Yesterday I met with my friend Andy who works for the firm that manages our finances. We meet regularly for updates and adjustments to strategy. One of the reason I look forward to these meetings is that Andy always has a very distinctive and interesting point of view. He is well informed but, more importantly, he has thought carefully about the information (which is available to all) to come up with conclusions that are specific to him.

The best leaders in any profession have a distinctive point of view. That doesn’t necessarily mean you agree with them, but it does mean that you know exactly what they think and why.

Not all points of view are created equally. They range from far-fetched and nutty to sound and wise. The best points of view are always based on two things: good information and good analysis.

That means a leader is limited by the information they receive and review and the analysis they apply.

Many simply aren’t willing to do the hard work to seek out the best information and/or make time for a penetrating analysis.

There are always many things on a leader’s “to do” list but his or her strategic necessities agenda should be relatively short, and developing a distinctive point of view should be on it.

What great leaders can you think of that had or have a distinctive point of view? And what did you learn from their perspective?

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There is a very nice home in our neighborhood that was bought as a foreclosure and then renovated to flip. My wife Darla and I have seen the inside and it is nicely finished with a huge backyard.

There is also a spray-painted patch on one of the garage doors and a big ding on the other. It would look bad on any home much less one listed at $650,000.

I asked the realtor why it hadn’t been fixed. “Oh, it will be very soon. The seller knows that it detracts.”

That was six weeks ago and nothing has been fixed.

Great house, decent value and off-putting features. One of these is not like the others.

How often do we have garage door dings in our businesses? We have a great product or value proposition but there is a payment policy that customers don’t like or  a service rep who is unpleasant or bad response times to inquiries or… And we know these things are off-putting and plan to fix them right away. But we don’t get around to it. We’re like the investor who renovates the house but only gets it 99.3% right.

Thought for the day: look for the dings and flaws in your value proposition. Find the dent in the garage door and fix it ASAP.

This past weekend the NHRA held the inaugural 4-Wide Nationals in Concord, North Carolina. Historically drag racing has been a competition between two drivers. The noise and visuals of this kind of racing is sensory nirvana for drag racing fans.

What could be more exciting?

Double your racers, double your fun. 4-wide racing ratchets up the excitement dramatically. Imagine the spectacle of four 2,000 horsepower machines thundering side by side in a race to the 1,000 foot finish and you’ll get the idea.

Drivers approach the race differently when facing two extra competitors. Technique and strategy change and the biggest beneficiary is the fan. NHRA has given fans a new huge reason to keep attending it’s events.

What are you doing to refresh and revive your business model? What have you done lately to engage your customers in new and dramatic ways? What have you done to change the game for your competitors?

It is time to go 4-wide.

The prevailing wisdom about leaders and successful people is that they are proactive and in control. I agree to the degree that proactivity is about initiating action and doing what one can to take responsibility.

It isn’t quite the same as being in control.

I read two newspapers a day, and I have yet to see an article on the front page that I directly affected or controlled (unfortunately I’m not a titan of industry who’s words and actions move markets or cultures). Many of the articles I read do, however, affect me. Sometimes their impact is small and sometimes significant.

So am I “in control?”

Being in control is most often about how one interacts with circumstances and events bigger than oneself. Anticipation and preparation help mitigate the outcomes of those forces beyond our power, but it doesn’t give us control over them.

I believe a better strategy than proactivity is interactivity. To understand this concept, consider a surfer. As you watch from the beach, you realize that the surfer didn’t create the wave, but he or she interacts with the wave to create the outcome desired. The more skilled the surfer, the more able they are to interact with different waves and create better outcomes. Skill is very important, but it doesn’t give the surfer control over the wave. Only Mother Nature can make a wave.

Neither you nor I control the movement of the stock market so we study and make informed decisions about how to best invest. We don’t control the weather but we choose the clothes to wear on a particular day. We can’t control how a prospect will react to our presentation, but we plan our responses to questions or objections. And when bad things happen–whether deserved or undeserved–we need to respond in the most appropriate way. We don’t control the event; we control our response.

Interactive is a more common and useful  strategy than proactive. To the degree you can be proactive, by all means, be proactive.  But understand that we are more often not in complete control and as such we need to be interactive to live and lead successfully.

When it comes to the economy, nobody seems to know what is going on. Journalists, financial pundits and politicians alike are navigating uncharted water. They are, for all practical purposes, making it up as they go along.

This might sound like a criticism but it isn’t: it is a statement of fact. With little historical precedent (and the Great Depression is a dubious comparison–different times and different circumstances despite any similarities), managers and leaders have to try lots of stuff based on their best hunches and informed intuition. There aren’t any other options.

What is critical is agility. As a financial strategist recently shared, you can’t stay the course if feedback says something isn’t working. That’s what I mean by agility: the ability to not only move quickly but adjust on the fly. Long-term strategy doesn’t work well in times like these.

Agility requires being very open to feedback. It is like driving a car: you can’t pick a direction and then hold the steering wheel perfectly still. You make adjustments as necessary. Over-adjusting and not adjusting appropriately have the same result (you wreck).

This is not a time for the faint of heart. Don’t “stay the course”–stay agile.