STRATEGY CENTRAL

The last few months have taken me on a fascinating journey into design thinking.  Books like The Design of Business by Roger Martin, Tim Brown’s Change by Design, and Design-Driven Innovation by Robert Verganti have given me a language and a way of thinking about organizational design.

The latest step in the journey?  Design Thinking: Integrating Innovation, Customer Experience, and Brand Value.  Edited by Thomas Lockwood, Design Thinking is a collection of articles mapping the development of the discipline.  Very interesting and packed with ideas.

Although I find design cool and interesting in its own right, its really the design of organizations that I’m drawn to.  And it turns out it makes sense.  According to Richard Buckman, there are four orders of design:

• Communication: the creation of signs and symbols to be used in mass communication (we’re all at least at this level)
• Construction: the creation of objects via traditional industrial design
• Interaction: the actions and behaviors of people, as affected by design (many of us are working this edge as we try to design experiences that are conducive to interaction)
• Organization: design considerations in the context of organizations, environments, systems and cultures (this is the piece that is lacking for many of us)

I love Lockwood’s take on the fourth order of design, calling it:

“the sweet spot–the point at which the organization can involve design more integrative and holistic, building design methods into some of the internal systems and processes, and moving design towards a core competency.  This is the desired end state because the real value of design is in discovering and solving all manner of problems (p. 82).”

I’m intrigued by the possibilities of organizational design.  What if all of us learned to be more purposeful about the way our organizations were put together; the way our systems were designed?  Think it might make a difference in outcomes?  Want to come along?  You can pick up your copy of Design Thinking right here.

What motivates what you do?  Is it money?  Is it reward or recognition?  Turns out that what motivates most of us isn’t what we’ve thought.  You may remember author Daniel Pink from his bestseller, A Whole New Mind.  He’s back with an intriguing take on motivation.  His newest, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, will no doubt fill in some blanks about the underlying truths that set us in motion.

What motivates us?  If you think it’s about carrots and sticks…you’re going to find Pink’s conclusions very surprising.  If you’ve already concluded that there must be something more, a different way to motivate, you’re going to love this book.  Drive skillfully articulates the difference between motivation 2.0 (carrots and sticks) and 3.0 which taps into the intrinsic motivators that change outcomes.

Because the carrot and stick concept is so well entrenched, Drive takes its time, carefully establishing the background and foundation to motivation 2.0 and thoroughly outlining its history.  Once established, Pink shifts to an examination of the holes in the carrot and stick concept and finally a very detailed demonstration of ways that motivation 3.0 can be implemented.  Finally, the last section of the book is a really helpful toolkit designed to further enhance your practice.

Whether you’re simply leading a team, a staff or you’re an HR professional, this is a must read.  On a side note, it turns out purpose (along with autonomy and mastery) plays a role in the kind of intrinsic motivation Pink is writing about.  This is a great read…and I highly recommend it.  You can order your copy right here.

What happens when the thing your organization is really good at…no longer matters?  You know, when what put you at the top of the charts no longer is in demand?  Or maybe it still is but it’s not exactly what people want anymore?

What happens?  Do you just keep on keeping on?  Maybe because you’ve invested in the scaffolding that holds it in place?

What do you do?  Maybe it’s even the thing you are known for…but if you really look under the hood you can see the signs that it just isn’t working any more?

I love this paragraph from Chief Culture Officer by Grant McCracken.  He’s describing the season when Coca Cola passed on developing non-carbonated drinks.  After all, they no doubt thought, we’re Coca Cola!  We are all about carbonated!

“The Coca Cola Company had a hard time grasping the significance of branded water and non-carbonated soft drinks, even when the evidence was piling up around it.  The Coca Cola Company was very good at making Coke.  It wanted to keep making Coke (p. 106, Chief Culture Officer).”

Got something you’re really good at making or doing?  Want to keep making it even though sales are dipping?  Even though the signs are everywhere that the times have changed?

How tuned in is your organization? I asked a friend who had just moved to a new organization, “How’s the new reality?”  He said, “To borrow a phrase from Leonard Sweet, I live in the Google Era, but my work environment is Gutenberg Era.”

Makes you think, doesn’t it?  How many of our organizations are operating as if the Gutenberg press was still an exciting new idea?  Okay…maybe none.  But how many are operating as if yesterday is still the present?

It’s not easy to stay up with the times. It is a challenge. But if you’re looking for help, I want to recommend Chief Culture Officer by Grant McCracken.

My friend Will Mancini wrote and interesting article in mid-December and challenged all of his readers to learn to drip vision.  He followed that post up with a challenge to drip vision every day.  Today Mac Lake, leadership guru/practitioner extraordinaire, entered the game with his own 5 visiondrip ideas…actually saw Mancini’s 5 and anted up 5 of his own.

I like the way this game is shaping up!  I’m in.  Here’s my 5:

1. This is more permanent, but I love the way crossroads in Corona, CA, has used a combination of faces and scripture in their worship center lobby to call out their vision for people everyday.  I know PlainJoe Studios played a role in the design.  Very cool…and always on.
2. Speaking of always on, I love the way Gateway Church in Austin, TX, has integrated their slogan “no perfect people allowed” into their website.  At the same time, the line “come as you are” appears prominently above the fold on the home page.
3. When you find a quote that really resonates with your vision, type it out, change the layout to landscape, and enlarge the font.  A little fold near the top allows you to hang it where everyone who visits your office can see it.
4. Point your leaders to online messages that drip your vision.  I love this Andy Stanley message that was done at LifeChurch.TV in 2009.  I’ve never heard a more insightful look at Acts 15.  Powerful.  Watch for Andy’s quote near the end of his message.  “We need local churches that have all the rungs on the ladder.  Because church is for everybody.”  Awesome…and right at the heart of what North Point is about.
5. Make it a daily practice to send an email or write a note that points out a way that the recipient is living out the vision.

Actually, I want to see Will and Mac’s 5 and raise them 1.  Here it is:  Use upfront time and casual conversation as opportunities to make heroes out of those who are living out the vision.  We all get to choose who will be the heroes in our organization.  Choose wisely.  And do it everyday.  Always on.

Sometimes you can tell from the name of something what it’s all about.  I think you can tell from the name of StrategyCentral that I think having a strategy, thinking strategically, and action strategically are all pretty central to effectiveness.

And yet, it’s not enough to have a strategy…even a beautifully worked out one.  Acting on it…that is the key.  So I love this Tom Peters quote:

I … do not denigrate the usefulness of a thoughtful strategy. It’s just that it is … Crystal Clear (to me!) that strategy is in fact unequivocally subordinate to Execution Excellence/Execution Mania/Bias for Action.

Yep.  That pretty well sums it up.  You can have the best strategy, you can even frame it and put it up on the wall, but if you’re not executing…it’s just artwork.

By the way, I’m subscribed to Tom Peters’ daily quote by email.  You can get it on it right here.

I get sent a lot of books.  I skim a lot of them.  There are some that I make a serious attempt because it’s on a topic that grabs me.  A few pull me in from page one and never let me go.  One of those arrived on Thursday.

Chief Culture Officer by Grant McCracken develops from the premise that culture matters and “until an organization masters culture, it makes the world needlessly mysterious” and “it multiplies risk.”  McCraken’s argument is that culture matters for good and bad reasons.  An understanding of culture “is the place to discover advantage, opportunity, and innovation.”  It’s also “the breeding ground of cataclysmic change.”

This is a book that is packed with stories.  Right off the bat you’re immersed in accounts of companies that missed culture shift (i.e., Levi Strauss missing hip-hop, Quaker Oats overpaying for Snapple, and Coca Cola late to the game of non-carbonated drinks).  On the flip side you’ll hear the stories of companies that got it right.

What’s the point?  It’s McCraken’s belief that although Steve Jobs, Richard Branson and Martha Stewart have a guru reputation, their sensibility for culture can be reverse-engineered.

35 pages in…this will help you.  If you’ve been at all concerned that your organization exists in some kind of time warp, you need to pick up this book.

I don’t know about you…but I love the creativity of Duarte Designs.  Nancy Duarte and her team have created a consistent stream of very creative stuff for a long time.  Her book, slide:ology, is a really helpful part of my thinking when I have a presentation to do.  The Duarte Design blog is a great source of inspiration for me.

Here’s a recent slide presentation they prepared for the introduction of PowerPoint 2010:

I don’t know about you, but I love a really cool logo.  Tripped across this collection over at creativefan.com today and thought you might want to check it out.  My personal favorite?  Check it out…and be inspired.

Do you know what the mission of your organization is?  Maybe you don’t know the exact verbiage…but do you know the mission?  Could you explain it if asked?  What about your teammates or the newest members of your organization?  Could they explain what your mission is?

If not…are you ever troubled by that?  If you can’t clearly explain what you exist to do, are you losing any sleep?

My sense is that nothing is more important than clarity about the mission; clarity about the business you’re in (as Peter Drucker said it).  And yet, so many organizations miss this fundamental truth.  Oh, they have a mission statement.  It just doesn’t have anything to do with what they’re really about.  Or it’s a relic from a time when they were focused.  Or maybe they just borrowed their mission statement from another organization.  Worse still, maybe their mission statement isn’t really about their mission.  Maybe it’s more of a value or something that sounds good.

Is it really all that important to have a mission?

Yes…a mission gives a reason for being.  A mission gives purpose.  And you might be thinking, “Duh!  Already there!”

What about being clear on what the mission is?  Is it essential to be clear?

Absolutely.  In fact, without clarity, without focus, your organization will wander, your organization will never really flourish.  You may experience growth, but it won’t be lasting.  You may have seasons where things seem to work, but it will be unsustainable.  The first difficulty may not flatten you, but eventually a lack of clarity will stall you.

I loved Peggy Noonan’s end of the year Wall Street Journal article.  She pointed out the fact that perhaps “the most worrying trend the past 10 years can be found in this phrase: ‘They forgot the mission.’ So many great American institutions—institutions that every day help hold us together—acted as if they had forgotten their mission, forgotten what they were about, what their role and purpose was, what they existed to do.”

Hmmm.  They forgot the mission.

Sound familiar?  Does your mission, the mission of your organization, come immediately to mind?  Or do you have to hem and haw to explain what your organization exists to do?  If you asked random members of the organization would they have the same idea?  Or would they be more than a little vague?

If there is not clarity, you’re heading for a stall or you’re in it now.  You’re heading for disarray or you’re in it now.

Want things to change?  You’ve got to get clarity on the mission.