STRATEGY CENTRAL

Maybe you saw Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth.  Maybe you just noticed the warmer weather this summer or the seemingly more violent hurricane season last year.  Or maybe, you picked up John Kotter’s great new book, Our Iceberg Is Melting and thought it was about the environment!  No matter where you are on the global warming continuum, we’re all at least amatuer ecologists.  But in our business, we all need to become more proficient at observing and prognosticating on the ecosystem that is our business.

Follow me on this.  No matter what business you’re in, it has an ecosystem.   It has a way of operating.  It has a "collection of components and processes that comprise and govern its behavior."  And no ecosystem is immune from change.  The question is, where are you on the clue-phone continuum?  How observant are you?  How aware are you of the beginnings of change?  Are you tuned in?  Or the last to know that the iceberg is melting?

No matter where you are on the clue-phone continuum, this set of questions from The Daily Drucker will be a great addition to your routine.   

• What changes have already happened that do not fit ‘what everybody knows’?
• What are the ‘paradign changes’?
• Is there any evidence that this is a change and not a fad?
• If this change is relevant and meaningful, what opportunities does it offer?

Just think about the power of the first question alone!  You know how it is when you’re scratching your head wondering why the way it always used to work no longer works.  Or when the idea that worked so well in the 90s no longer does the same thing.  What changes have already happened that do not fit what everybody knows?   

I’m learning that it’s much easier to see the problems, the issues, in other organizations.  It’s just flat tougher to see them when you’re waste deep in the environment.  Is that how you’re finding it?  In other words, when you’re looking at your own organization (depending on how long you’ve been in it) you may not really be able to see where things aren’t connected where they should be.  Or where there’s an extremely obvious disconnect.

There is a story I’ve heard about study done with a remote South American tribe where the researchers piled red, yellow, blue and green tiles of various shades onto a blanket and then asked the people to separate them into piles based on the color.  As the researchers watched they noted the fact that their subjects were sorting the tiles into only three piles.  Red, yellow and blue/green.  They learned later that in that culture blue and green were seen as shades of one category.  Wish I could find the source.  But I haven’t as yet located it.  But it makes a facinating point.  Depending on the expectations of our culture we may not even be able to see a distinction.  Depending on how long we’ve been part of a culture (organization) we may not even know that we’re quite out of step with what’s possible.  I tripped across this quote yesterday.

"Most ailing organizations have developed a functional blindness to their own defects.  They’re not suffering because they cannot resolve their problems, but because they cannot see their problems."  John Gardner (quoted in The Leader of the Future 2).

Makes the point, doesn’t it?  How can you see then?  I think you’ve got to bring in an outsider.  I think you’ve got to have a mind that is open to the idea that the way you think it is might be clouded by something you can’t even see.  I know this sounds a little Matrix-like, and it is.  Not quite blue pill/red pill, but close.  When you’re in an organization and you’ve been there long enough for your memories of the outside to fade it becomes increasingly difficult to actually see what is happening.

Again, how can you return to clarity?  How can you actually see all of what’s happening?  I think you’ve to bring someone in from outside…or get out more yourself.  What do you think?

I’ve written on this a couple times before.  You can get more on it with Diagnosing Your Corporate DNA and Drucker on Decisive Action. 

Have you taken a good hard look at your assumptions lately?  Or are you still making decisions, developing strategies, and designing programs based on assumptions that really are no longer accurate?  And how would you even know whether your assumptions are based on long gone ideas?

I’m still finding The Leader of the Future 2 to be a fabulous resource.  This morning I read the article by General Eric K. Shinseki, whose 38 year career featured a long list of impressive assignments.  Think about the constant testing of assumptions that are rolled up in the strategies developed by the armed forces.  Think they rest on what worked yesterday?  I particularly loved this line:

"One consistent lesson that came out of twentieth-century history is that the assumptions of one decade rarely carried over into the next."

Now, you can think what you will about the armed forces…but this line has some very serious implications for all of us.  After all, how many of us are operating based on assumptions that were developed decades ago (if not a century or more).

Here’s a challenge: take some time to think about why your programs are designed the way they are.  Be sure and ask the question: are they working the way they need to?  Then give some thought to who your programs are designed to reach.  Here’s a question: Are you actually targeting a customer niche that no longer exists?  If it does still exist, how big is it?  Could you defend your assumptions successfully if failure wasn’t an option?  If the return on investment was really going to be examined and you were going to be held accountable?

For most of us, these are not idle questions.  There really will be an accounting you know.  So, what happens if you ask yourself these questions and don’t come up with good answers?  That’s something for another post.  But I wouldn’t just tuck this one into the back of your mind.

What will enable your organization to continue to thrive?  Is there a key to its survival?  That is the question for all of us.  There may seem to be a number of answers.  And in truth, there are several elements that are involved.  But according to Arie de Geus, considered by many to be the founder of the organiztional learning movement, there is a key to whether organizations survive and even prosper.  What is the key?  It is an organization’s ability to learn and then to evolve "to remain in harmony with a changing environment."

Now, for many of us this may raise an immediate eyebrow.  After all, can we really evolve?  Isn’t that counter to so much?  I have to say, "NO!"  I believe the death of an organization is wound up in its inability or unwillingness to adapt.  In fact, I’ve always loved the Jack Welch line from GE’s 2000 annual report: "when the rate of change inside an organization is slower than the rate of change outside, the end is in sight."  That says it all!  And very simply.

But what does it say about your organization?  When you compare the velocity of change on the inside with what’s happening on the outside, are you being left behind?  Is your organization in harmony with the changing environment?  Or are you still holding onto the idea that to be the real thing you’ve got to be out of step?

For more on change check out The Ideal Velocity of Change.

Have you discovered Bob Sutton?  I mean, I know you’ve been checking out Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths And Total Nonsense, but have you taken a look at Bob’s blog?  If you haven’t, it’s definitely time to pop over there and take a look.

In his post today he writes about what he calls the Otis Redding Problem.  Can you think what that is?  From the great song Sitting by the Dock of the Bay, Redding sang, "Can’t do what ten people tell me to do, so I guess I’ll remain the same.”   Can you see where Bob’s post is probably going?  It’s a very 7 Practices kind of idea.  He’s talking about the problem of having too many metrics to focus on.  So many that you can’t really determine what is a win.

I love the idea!  The Otis Redding Problem.  He also ties in this great Bill Cosby quote:

“I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.”

Take a minute and check out Bob’s whole post.  I think you’ll see right away that this is exactly where many of us are.  Then come back and let me know what you think!

How long does it take for an organization to change?  Is there an ideal velocity of change?  One of the dangerous half-truths covered in Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths And Total Nonsense is the idea that change "invariably takes a long time, is hard to accomplish, and is best if done slowly (p. 170).  Have you been part of an organization that embraced that idea as the whole truth?  Maybe even knew they needed to change but were convinced it would be best if done very slowly?  Probably we all have been there.

The reason that Pfeffer and Sutton refer to these as dangerous half-truths is that they can do great harm.  This one, the idea that change is best done slowly, is definitely in that category.  Why?  Think about it.  What is a more effective roadblock to getting things done than the idea that what you’re setting out to do is going to take a long time, be very tough, and needs to be done slowly?  That’s a recipe for let’s do it later if I’ve ever heard one.

Think about the three effects identified by Pfeffer and Sutton:

• The deadline effect.  When you’ve got an assignment that is due in 6 months, when do you begin working on it?  What about a deadline that is 5 years off?  It just stands to reason that if the deadline for the changes to take effect is a ways off, it won’t be worked on until you’re right on the deadline!
• The urgency effect.  When do you work on things that are urgent?  That’s right!  You get them done now.  On the other hand, if something is planned for a down-the-road delivery, how important can it really be?  If this were an important change for our team, the boss would have said, "this needs to be done by the end of business TODAY!"
• The perception-of-difficulty effect.  What do you work on first?  The toughest item?  Or the ones that are easier and less involved?  There are definitely a few of us that automatically tackle the toughest things first.  But most of us…well given the choice we do the things that can be easily done and then when we have to, we get down to the more challenging items.  If you tell me that this is going to be an overwhelming challenge…I’ll do it later.

So, you’ve got these changes that need to happen and you’re now aware that with the right steps they could happen sooner, easier, and quicker.  Do you know what the steps are to a successful change effort?

What are you listening to on your iPod?  You know…there’s a whole world out there that’s available and most of it is FREE.  How about a 45 minute talk by Marissa Mayer, Google’s VP of Search.  Or how about Bob Sutton, co-author of Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths And Total Nonsense?  One of the things I’ve found essential in my own development is a broad reading menu.  Not just one field.  A variety.  Same thing is now available audibly.  At the Educators Corner you can choose podcasts from quite a variety of world class thinkers.

Or check out iinnovate where you can catch a great interview with David Kelley, the founder of IDEO.

This is some really interesting stuff.  Will it apply directly to your business?  Maybe not.  But if you’re really listening you can’t help pick up that one new idea that will help you take the next step.

Thanks to Bob Sutton for the links to two great resources. 

Recently I wrote about calculated obsolescence, referring to the need all of us have to carefully evaluate our programs on an ongoing basis.  As we’re evaluating, we need to prepared to eliminate those programs and events that no longer match up with our strategy.  Failure to eliminate leads to sideways energy.  All of us know what it is to have programs that may be successful in some ways but that make no contribution to the success of the organization itself.  Instead they actually pull people, energy, and resources (facilities, budget, time) into a kind of backwater that just swirls but doesn’t move with the rest of the stream.  I based the concept on a great Peter Drucker quote about what he called calculated obsolescence.

Kathy Sierra over at Creating Passionate Users has a post today about a similar concept, maybe a cousin to it, writing about the need to challenge assumptions.  As usual, she’s got some great content.  I love the imagery behind her question: "Do you have a plan in place for regularly sniffing the milk?"  That’s vivid, isn’t it?  Or maybe I should say pungent!  But it does make the point well that with assumptions, just like programs, we need to have a plan in place to routinely be making sure that what we’re using as a basis for our decision-making is actually still true.  HELLO.  How many of us need a routine that helps us do that?  I’d say…most of us.  You can take a look at her whole post right here.  It’s well worth the read.

How often have you dropped a program?  Ever found yourself determined to drop a program only to be the first to blink when your decision was challenged?  Why is it so tough to kill a program even when it clearly isn’t succeeding but especially when it is working to a degree?  Those are the toughest, aren’t they?  When a program continues to draw people but really doesn’t line up with what you’re trying to do overall.  Which leads to what The 7 Practices of Effective Ministry refers to as sideways energy.  What a great term for that sense that a program is taking lots of energy to produce, and people are participating, but there really isn’t a very strategic outcome.  At the end of the day these are the kinds of events or programs that are more like cotton candy than anything of substance.  They look large and impressive.  But like my 11 year old says, "it’s really just sugar.  Can I have some cotton candy?"

So what is the solution to the problem of sideways energy?  Peter Drucker suggested calculated obsolescence.  How’s that for descriptive terminology?  Calculated obsolescence.  Here’s what he wrote in the August 5th reading from The Daily Drucker:

"Innovating organizations spend neither time nor resources on defending yesterday.  Systematic abandonment of yesterday alone can free the resources, and especially the scarcest of them all, capable people, for work on the new."

Now, I don’t know about your organization but I know for sure there are some very talented players who are working hard at yesterday’s ideas, keeping those fires burning, making calls, lining up teams, trying to secure budget and make sure there baby is being promoted…long after the program they’re passionate about eased onto that great off-ramp of strategic initiatives.  What will we do about it?  Do we have the courage to systematically abandon yesterday in order to free the resources for tomorrow?  Or will we just impatiently wait for it do to die on its own?

What do we need in order to implement calculated obsolescence?  We need to know where we’re going.  We need to know what it looks like to get there, and what steps lead to there.  And then we need to determine to do only the things that lead to there.  Everything else is sideways.

How competent are you?  How competent is your team?  Your organization?  Do you ever take a flyer and just try something to see if it’ll work?  Maybe you find yourself thinking, "Why try a new thing when this is working pretty good?"

I love this line from Seth’s blog today on competence:

"Competence is the enemy. People who are competent are afraid to fail, afraid to experiment. They like being competent and defend it."

It’s related to Collins’ idea that good is the enemy of great.  And it is the truth.