motorcycle riding, about riding it hard into the corner and knowing it’ll stick. And for Tamela Rich and the women she’s met, it’s about choosing the scariest option and facing demons with faith.

Once you’ve done that, executing a business plan — or a life plan — seems downright manageable.

On June 18, Tamela Rich goes “Kickstands Up” as she embarks cross-country once again: through 20 states, 4 Canadian provinces and approximately 10,000 miles. She’s writing a book about her journey and about women motorcyclists who’ve found joy in motorcycle cancer therapy.  The working title is Live Full Throttle: What You can Learn About Life From Women Who’ve Faced Cancer. You can follow her adventures at her Leaning Into Life blog.

What are you doing about leaning into life and living doubtlessly? How do you dispel fear to focus intently on the play in front of you? What’s your personal insight?

As a competitive athlete (with very limited talent), I was always confused when given the advice to “just relax” and “do my best!”  Doing my best on the football field – a place I lived to be – required an energetic physical presence the word “relax” did not convey to me.

I have since learned that the advice is to be doubtless, to relax into doubtlessness, to surrender all concerns, and to focus on the play in the moment… and the next. It’s in stringing together these moments of doubtlessness that the mystical state of “flow” is attained, insightful action occurs, and the player truly plays!  It is a state of exhilarating fun, characterized by skill in action. I discovered it is a way of transcending limitations of “talent.”  A special doubtlessness enabling high performance.

In this spirit, the intention of researching, planning, coaching, training and developing should be to strengthen problem solving accuracy and speed in pursuit of insight.  There are three contexts for this intention: personal, organizational, and the marketplace.  Each context must be addressed before the leader or the organization can confidently execute in all three realms.  And, anything less is suboptimal.  We’ll explore these three in the next few weeks.

Have your greatest achievements been accompanied by the special doubtlessness, enabling flow?

Working this week in Hyderabad, India.  Here, many of the largest companies in the world outsource for the “cost arbitrage,” taking advantage of lower labor  costs, and a world-class business school. But, we all know the fallacy of outsourced operations that fail to deliver value.  They apparently train and manage to “politeness and courtesy,” foregoing any apparent interest in customer problem solving!  Have you ever called Delta Airlines to modify your ticket, or Adobe to get tech support?

My client is one US business operating here that appears to know how to manage to brilliance — actually doing what’s needed for getting to insight — while passing along cost advantages to their clients. It begins with enlightened leadership.

A few weeks ago, Michelle Shail noted, “The tough part [of developing and growing a business] is identifying and developing leaders with the courage, resiliency and participative nature to identify the present, future and the how-to’s.”

The ultimate business challenge is to align behavior, investments, programs and products to consistently deliver a distinctive and valuable impression to customers. Not surprisingly, the business leaders who insist on core social values in decision-making probably have customer relationships that are generative. This translates into spontaneous, robust referrals — and so the business grows (and at the lowest cost of sales).

Takes courage. Takes core values. Takes a genuine people-oriented leadership strategy.  I haven’t met a sociopathic person in high authority who can pull this off.

What’s called for is what some call “people leadership:” courageous, resilient, participative, with high social values  — and the insistence on placing people first.

How have we come to accept it’s “leadership” when it’s not people oriented?  How have we allowed everyone who has any authority to be regarded automatically as a leader?