This document discusses the severe HIV/AIDS epidemic in Southern U.S. states, highlighting socioeconomic, cultural, and health system factors contributing to the high infection rates. It proposes a project focusing on increasing awareness and dialogue about sexual health among young people, utilizing recorded lectures and social media as tools for education. The proposal aims to equip the target audience with knowledge to improve health outcomes and reduce stigma around HIV prevention.

1. Running Head: HIV/AIDS
1
HIV/AIDS
2
Project Proposal: Awareness on HIV/AIDS in South American
States
Dayana Lewandowski
Florida International University
Introduction to the Problem
Introduction to the Problem
Problem to be addressed. The first cases of AIDS in the United
States were reported in New Yolk City and Los Angeles in
1981, but since then the epicenter of the country's HIV epidemic
has shifted to the District of Columbia and the 16 states that
make up the South, from urban centers. Today, the South is the
most affected region and carries the greatest burden of HIV
illnesses, deaths, and infection than any other region in the U.S,
Rosenberg et al. (2015) reports.
Problem subtopic. Southern states alone account for 44 percent
of all individuals infected with HIV in the U.S; surprisingly the
region has approximately one-third of the overall population in
the U.S. Southern states experience internal disparities due to
their geographical position. The majority of people living with
HIV live in urban areas just like the rest of the nation, Abara et
al. (2015).
Possible Causes and Maintaining Forces

2. Cause. Unique socioeconomic factors in the South are the
primary cause of the heavy burden of HIV. Poverty, poorer
health facilities, income inequality, have been more prevalent in
the Southern states than the rest of the country. These
conditions are not unique to HIV and, overall, the populations
in the region have long experienced poorer health outcomes.
Among the health challenges are higher rates of diabetes,
cancer, obesity as well as infant mortality compared to other
areas, Hall et al. (2015) highlight.
Cause. Cultural factors and social barriers also contribute to
worsening HIV infection in the South of the United States.
Issues such as transphobia, homophobia, racism as well as a
lack of openness in discussing sexuality in public are more
common in the South, and they result in higher levels of stigma,
limiting people's willingness to look for HIV testing,
prevention, and care services. The challenges also restrict
access to sexual health information which is critical to enable
individuals to protect themselves from infection, according to
Reif et al. (2015). Many people in South America are fearful or
ignorant of HIV. Transgender women and men who have sex
with men face high levels of discrimination and stigma putting
them at risk of homicide and crimes. Since 2008, about 1,200
transgender individuals have been killed in South America.
Furthermore, 44-70 percent of transgender women have
expressed the need to relocate or were thrown out of their
homes (Skarbinski et al., 2015).
Why the problem persists. The South experiences higher HIV
diagnosis rates in rural and suburban areas that other regions
countrywide. In this case, there are various drawbacks to HIV
prevention efforts in this area, Abara et al. (2015) comments.
Why the problem persists. Compared to other regions, many
Southerners living with HIV are not aware that they are
infected. Additionally, many Southerners living with HIV do
not receive timely medical treatment or care or get their virus

3. suppressed; a significant number still are missing out on the
chance to avoid transmitting HIV to their partners and preserve
their health, Meade et al. (2015) argue.
Background and Justification
Prior attempts and previously proposed solutions.
Internationally, extensive research has been performed
concerning the science of HIV and aids, prevention measures as
well as treatment of the disease. In 2015, for instance, the
United States alone spent an approximate of $16.8 billion on
research, treatment as well as prevention of illness; $26 billion
was used internationally for the same purposes. Though the cure
for HIV has not yet been established, treatment has significantly
improved since the half of the 1990s. HIV-positive individuals
are advised to take a combination of antiretroviral drugs to
recover their health. If the patients continue to take these drugs
on a day-to-day basis, they increase their possibility for living
for many years without developing ADIS, Hall et al. (2015). In
South America, some HIV prevention interventions have been
successful in helping to reduce cases HIV among particular
groups in certain areas. Between 2010 and 2015, the number of
children who contracted HIV declined by 28 percent, Huedo-
Medina et al. (2010) report. That said, though, the use of
antiretroviral treatment to prevent mother-to-child transmission
of HIV differs significantly from states. While more than 70
percent of expectant mothers with HIV readily access PMTCT
services in Mexico, Panama, and Ecuador, the coverage is about
30 percent or less in states like Guatemala, Venezuela, and
Bolivia. Harm reduction programs have been extremely limited
in South America with only 2 percent of PWID accessing needle
syringe program services and Opioid substitution therapy
services only available in Mexico and Colombia. As a way of
reducing poverty and enabling families to meet medical
expenses, for instance, in Uruguay, the government provides the
Social Card, a social protection program that targets transgender

4. women. Each cardholder receives 30 dollars monthly to
purchase cleaning products and food (Huedo-Medina et al.,
2010).
Deficiencies in the solution paradigm: In 2010, CDC started to
pursue a High-impact prevention approach. CDC supports
numerous scientifically proven, scalable and profitable HIV
prevention measures which target the worst affected
geographical areas and populations. Besides the National
HIV/AIDS Program is committed to reducing the impact of HIV
in the South. However, gaps exist in prevention patterns, that is,
policymakers at the municipal, county and state level. Few
efforts have been made to improve prevention as well as care
outcomes in the South, Reif et al. (2015).
Supplemental Material. Presentation of the subject on sexual
health is critical in the prevention of aids, yet many people do
not want to speak about it in public. I will use recorded lectures
in the form of videos to encourage the people to be open about
sexual health. Individuals will be required to settle in a typical
setting, for example, a theater to watch these videos.
Eventually, the people who attend these recorded lectures will
be free to discuss sexual health among themselves, and later in
public.
Newly Proposed Deliverable
Deliverable overview. The central focus of this activity is to
help the people discuss sexual health with their friends and
peers. Guided by extensive research, I will detail the benefits of
sexual health as an approach to addressing sexually transmitted
infections. I will also make my video clip demonstrating the
challenges orphans go, however, in the absence of their parent.
In this clip, I will stress much that a lack of information on
sexual health is a core cause of HIV transmission.
Significance to the student. It is a serious thing that in the 21st

5. century the Southerners are experiencing high rates of HIV
infections and the worse majority are not aware that they are
infected. Students are part of the young generation that is
highly involved in sexual practices. If the young people do not
develop the habit of being open about sexual health, then they
may end up making the same mistake the previous generations
did.
Target audience. Young people between the ages of 18-35.
External dissemination platform. Places frequently visited by
the youth such as cinemas. Also, social media is an essential
platform to attract the attention of these people.
Proposed length and justification. The presentation will be 30 to
one hour long videos presented by healthcare specialists.
Evaluation
The goal of the new deliverable. To educate the targeted
audience about the importance of sexual health in relation to
HIV prevention
Success outcome measures. If conducted successfully, this
presentation will enlighten the public about the seriousness of
HIV which is becoming a forgotten issue today.
Enhancement of global awareness. The reason why I am
targeting this audience is that they are at the age of becoming
first-time parents. If young mothers and fathers adopt this
practice, they are more likely to pass the habit to their children
which will be an important method for increasing HIV
awareness, according to Skarbinski et al. (2015).
Enhancement of global perspective-taking. The target audience
loves entertainment and so by presenting sexual health
education through videos ensures entertainment and learning at

6. the same time. The social media will media will greatly
determine the success of this program. If people are willing to
share information on social media platforms, then it means that
they will eventually come to the point of sharing the same in
public. What makes this activity unique is that besides
socializing on the internet, individuals will be meeting face to
face to ensure that they become used to talk about HIV in public
(Abara et al., 2015).
References
Abara, W., Coleman, J. D., Fairchild, A., Gaddist, B., & White,
J. (2015). A faith-based community partnership to address
HIV/AIDS in the southern United States: Implementation,
challenges, and lessons learned. Journal of religion and health,
54(1), 122-133.
Hall, H. I., An, Q., Tang, T., Song, R., Chen, M., Green, T., &
Kang, J. (2015). Prevalence of diagnosed and undiagnosed HIV
infection—United States, 2008–2012. MMWR Morb Mortal
Wkly Rep, 64(24), 657-662.
Meade, C. S., Towe, S. L., Skalski, L. M., & Robertson, K. R.
(2015). Independent effects of HIV infection and cocaine
dependence on neurocognitive impairment in a community
sample living in the southern United States. Drug and alcohol
dependence, 149, 128-135.
Reif, S., Pence, B. W., Hall, I., Hu, X., Whetten, K., & Wilson,
E. (2015). HIV diagnoses, prevalence and outcomes in nine
southern states. Journal of community health, 40(4), 642-651.
Skarbinski, J., Rosenberg, E., Paz-Bailey, G., Hall, H. I., Rose,
C. E., Viall, A. H., ... & Mermin, J. H. (2015). Human
immunodeficiency virus transmission at each step of the care
continuum in the United States. JAMA internal medicine,
175(4), 588-596.

7. Huedo-Medina, T. B., Boynton, M. H., Warren, M. R., LaCroix,
J. M., Carey, M. P., & Johnson, B. T. (2010). Efficacy of HIV
prevention interventions in Latin American and Caribbean
nations, 1995–2008: a meta-analysis. AIDS and Behavior,
14(6), 1237-1251.
Love Me Do: Management Lessons from the Fifth Beatle
Mar 18, 2016 – Knowledge @ Whrton
George Martin, sometimes referred to as the “fifth Beatle” by
band member Paul McCartney, died this month at age 90. As the
Beatles’ producer, he not only signed the group to its first
record contract even though top record company executives had
rejected them, but he also was instrumental in developing the
musical special effects that helped them sell a billion records.
Was Martin a great manager who made a “brilliant mistake,”
given the industry consensus against him? Paul J. H.
Schoemaker, co-author ofBrilliant Mistakes: Finding Success on
the Far Side of Failure, assesses Martin’s management
challenges in this short essay, adapted from his book (co-
authored with the late Robert E. Gunther). Schoemaker is also
the former research director of Wharton’s Mack Institute for
Innovation Management.
The recent death of George Martin at age 90 offers a reminder
of his genius as a pop music pioneer, after formal training in
classical music, as well as an innovative manager who early in
his career was willing to swim against the tide. Much has been
written about how Martin became Beatle No. 5, in the words of
Paul McCartney and others in the band, because he took studio
recording – with all its special effects, redubbing, and
synthesizing – to new heights.
Martin developed deep personal relationships with Lennon,
McCartney and others in the band, who trusted his musical
instincts and followed his advice, resulting in a string of top
hits. Martin’s illustrious career, mostly behind the scenes where

8. he felt most at home, started with some gutsy moves.
Let’s pretend you had never heard of George Martin or the
Beatles and we presented the following business case study.
How would you score Martin’s performance?
Anonymous Background
On a frigid New Year’s morning, an obscure music group
auditioned for a senior executive at one of the world’s leading
record companies. After years of modest success playing local
clubs, this band was looking for its big break. In order to make
it to this audition, band members braved a 10-hour ride through
a blinding snowstorm. Their driver had gotten lost, but they still
arrived before the executive, who had been toasting in the New
Year the night before. This band was one of many he would
audition that year, including at least one other audition later
that same day. Both the band and the executive were both
exhausted. The band’s equipment was dilapidated from months
on the road; the studio executive substituted his own amplifiers.
It was not an auspicious beginning.
“The Beatles’ discovery story sharply illustrates the degree to
which assumptions deeply held by the best and brightest can be
wrong and the enormous potential benefit of seeing past them
and making a brilliant mistake.”
Once in the studio, the band spent an hour taping a dozen songs.
This tape ended up in the hands of the seasoned head of the
artist and repertoire (A&R) department for Vox Music, a
prominent label. He turned it down. The style of the band’s
music, he felt, was on the way out. He was in good company. A
few weeks earlier, the general marketing manager of Epsilon
Records, another top recording company, had also checked out
this same band and came to the same conclusion. In a letter to
the group, Epsilon’s general marketing manager made the
following curt assessment: “While we appreciate the talents of
this group, we feel that we have sufficient groups of this type at
the present time under contract. It would not be advisable for us
to sign any further contracts of this nature.”
Around the same time, two other recording companies listened

9. to the band, and the reply was the same: a polite or impolite but
emphatic no. In total, the band was turned down by at least four
respected recording companies after getting a fair hearing at
each.
That should have been the end of the story. One card, however,
remained in play. The head of A&R for one of Epsilon’s
smallest labels was out of town during the general manager’s
deliberations. His absence seemed a small matter at the time,
since this label was known for its comedy records. With the
exception of a label devoted to Salvation Army Bands, it was
Epsilon’s poorest performer. What could this manager possibly
add to the evaluation of an up-and-coming rock band? More
respected executives, closer to this genre of music, had already
rendered a verdict of thumbs-down.
But six months later, the band’s persistent manager brought its
audition tapes through the back door of Epsilon and appealed to
the head of this small label. The head, a young maverick, was
both passionate and ambitious. After a stint in the navy, he had
joined Epsilon as an assistant to the manager. He sought out
new and untapped bands and developed niche markets, such as
comedy records, into profitable businesses. Five years later, at
age 29, he would assume leadership of the label, making him
the youngest label chief in Epsilon’s history. He had a prescient
understanding of how new recording technologies would have
an impact on the future of the music industry. Because he was
forced to feed on the scraps of the corporation’s artists, he
developed close working relationships with talent, in contrast to
the typical arm’s-length relationships of most managers. He was
eager to change the world.
This manager was intrigued by what he heard on the band’s
demo. He decided to invite them back for another audition.
During the audition, he was more impressed by their wit and
potential than by the music they played for him, but he decided
to sign them nonetheless. All this happened just six months
after the best minds of the very same recording company had
turned the band down. There had always been independent

10. decision making at Epsilon labels, but this reversal came as a
bit of a surprise to Epsilon’s general manager, who was
responsible for multiple labels. How could a comedy album
executive be signing a rock band, against the better judgment of
senior colleagues who truly had their fingers on the pulse of the
industry? This was surely a mistake, right?
Lessons Learned
Most managers who read this case vignette conclude that it was
a mistake for the label to sign the band — that is, unless they
are fans of music history and recognize the details of the story.
This story is indeed about the discovery of the Beatles. The
young executive was George Martin of the Parlophone label at
EMI (disguised as Epsilon Records above). By ignoring
conventional wisdom and making a move most would deem a
“mistake,” Martin helped his company become a dominant
player in the recording business. As Beatlemania spread across
the globe, the band started by John Lennon, Paul McCartney,
George Harrison and Ringo Starr became one of the most
successful groups of all time, selling over a billion records
internationally. They sold more albums in the United States and
earned more number one albums on U.K. charts than any other
band.
“Many stories of great discoveries can be interpreted as entirely
reliant on dumb luck. It’s also possible that he (George Martin)
saw that the world was changing and that the assumptions his
industry was built on would not continue to hold in the future.”
Decca, the recording company that passed on the Beatles after
the January 1962 studio audition (disguised, in this anecdote, as
Vox), is now famous for what seems to be the most glaring
oversight in music history. Especially ironic, in hindsight, was
their incorrect belief at the time that guitar groups were going
out of style. Instead, they signed Brian Poole and the
Tremeloes. How many people still remember that group?
The Beatles’ discovery story sharply illustrates the degree to
which assumptions deeply held by the best and brightest can be
wrong and the enormous potential benefit of seeing past them

11. and making a brilliant mistake. Assumptions can be wrong for
numerous reasons, ranging from changes in the world in which
the assumptions were formed to lack of humility among those at
the top. In the case of all of the Vox executives, and all but one
of the Epsilon executives, many of these factors were probably
in place.
That leaves us with George Martin. What did he know that
nobody else knew? In truth, we know too little about Martin’s
inner thought process to be sure. He could have simply been
foolish and lucky. Many stories of great discoveries can be
interpreted as entirely reliant on dumb luck. It’s also possible
that he saw that the world was changing and that the
assumptions his industry was built on would not continue to
hold in the future. To the extent that the latter is true, he’s a
great example of someone who was able to understand himself
and the world around him well enough to make the risky, high-
reward move of a brilliant mistake.
Martin certainly wouldn’t have viewed his signing the Beatles
as a mistake. No self-respecting manager would ever knowingly
make a mistake. Like Martin, managers view their role as taking
calculated risks that yield, on average, a positive payoff.
But if the Beatles had indeed been a huge flop, as many in the
industry expected, we would now consider Martin’s decision a
mistake. Luckily for him, the opposite happened. The Beatles
rose to global dominance in pop music.
In retrospect, Martin is viewed as a visionary who made a
brilliant decision. Later, he proved his musical genius many
times over by adding studio-recording innovations to many of
the Beatles’ top hits, such as adding a Bach-like string quartet
to “Yesterday” and a piccolo trumpet solo in “Penny
Lane.” Martin knew when wrong was right, had the courage to
follow his musical instincts, and followed his path to brilliance
with modesty and genius – a rare combination
indeed. Twitter Our guitar gently weeps at his passing.

12. The 5 Biggest Reasons Projects Fail
Mike Trigg
May 15, 2015
As a founder of multiple startups and current COO of Hightail,
I’ve led many projects -- from launching new websites to
rebranding a multi-billion dollar global company. While I’ve
had some great wins, I don’t mind admitting that there have also
been a few disasters.
Here are five mistakes that have caused projects to fail and how
entrepreneurs can avoid them.
1. Eyes are bigger than your budget.
We'd all love to run a Super Bowl ad, but you can’t do it on a
shoestring budget. And while businesses need goals and dreams,
leaders need to temper them with a healthy dose of reality and
expectation setting. This helps make it clear what you can
actually achieve given your available time, resources and
budget.
Recognizing your constraints can lead to unexpected benefits.
When the founders of 37 Signals began work on their signature
product Basecamp, they made an honest assessment of how
much time each person could invest. As most of the founders
still had full-time jobs, their time constraints forced them to
develop a feature-lite project management tool. This simplicity
turned out to be one of the major factors behind the success of
the app.
To avoid misaligning dreams with reality, your business needs a
culture of honest communication that encourages clear-sighted
discussion across all levels, instead of just having unquestioned
orders flow downstream.
2. Working with the wrong talent.
Whatever the project, a company’s first instinct is to put an in-
house team on it. After all, that’s what they’re there for, right?
But just because someone is part of your company doesn’t mean

13. they’re the right person for a specific project.
The key is to be honest with yourself and your employees and,
if necessary, look outside your core team to find the best people
for a project. Start building relationships now with agencies,
contractors and consultants so you have a network ready to
fulfill specialized tasks when the time comes.
3. Continuing to pursue bad ideas.
In Hollywood, they say it’s easy to make a bad film from a good
script but impossible to make a good film from a bad script.
Though you won’t always recognize a bad idea straight away,
once you do, never assume that you’ll make it work or believe
that you’ve put in too much effort to change course.
I once worked with an external agency on a series of digital ads
but after a number of designs, tweaks and iterations, I still
couldn’t convince myself that we’d hit gold. Eventually I
realized that the visual approach we had agreed upon at the
beginning of the project was wrong. After we decided to start
over and work with a brand new set of stylistic references, the
project came together very quickly.
The minute you recognize that an idea won’t work, you have to
pull the plug. It’s usually impossible to retrieve a bad idea, and
you’ll only waste time, money and energy trying to put lipstick
on a pig.
4. Death by committee.
A project often has multiple parties interested in its outcome
and groups may even have divergent goals and expectations. I
once spent weeks working with a designer and copywriter on a
website homepage redesign, only to have our carefully-crafted
work dismantled by the company’s various heads of department
demanding changes to meet their individual needs. Our problem
was that we failed to establish who owned the project and
therefore didn’t deal with potential conflicts and
disappointments in advance.
Renowned animation studio Pixar has a large group of people it
calls the “brain trust” that meets to review films at different
stages of production. Though the committee’s job is to provide

14. notes on potential problems and offer solutions, none of the
advice is mandatory. The film’s director retains complete
control over the final product.
Feedback is an essential stage of any project. But decision-by-
committee rarely leads to the best outcome. Every project
should start by establishing clear, workable goals and give one
person the ultimate ownership and accountability for meeting
them.
5. Keeping the final approver in the dark.
Typically the bulk of work on a project happens below the level
of the final approver. You often get a situation where, for
example, a freelancer works closely with their contact at a
company to complete a piece of work, only to hear the dreaded
words: “now I just have to run this past my boss.” I call this
“the contractor’s nightmare”.
As someone who is often the boss, I find it remarkable that I am
expected to just give a thumb up on a final version that I saw at
the end of the project. In reality, my first experience of a
project is likely to produce lots of questions, comments and
suggestions. While I don’t believe in micromanaging talented
people, being able to review a project at certain set stages
makes for a better overall process.
When beginning a project, establish clear checkpoints for the
ultimate approver to provide feedback. This will help ensure a
smoother path to the finish line.
Applying these suggested preemptive strikes and remedies
should help you avoid catastrophe on your next big project.
Characteristics of The Clear Leader
Marcus Buckingham spent two decades studying great business
leaders. His conclusion: True leaders have a unique ability to
make things simple.
By: Bill Breen December 2016
Dip into most corporate or business-school curricula on
leadership and you'll find a mind-numbing list of skills that the
aspiring leader must master, from motivating to communicating

15. to counseling to managing conflict, and on and on. Corporate
America has vastly overcomplicated the role of a leader, says
Marcus Buckingham, and that's a shame, because those
disciplines, while important, fail to get to the heart of true
leadership.
For the past two decades, Buckingham, 41, an engaging
Cambridge-educated Brit, has had a front-row view of great
leadership in action. He spent 17 years researching the world's
best leaders and managers for the Gallup Organization. Drawing
on Gallup's studies of 80,000 managers and 3 million
employees, he wrote two best-sellers: First, Break All the Rules
and Now, Discover Your Strengths. Eighteen months ago, he
decided to dig deeper. He left Gallup, and instead of focusing
on the many, he set out to find the very few leaders who truly
excelled. "I became more interested in the vividness of what
excellence on the front line really looks like," he says. "By
studying one person deeply, you might learn as much if not
more than studying 10,000 broadly."
Buckingham sought out old-line outfits such as Walgreens, Best
Buy, and Rio Tinto Borax -- companies that, lacking the
advantages that come with product innovation, must gain an
edge by mastering the disciplines of managing and leading. He
distilled his key findings into a new book, due out this month:
The One Thing You Need to Know...About Great Managing,
Great Leading, and Sustained Individual Success (Free Press).
Here, in his own words, Buckingham maps out the core concepts
that mark superior leadership.
Leaders are Compelled by the Future
There's something unique and different that makes a leader, and
it's not about creativity or courage or integrity. As important as
they are, you can have those attributes and still fail to be a great
leader. A leader's job is to rally people toward a better future.
Leaders can't help but change the present, because the present
isn't good enough. They succeed only when they find a way to
make people excited by and confident in what comes next.
Several years ago, I was at a dinner with Bob Nardelli, who left

16. General Electric after he was passed over for Jack Welch's job.
He had just become CEO of Home Depot, and all he talked
about was how exciting it would be to take on the challenge of
building a better future for Home Depot. And I remember
thinking, This guy hasn't had retail experience in 20 years, he's
going into a situation where people are expecting him to fail,
and he's following two founders -- Arthur Blank and Bernie
Marcus -- who were beloved. Why is he doing this? But
listening to him that night, I realized that once he'd seen a
better future for Home Depot, every other consideration became
irrelevant. He couldn't stop himself. With leaders, the future
calls to them in a voice they can't drown out. The future is more
real than the present; it compels them to act.
Turn Anxiety into Confidence
For a leader, the challenge is that in every society ever studied,
people fear the future. The future is unstable, unknown, and
therefore potentially dangerous. So in order to succeed, leaders
must engage our fear of the unknown and turn it into
spiritedness. By far the most effective way to turn fear into
confidence is to be clear -- to define the future in such vivid
terms that we can see where we are headed. Clarity is the
antidote to anxiety, and therefore clarity is the preoccupation of
the effective leader. If you do nothing else as a leader, be clear.
Be Clear about Whom You Serve
Leaders can be wrong. They can't be confusing. If we are going
to follow you into the future, we need to know precisely whom
we are trying to please. It's a scary thing to please all of the
people all of the time. So to calm our fear, we need you to
narrow our focus. Tell us who will be judging our success.
When you do this with clarity, you give us confidence --
confidence in our judgment, in our decisions, and ultimately in
our ability to know where to look to determine if we have
fulfilled our mission.
Denny Clements, the general manager of Toyota's Lexus Group,
understands this implicitly. Clements says that the only people
Lexus is trying to serve are those for whom time is their most

17. precious commodity. Everything that Lexus does -- from how it
builds the car to what it puts in the car to the way it services the
car -- is based on time. Clements knows he doesn't have to be
right, because there is no one right answer. But he does have to
be clear. If he's clear about which audience Lexus serves, his
clarity will infuse his people with the confidence to face the
future. In the end, his followers will make him right.
Be Clear About Why You're Going to Win
I'm struck by how often leaders come up with four or five core
strengths. We hear it all the time: "Our strengths are our people,
our productivity, our creativity, and our efficiency." Somehow,
many leaders think their job is to analyze the world's reality and
complexity and reflect it back to their people. Not true. As a
leader, your job is to make people more confident about the
future you're dragging them into. To that end, you need to tell
them why they're going to win. There are many competitors out
there. Why will we beat them? There are many obstacles in our
path. Why will we overcome them? The more clearly you can
answer these questions, the more confident we will be, and
therefore the more resilient, the more persistent, and the more
creative.
Even if it doesn't incorporate all the reality of the world, find
the edge -- one edge -- and talk about it all the time. The more
you talk about it, the more it becomes true. So it goes with Brad
Anderson, CEO of Best Buy. Best Buy's success over the past
few years lies in its ability to identify its core strength and act
on it. These days, Anderson is charging around the country
telling anyone who will listen that Best Buy's strength lies in
the quality of its blue shirts -- its employees in the stores.
Anderson believes that Best Buy will win if its frontline people
are better -- better selected, better trained, and better equipped
to help the customer. Anderson is different from most leaders in
that once he's decided on Best Buy's core strength, he doesn't
really talk about anything else. He understands that his job as a
leader is to distill the world's complexity and ambiguity -- and
out of that comes the notion that Best Buy will win because its

18. frontline people are better.
Keep Your Core Score
Having told his people that their strength lay in the intelligence,
insight, and creativity of the frontline employees, Anderson
took the required next step and identified the one score that
would track their progress toward a better future: number of
engaged employees. Although Best Buy's success could be
measured in a variety of different ways, the company uses 12
simple questions to measure just that. Scoring is even more
vivid than saying frontline employees are really important.
From a leadership standpoint, a score is actionable and
unambiguous.
That clarity is lost if you end up looking at 15 different metrics.
It's a terrible leadership failure to tell your employees that all of
these measurements are important. When followers are
presented with numerous scores, they get confused. The job of a
leader is to say, "Of all the things we measure, this is the most
important."
If You Want to be Clear, Act
Of course, a leader must take action -- action leads to impact.
But actions also possess a separate, equally powerful quality.
Actions are unambiguous. If you, the leader, can highlight a few
carefully selected actions, then your followers will no longer
have to infer the future from theoretical pronouncements about
"core values" or your "mission statement." We will simply look
to see what actions you take and found our faith and confidence
on these. But be aware that we respond best to two types of
action: symbolic action and systemic action.
Symbolic action is just that -- a representation of what the
future can look like. Symbolic action grabs our attention; it
gives us something new and vivid on which to focus. When
Rudy Giuliani was elected mayor of New York, he decided to
get rid of squeegee men -- street people who demanded payment
for cleaning windshields. His action was heavily symbolic: It
didn't change New Yorkers' day-to-day lives all that much, but
it was a powerful demonstration of what Giuliani meant when

19. he talked about a better quality of life.
Giuliani also instituted a twice-weekly meeting in which more
than 100 senior police officers would gather to explain the city's
daily crime data and defend their response to it. Giuliani
declared that these meetings encouraged accountability and
transparency. But the meetings' real power was that they
disrupted routines. For a leader, it's important to disrupt
routines. Systemic action changes behavior. It makes people
realize that the world is going to be different because they're
doing different things. The future becomes clearer, and out of
that clarity comes confidence.
Effective leaders don't have to be passionate or charming or
brilliant. What they must be is clear -- clarity is the essence of
great leadership. Show us clearly who we should seek to serve,
show us where our core strength lies, show us which score we
should focus on and which actions we must take, and we will
reward you by working our hearts out to make our better future
come true.
Bill Breen is Fast Company's senior projects editor.