Did a talk this morning at Minnesota Manufacturing Group - the "7 Mistakes" talk from July, slightly revised.
Tremendously experienced and sharp group, asked some great questions - like how to measure and find the discipline of execution. like how to keep strategic plans from being perceived as "same old, same old," like the time horizon of long-term plans, like how to optimize ownership and accountability at the right levels. Reflecting on the answers will take several blogs!
Some organizations do carry their strategic plans over from year to year. If it's working, that's great. But the question is how do you know it's working, and that gets to metrics.
A strategy without a dashboard is almost useless - and creating the dashboard is where the first hard work comes in. There should only be a few metrics, since humans can focus on a few things, especially for a prolonged period of time.
And if there's only a few, then they'd better be good ones!
What makes good dashboard metrics?
They're forward-looking. On sales, for instance, you need good information about what's in the funnel (or pipeline) several months out, with appropriately cautious metrics that there won't be many surprises.
They're timely. On customer satisfaction or employee experience, an annual survey is too long to wait to find out if there's a problem! Better to have smaller samplings more often to keep a finger on the pulse so that corrections can be made when needed.
They measure what matters, rather than what's easy or traditional to measure. When a call center realized what pressuring to reduce time-on-call meant for customer satisfaction (strong negative correlation), they switched to randomly sampling customer satisfaction, without pressuring agents to get off the phone quickly.
They're trustworthy. The old adage of "garbage in, garbage out" is as true today as when the phrase was first used in the 70's - you can't make good decisions on bad data. If a key data source is compromised, leaders need to clean it up or find other data to inform the same objective.
They're strategically consistent. One person from Minnesota Manufacturing Group told the story of an organization he knew that measured salespeople on gross revenue, and production on cost-savings. Can you guess what these competing metrics created?
Next strategy blog - how to avoid "same old same old"
Showing posts with label planning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label planning. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Monday, June 27, 2011
Nice article on bad strategy
McKenzie Quarterly's June issue has a good article on bad strategy that got me thinking about the "7 Strategy Mistakes" I'm presenting in late July. Some of what the article lists is also what's in the presentation.
The article lists the hallmarks of bad strategy are failure to face the problem, mistaking goals for strategy, bad objectives (fuzzy or "blue sky"), and fluff.
The article attributes the abundance of bad strategy to inability to decide, and to following a template-style strategy.
It's on the last point, his assertion that templating the vision, mission, values, and strategies always leads to empty rhetoric and fluff, that I believe the author is mistaken.
Of course, using a template poorly can go wrong . If an organization found a strategy self-help website and approached it as if playing "buzzword Mad-Libs" they'll get meaningless fluff. In the worst cases I've seen, they may work on it so hard and so long that they start to think it's beautiful -- often to the amusement of others. What a waste when it goes astray like that!
But when leaders develop strategy well, they ...
AND when they also really revisit the Why are we here? questions of vision, mission, and values (sometimes with help, when that's not a skill that the leaders start with) - then they can also engage the hearts, minds, and full talents of the organization.
Because the most brilliantly conceived competitive strategy won't make much difference if the organization isn't aware, aligned, accountable, and committed to it.
The article from McKenzie Quarter can be found at http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/The_perils_of_bad_strategy_2826
The article lists the hallmarks of bad strategy are failure to face the problem, mistaking goals for strategy, bad objectives (fuzzy or "blue sky"), and fluff.
The article attributes the abundance of bad strategy to inability to decide, and to following a template-style strategy.
It's on the last point, his assertion that templating the vision, mission, values, and strategies always leads to empty rhetoric and fluff, that I believe the author is mistaken.
Of course, using a template poorly can go wrong . If an organization found a strategy self-help website and approached it as if playing "buzzword Mad-Libs" they'll get meaningless fluff. In the worst cases I've seen, they may work on it so hard and so long that they start to think it's beautiful -- often to the amusement of others. What a waste when it goes astray like that!
But when leaders develop strategy well, they ...
- answer the hard questions in an honest SWOT,
- do the hard homework of figuring out who's the real competition and how to beat them,
- do a cold-eyed, realistic assessment of the changing market
- make a coherent plan for using talent, finance, resources...
AND when they also really revisit the Why are we here? questions of vision, mission, and values (sometimes with help, when that's not a skill that the leaders start with) - then they can also engage the hearts, minds, and full talents of the organization.
Because the most brilliantly conceived competitive strategy won't make much difference if the organization isn't aware, aligned, accountable, and committed to it.
The article from McKenzie Quarter can be found at http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/The_perils_of_bad_strategy_2826
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
How to map to the future
Once your future’s envisioned, the harder work begins. Envisioning the future state as powerfully, vividly, viscerally as possible is creative, inspiring fun. (If it’s not, you’re not doing it right!)
This step’s much harder, and comes with a tide of hard questions. The first and hardest is, where are you now, really?
To get to that envisioned, inspiring future, you need a cold hard look at exactly what your present reality is.
That assessment includes (but, as a lawyer would say, “…is not limited to…”) –
• What’s your product and service mix? What do you do now to make enough money to pay the bills?
• What’s your brand, and how’s it doing in the marketplace?
• What are your financial resources and liabilities?
• What’s your current inventory, equipment, licenses, productive capacity…?
• What skills, talents, gifts does your staff currently have – and use?
• How well do they understand how their current roles fit the current reality? How engaged are they?
• What is your competition, and how’s the contest? When they win, how do they win?
With a little imagination, these actually apply to individuals as well as to organizations.
They’re hard questions that need honest answers, and these take a little time and wrestling to realistically assess.
But until you do, you can’t go on – because you can’t build a useful map based on any delusions. You have to know where you are, first, before you set your course to your future.
Next blog post – How to get there, from here...
This step’s much harder, and comes with a tide of hard questions. The first and hardest is, where are you now, really?
To get to that envisioned, inspiring future, you need a cold hard look at exactly what your present reality is.
That assessment includes (but, as a lawyer would say, “…is not limited to…”) –
• What’s your product and service mix? What do you do now to make enough money to pay the bills?
• What’s your brand, and how’s it doing in the marketplace?
• What are your financial resources and liabilities?
• What’s your current inventory, equipment, licenses, productive capacity…?
• What skills, talents, gifts does your staff currently have – and use?
• How well do they understand how their current roles fit the current reality? How engaged are they?
• What is your competition, and how’s the contest? When they win, how do they win?
With a little imagination, these actually apply to individuals as well as to organizations.
They’re hard questions that need honest answers, and these take a little time and wrestling to realistically assess.
But until you do, you can’t go on – because you can’t build a useful map based on any delusions. You have to know where you are, first, before you set your course to your future.
Next blog post – How to get there, from here...
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
How can you create your future?
Previous entry left with “Plan your future to create it. Envision the future you want, map how to get there, set goals and achieve them.”
It’s not really as easy as that sounds. If it were, everybody would do it, all the time. As is, very few do. Both organizations and individuals are more frequently reactive than planful.
But those that are actively engaged in creating their future are more successful and satisfied than the rest.
Step 1 is to envision the future you want.
When operating reactively, under stress, just coping, that can be a great challenge.
It requires a decision to put the present “on hold” for short period, to disconnect from the stress, to recognize that the all-consuming crises will have to wait a bit.
The important work of envisioning the future has to take priority over the urgent, if only for a little while.
Is "a little while" all this takes?!?
Well, that depends – on how many people need to be involved. When an individual creates her own vision of the future, is can be pretty quick, with guidance and attention.
When a small organization envisions its future, those various views need to be reconciled to a meaningful consensus. That takes longer, but still can be achieved in a morning.
When a larger organization does this, more people need to be involved and engaged, and it becomes an ongoing process. The senior leadership creates the vision, and then needs to engage the rest of the organization. While more time on the calendar will pass, it’s still just a very few hours at a time, spread over several weeks.
Is it worth the time and effort?
When you consider that the alternative is staying reactive, and what that costs, it certainly is.
It’s not really as easy as that sounds. If it were, everybody would do it, all the time. As is, very few do. Both organizations and individuals are more frequently reactive than planful.
But those that are actively engaged in creating their future are more successful and satisfied than the rest.
Step 1 is to envision the future you want.
When operating reactively, under stress, just coping, that can be a great challenge.
It requires a decision to put the present “on hold” for short period, to disconnect from the stress, to recognize that the all-consuming crises will have to wait a bit.
The important work of envisioning the future has to take priority over the urgent, if only for a little while.
Is "a little while" all this takes?!?
Well, that depends – on how many people need to be involved. When an individual creates her own vision of the future, is can be pretty quick, with guidance and attention.
When a small organization envisions its future, those various views need to be reconciled to a meaningful consensus. That takes longer, but still can be achieved in a morning.
When a larger organization does this, more people need to be involved and engaged, and it becomes an ongoing process. The senior leadership creates the vision, and then needs to engage the rest of the organization. While more time on the calendar will pass, it’s still just a very few hours at a time, spread over several weeks.
Is it worth the time and effort?
When you consider that the alternative is staying reactive, and what that costs, it certainly is.
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