Archives June 2018

A client asked, “What is the one roadblock I will encounter when improving the culture of leadership in my company?

I responded, “You.”

My client is bright, smart and successful, yet she could not break free to the next level in business.

Quite frankly she was her own trip wire.

My client:

– wanted to know what’s going on with every initiative and project
– tried to be personally acquainted with all the customers
– wanted to master of all the technology of the business
– wanted to feel like the hero, because no one can do what she can do

My client is doomed to a life of Sisyphean tasks with little hope of business growth, financial freedom, or the ability to take some time off.

Read more about Sisyphus and leadership

The more of the leader that is necessary to operate the business on a day to day basis, the smaller the business will remain.

Once we identified that my client was getting in her way of reaching their potential, we agreed that she had two choices.

1. Get comfortable with being the “key” employee and never achieve the kind of time and money freedom she wanted; or,

2. Choose to make a permanent adjustment that will transform their company forever.

Since I have been a part of helping leaders transform their leadership experience, I can reveal the three time-tested steps to get out of your way and achieve success.

Look in the mirror – Explain to yourself and your team that you are the limiting factor of the business. By being a micro-manager, technician, loving status quo, wearing too many departmental hats, always the hero, you have been holding back the success of the business, but now it’s time for a change.

Read More About Being Self Aware

Lead – Leadership is void when you are too busy doing the work of the business, but now you must be strong and decisive. To galvanize this strategic shift how you conduct business create strategic objectives that will provide direction to the team.

Read more about  taking action

Enable – Actively engage your team by changing your language from instructive to intentional. For example, tell your team that you intend to achieve an objective and ask for them to provide the how.

Read more about enabling people

The key in all three of these steps is in realizing that you must take action because no one else in your company will do it for you. For the few, the brave, those who pursue excellence and not status quo, now is the perfect time for a change.

Great leadership always comes from looking down on your business honestly.

What type of leader are you?

When I speak to various groups, I use my military and emergency management experience to teach leadership and project management lessons.

Recently I was asked if there was a difference between leading projects in a military and a civilian setting.

Yes, there are times in the military when project management is intense, and timings are compressed, but at its core, the principals are the same.

When I entered the military, I had no idea that that the training I received and the rules developed for infantry tactics were invaluable in leading project teams.

 Here is my top ten:

1. Plan. To survive combat, the infantry leader must think beyond the immediate situation and assess possible outcomes. The project manager should define how objectives will be met regarding scope, requirements, schedule, resources, risks, cost, quality and performance.

2. Study your Intel. In combat, knowing the situation on the ground is key to effectively adjusting your position. In project management, team composition, costs, weather and projects requirements will, most likely, change before completion, so stay ahead of it.

3. Check your kit. The tradition of the sergeant doing a weapons check is mirrored by the project manager’s check on available resources. Are the resource management & procurement management plans consistent with the project plan?

4. Check your communications. An infantry leader has a range of communication tool to stay in touch with those directing the operation and those executing the orders. Your communication tools should be diverse and tailored to the needs of all levels of internal and external stakeholders.

5. Know your team. Like the infantry leader, the project manager must be aware of team members’ capabilities as missions and projects fail due to the departure of a key contributor. Have the adequate backup and to shape your team, so its overall performance is greater than any one individual.

6. Never leave a team member behind. Combat team members must know that the team leader will take care of them. The project manager often demands extreme dedication from team members. In return, team members should be rewarded for successful project completion.

7. Know the territory. The infantry leader must be able to use the lay of the land advantageously. Likewise, a project manager must know the circumstances surrounding the project and must be able to internalize and articulate the goals of the project.

8. Be decisive. When an opportunity for failure looms, infantry leader is the person to evaluate the threat, enact a recovery strategy, and monitor the situation until the danger passes. Above all, the infantry leader and project manager must provide a clear vision of success.

9. Lead. The combat infantry leader often must make difficult decisions. Project managers are not involved in life-or-death decisions, but the stakes can be high.

10. The mission isn’t over until the paperwork is done. Once the mission is complete, the first order of business is to debrief & document the results. As project management: document the project, detail the results, move from implementation to sustained operations, and document lessons learned.

‘No great strategy was born without careful thought.’ (Anon) 

On the other side of that saying is the truism:

‘there comes a time in every great endeavour that you have to shoot the planners and start!’

Strategic planning is important.

By doing it you set priorities, guide investment decisions, and layout growth plans. But for many, the strategic planning has become just a thing you have to do and either result in a glorified budget or lots of razzle-dazzle & jazz-hands in the form of analysis, charts, and presentations – but with little that can be translated into action.

The result? Many strategic plans end up on the shelf, posted on the website or hidden away on a shared drive.

Many of you start new strategic planning cycle – how do you avoid being a statistic?

Use these four steps to make better use of the work that goes into planning a strategy & achieve something:

1. Experiment & test the assumptions

The very essence of the strategic plans is that they are a vision of a future state. And that necessarily requires assumptions that certain outcomes (increased revenue, improved margins, higher ROI’s) will result from a given initiative.

But too often these assumptions are only supported by secondary research, educated guesses, or assumptions rather than field tests.

The result? Managers are uncomfortable and unsure with moving into action, committing resources or preferring to stay with the business they know rather than possibilities that may or may not pan out.

To overcome this inertia, ask managers to include specific, short-term experiments, whose results will show what works and what does not.

2. Banish BS Words

Strategic plans are often filled with empty phrases such as “Leverage our World Class Operating Capabilities” or head-scratching statements like “Reshape Our Pricing Strategy to Drive Demand While Maintaining Market Access.”

Unclear language signals that you do not have a clear idea of what is needed to succeed. I have heard of organizations banning words and phrases such as leverage synergy, innovative and robust.

3. Banish the template

The template is the standard tool for strategic planning. I think in 13 years as an executive in a large NGO I have seen at least 15 strategic planning templates – often several in a single year.

Ideally, they force us to consider various topics – SWOT & environmental scans, competitive analysis and the comparison of data from across the organization.

But the rigid use of templates can focus actions on corporate requirements rather than how to grow business. When the same templates are used over & over & over, the result can be stale ideas, blah-blah responses, and worse, camouflaging key issues and opportunities that need to be addressed.

Avoiding this may be as simple as eliminating sections that no longer make sense or even better – throwing it in the garbage and starting over.

4. Ask provocative questions.

In theory, strategic planning should foster intense debates and discussions; but when the process is rigidly structured, and the documents crammed full of data, the dialogue will be stilted or constrained.

To overcome this, it’s important to ask tough questions when plans are presented in a way that can lead to unscripted answers that will enrich the thinking and increase everyone’s level of confidence in moving forward. A few examples include:

• “What are the top 2 or 3 things that must go right for this strategy to work?”
• “If we pursue this strategy, what are we deciding not to do?” and
• “What specific capabilities will we need to develop for this plan to succeed?”

Closing Thoughts

Strategic planning is an important part of the life cycle of any organization.

The challenge is to make sure that it’s more than busy work, or another corporate exercise, or razzle-dazzle jazz hands.

Click here to read about ‘busy-work.’