STRATEGY CENTRAL

What are your conversations about when you pull your key leadership team together?  Do you spend most of your time dreaming about where you’re going?  Or do you actually get down to brass tacks about how to get there?  Do you ever really talk about the essential commitments that will move you in that direction?  If you don’t…and if you don’t get to the place where you’re acting on those commitments…life in your organization will always have more in common with looking at a travel brochure than actually lounging in the tropical lagoon.

A recent find for me is David Maister’s blog.  In today’s post he’s got a great take on how to move from the language of destinations to action.  He tells us that:

"Whether you are talking about purpose, mission, vision, values,
goals, objectives or almost ANY of the traditional concepts that people
use, the only practical way to make it real is to do two (simultaneous)
things:

(a) stop talking about the future destination, and start thinking about the rules you would have to live by in order to get there; and

(b) translate the generalities of the organization’s purpose, mission, values or principles into what it would mean for individuals and confirm that the organization’s members are, in fact, prepared to be held accountable and live by those individual rules.

Let me tell you my sense about most of our organizations.  We spend way too much time working out mission statements and way too little time doing what David Maister is talking about.  Consequently, we’ve got file folders full of travel brochures and very few memories of actually getting there.  What can be done?  Well, for starters we could move from the language of destination to action based on rules we’re prepared to live by.

Thoughts?

Tripped across a really good podcast today that honors Peter Drucker and it features Marshall Goldsmith, Frances Hesselbein, Tom Peters and David Maister.  Very interesting stuff.  Lots to learn in a conversation like this.  You can listen in right here.  Well worth the 80 minutes.  Get a pad and a pen, something to sip on, and take it in.

Looking for some great ideas in leadership development?  Or maybe you’re ready to develop a marketing strategy?  churchrelevance.com points us to an interesting set of links to free online resources assembled by suite101 that are definitely worth checking out.  For example, take a look at this online course for Building and Leading Effective Teams.  There is some good stuff here.

I took a few minutes to check out the course on Strategic Planning and Execution.  Interesting stuff!  I can see how this could be used by teams within an organization to conduct regular training opportunities.  Just a few minutes into the course I had a thought that led to this post on asking the right questions.  This could be a helpful resource.

You can check out the current list of online courses right here.   

So you’ve been working on getting the right people on the bus and now it’s time to start thinking about moving them into the right seats.  You know you need to do that.  Right?   Having the right people on the bus but in the wrong seats can be a pretty expensive experiment.  How can you determine whether it’s happening on your team?  A basic question might be, "How fruitful and fulfilled are your team members?"  Think about it.  A person could be really effective (fruitful) and hate what they have to do every day.  Or they could be really happy in their role (fulfilled) and be completely ineffective.  What’s the solution?  They’ve got to have both!  Without both they’re in the wrong seat.

Is that happening on your team?  How’s it going?

The fourth question in Ram Charan’s Know-How: The 8 Skills That Separate People Who Perform from Those Who Don’t is, "Can you judge people by finding their best talents based on facts and observations and match them with a job?"  See how it fits in the Good to Great "right seat on the bus" concept?

One of the keys in Charan’s question is the idea that your matching process would be based on facts and observations.  Do you have a way to make that call?  One of the things that will make this process work is to make it a process or a system.  You’ve all heard the line that "the system is the solution (The E Myth)".  In order to really take advantage of the power of this idea, you’ve got to make it a system, not leaving it to chance.

If you don’t have that system in place, let me suggest that one of the books you need to pick up is Now, Discover Your Strengths by Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton.  The cool thing about the book is that it comes with the opportunity to use the StrengthsFinder tool.  Very cool.   No doubt you’ve been exposed to various evaluations (DiSC, Myers-Briggs, etc.).  The StrengthsFinder idea is similar…but with some very helpful nuances.  For one thing, it helps you understand how to lead the types they identify.  And that is a very signifcant nuance!

However you make what you do a system…you’ve got to do it.  Putting off this step will keep your team from the level of effectiveness that it could have.

According to Peter Drucker, "the allocation of capital and people will determine whether the organization will do well or poorly."  So a key question might be, are you properly allocated?  How serious are you about what you’re doing?  Serious enough to evaluate performance?  If you’re serious enough to evaluate performance, how do you do it?  Is there a way to determine whether your team is working at a level that justifies the expense?

Today’s reading in The Daily Drucker was a discussion about resource allocation decisions.  Interesting.  We all find it easier to evaluate capital investments.  Return on investment (ROI), payback period, cash flow, and discounted present value all provide important clues that allow accurate assessment of capital investment.  But how do you evaluate people decisions.  Also according to Drucker, "decisions to hire, fire, and promote are among the most important decisions an executive makes (p. 376)."  So, back to the question: first, are you serious enough to evaluate performance on your team?  And second, how will you do it?

Let’s just say, you better be serious enough to evaluate.  And you won’t be able to evaluate objectively without an accurate job description with specific expectations, an understanding about what is a win.  Understanding what you really expect from each player is a big, big issue.  Does your team know what a win is?  Here’s more on clarifying wins.

Kathy Sierra has a great post today on The Zone of Mediocrity.  You’ve got to take a look at it!  So many of us are dealing with just this struggle in what we’re doing.  Under the heading of YOU CAN’T PLEASE EVERYONE, all of us need to pick a target and go after that one full tilt.  When we compromise and try to get both groups we usually find ourselves in a middle zone that doesn’t get either one!  As illustrated by Kathy’s great drawing:

Recognize that spot?  That’s where you are when you compromise your vision to keep one team member happy.  It’s where you are when you can’t commit to simplify and eliminate the pieces or programs that no longer make sense.  It’s where you are when you’re still budgeting for the part of your overall effort that no longer connects with your customer and instead keeps bringing back the group that doesn’t really dig the new thing you’re trying to do.

Okay.  We all recognize the spot.  The question is…what will we do about it?

Here’s the solution:

• First, we need to be clarifying the win.  We need to be asking, “what are we really trying to do and who are we trying to reach.”  Hint: can’t be everything and everybody.  We need to be very specific about what a win will look like.
• Second, we need to think about the steps that will enable the win.  What will allow initial movement and what will be a perfect next step that is obvious, easy and strategic.
• Last, we need to narrow the focus and only do the things that contribute to the win.  Anything else leads to an off-ramp, what 7 Practices refers to as sideways energy.

For more on clarify the win see Clarify the Win and More on Clarify the Win.  For more on narrowing the focus see Narrow the Focus.

You can (and should) read Kathy’s whole post right here.

Are you making the kind of difference you could be?  Or do you get to the end of a day and realize that you’re only firing on some of your cylinders?  A couple years ago I came across a great HBR collection called Managing Yourself.  Fantastic.  Two of the three articles really turned out to be very important reads.  The article by Peter Drucker called Managing Oneself turned out to be instrumental in rethinking the basis for what I ought to be doing.

Have you read Managing Oneself?  Very helpful.  It is classic Drucker.  Based on a simple 5 step premise, it is a very workable strategy for identifying how to make your greatest contribution.  The idea is wrapped up in 5 questions:

• First, what are your strengths?  Lots of people have talked about this lately and there are lots of helpful books on the subject.  Drucker’s take is to begin the practice of writing down your key decisions and your expected outcome.  You will be able to tell based on where you’re succeeding what your strengths are.  I’m thinking this would work very well within the context of a group.
• Second, how do you work?  In other words, think about the personal style you bring to the work you’re doing.  Are you best with a team or by yourself?  Do you like structure or are you better at playing it by ear?  Do you work well with the predictable or the chaotic?
• Third, what are your values?  If you’re in an organization where you’re not comfortable with the values you’re in the wrong place.  But the first step is to recognize your own values.
• Fourth, where do you belong?  Based on your answers to the first three questions what kind of work environment suits you best?  If you can determine the environment that suits you best, you have a chance to move from merely an adequate employee to one that really is effective.
• Fifth, what can I contribute?  I realize more and more that I am wired to do certain things in a very particular kind of environment with an organization that I truly believe in.  When I am operating in that sweet spot I can be very effective.  If I am off by a degree on any of those elements it will show.  It won’t necessarily be a deal breaker.  But it will show.

So the question is, are you making the level of contribution you could be?  Or is what you’re doing a notch off?  My suggestion?  Download a copy of Managing Oneself and get started!  And do it today!

How do you feel about your job?  Do you love what you get to do?  I remember hearing a speaker years ago talk about his job and say "what a scam!  To get paid to do what you only dream of doing!"  On the other hand, this last weekend I learned that most suicides happen on Sunday night and most heart attacks happen on Monday morning.  Implication?  There are a lot of people not really looking forward to clocking in for the new week.  How about you?  Do you love what you do?  Or do you just tolerate it?

My hope is to continue to refine what I do until I end up doing with the best of my day what I love doing.  And I’m closer to it now than I ever have been before!  How about you?  Are you setting your sights on that goal?  Or are you really only clocking in and doing time?

There’s a good post over on Marshall Goldsmith’s blog on just this subject.  My encouragment?  Figure out how to move in that direction!  How?  First suggestion is to pick up the book Now, Discover Your Strengths by Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton.  It comes with a great online assessment that will help you think through the things you really do well (thanks to Kent Blumberg for the reminder!  Take a look at his June 23rd post for more ideas.).

Next, begin to pay concious attention to the things you really look forward to doing.  Focus on your strengths by first gaining an appreciation for what you love to do.  Back in June I talked about this in a post called Managing Oneself.  Be sure and check out the concepts.  I think you’ll find it helpful.  I know I have!  After all, you only go around once.  Might as well give it all you’ve got and find your way into the things that you love doing!

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!

Looking for a way to improve the quality of your next meeting?  Here are some great ideas from Sanders Says, Tim Sanders new blog:

1. Don’t write down anything except the promises that you make, or action items you are assigned. If you must, assign someone to be the official meeting scribe. Rotate such assignments for a project with frequent meetings so no one is cut out of the visual loop. I’ve also found that a handheld recorder can do the job. Get everyone’s permission to record the meeting and then send out the audio file to a transcription service. You’ll get back meeting transcripts at only a few dollars a page, which are alot more insightful than your scribbles.
2. If you see something, especially a disturbing emotion, ask them about it. You can say, "You look surprised/upset/happy — let’s talk about it." You’ll find that the other person is usually happy to talk about it and in the end she feels like she’s been "heard".
3. Don’t bring ANY devices to a meeting (unless there is an urgent phone call coming at any time). These gadgets are a big distraction. Leave cell phones, black berrys and especially laptops at your desk. If you are having a meeting in your office or cubicle, turn off your computer monitor.

What if we all tried this today?  Think our meetings would be different?  I think this would make a very big difference.  Think about the meetings you’ve been in lately.  How many times did a cell phone go off?  How many times are the people more interested in what’s coming in on a blackberry than the meeting itself?  Is there ever any interaction about how people feel about what’s being discussed?  Again, this could be a big innovation.  Let me know how it goes!

You can read Tim’s whole post right here.  He’s got a great blog, packed with some really good content.