For a pdf of this article, click here. 

“What’s the first thing we do to help clients find money?” That was the question Wendi and I set out to answer when we had a forehead-thumping déjà vu. Although we didn’t phrase it quite that way, we did answer that question here about two years ago. The answer still seems pretty timely, so we’re running it again, minus a couple of typos:

Accomplishing More with Less, Instead of Doing More with Less

We know more than a few people who are bitter about being asked to “do more with less.” We understand. If you are asked to keep doing the same stuff, but with less money and manpower, it feels like your only options are to work faster or longer, which after a point is ridiculous. One reader of Government Executive magazine reacted to President Obama’s April 2011 call for leaner government by commenting, “[Doing] ‘more with less’ just makes those who are left to do the work overburdened, underappreciated, and ready to call it quits!” That sentiment isn’t confined to the public sector.

Another sentiment we’ve seen in spades expresses the intention to do less with less: “You cut my budget by twenty percent? Fine. I’ll cut my output by twenty percent. What d’ya expect?! You poke me in the eye, I’ll poke you back.” Unfortunately, doing less with less isn’t effective in the today’s world. Whether we work in iPhones or airlines, we all have to up our game to stay in the game.

Most people who try to up their game do so by aiming for greater efficiency. It seems like the obvious place to start. But, granting that most organizations are ripe for streamlining, we’d suggest that anyone facing a belt-tightening first consider answering these three pointed questions:

Question #1: “What’s the point?” An admiral we know once remarked, “Before doing anything else, leaders have to ask the existential question: ‘Why does my organization exist?’” He’s right. What is the purpose or objective of your team, your organization, your project, or your process?

Another leader recently commented, “My people think the point of their job is to do safety inspections. It isn’t. The point of their job is to help ensure safety.” If he can help his employees to understand that, the work they do will become richer, more interesting, and more meaningful. Once people really know what business they’re in, some of their busy-ness can drop away.

Asking “what’s the point?” takes us a conceptual level higher than the old “effectiveness-before-efficiency” dictum. A thoughtful answer to that question provides extraordinary leverage for anyone who wants to achieve impact. If military strategist Clausewitz was right when he said that the essence of strategy is to concentrate one’s forces on the “decisive point,” then one sort of decisive point worth knowing is the point of one’s organization.

Question #2: “How will I know when I’ve achieved ‘the point’?” Pondering this question is the first step toward stating your point so clearly that you and everybody else involved will know exactly what a home run looks like. If you can do that, you will achieve what social scientists “high inter-rater reliability.” In other words, you and your team will be able to agree whether something is happening rather than just hope you will know it when you see it.

For example, if a helpdesk department were to define their point as maximizing the productivity of their users, then they would be aimed in a good direction. At least they would know that their job is ultimately about users rather than technology. However, without a more specific goal, quite a lot of time and money could be ill spent in the service of “maximizing productivity.” A more specific statement might be, “Users will experience at least 99% uptime for their computers and smartphones” or “None of our users will report that their work was delayed due to technological breakdowns or outages.” Such clarifications are important because these two specific goals might drive different behavior – and spending decisions – even though they are both based on “maximizing productivity.”

Question #3: “What should we stop doing because it doesn’t achieve the point?” The people who whine loudest about being asked to do more with less paradoxically seem to be the ones who have the hardest time letting go of work. By “letting go,” we do not mean cutting back on existing effort; we mean completely stopping entire categories of activity that are not necessary or useful for reaching the primary goal. If activities don’t help achieve “the point,” then they are pointless.

The Prize: Answering these three pointed questions nets this reward: It frees people to focus on what they need to accomplish. It makes their doing more meaningful because it concentrates their attention on what actually matters. And with that kind of focus, it’s amazing how creative, resourceful, and energized people can be. Yes, people can even accomplish more with less, if only they understand the point of their efforts.

When we held a “Results Roundtable” for one senior leader and his team, he cautioned us in advance that it would be a short discussion because everybody already knew what they were there to do. To his surprise, it was not a short discussion, and it was not at all clear that his team understood as well as he did what they were supposed to accomplish. Afterward, he said it was the best such session he could recall. When we asked why, he said, “Because now we’re all focused on the right things and can stop doing the things that don’t matter.” Exactly.

For a pdf of this article click here.

Yikes! It’s the end of the year, and we’re all supposed to have a bunch of stuff done by now – like writing our strategic plans.

But the deadly temptation with strategic plans is just to “git-er-done” so we can “git-er-out-the-door!”

You see, simply getting it done and out the door doesn’t mean much if the plans never actually materialize. If the plan isn’t executed, then we’ve only checked a meaningless box, and we would have been far better off spending our time at a John Belushi film festival (not a bad idea, anyway).

In our business, we see the things that strangle strategic plans, the things that keep clever ideas from turning into results. Here are five questions that will help you to know if this year’s plan is dead on arrival. If you answer “No” to any of these questions, you might want to get out the gurney.

1.      Did the senior team do the heavy lifting?

“Run along and write our strategic plan.” Planning staffs get orders like that all the time. Unfortunately, much like asking your travel agent to tell you where you’re going, asking your planning staff to write your strategic plan is an absurd request. If you’re lucky enough to have a planning staff, use them to facilitate the planning process, not to do it for you. Don’t try to delegate strategic thinking or personal involvement.

2.      Are your strategic goals excruciatingly clear?

Fuzzy goals are easy to agree on but hard to complete. Fuzzy goals can look pretty on paper, but they suck up time and resources because interpretations of goal achievement can vary so widely.

We gave away our secret sauce for clear goals in “Are Goals Dangerous?” so we won’t repeat ourselves here.

3.      Have you assigned strategic goals to individuals?

You know the old saying, “If we’re all accountable, then no one is.” This is true. Like clarifying goals, clarifying accountability can generate a few moments of discomfort, but that beats the heck out of simply hoping someone will pick up the gauntlet.

4.      Did you state meaningful strategic assumptions?

All plans are based on pivotal assumptions about the future, but many plans fail to spell out those assumptions. Instead, they either state obvious but non-pivotal assumptions (e.g., “The economy will be uncertain”), offer plans masquerading as assumptions (e.g., “We assume we will need to invest more in training”), or simply don’t address the topic at all.

Agility is the prize for plans that show clear relationship between assumptions and their resulting strategies. If you’ve done that right, then you can change your plans when an assumption doesn’t pan out. That beats waiting until a strategy doesn’t pan out. It’s your early warning system.

See “Strategic Assumptions – A Prerequisite to Great Strategies: 10 Tips” for more on this topic.

5.      Are regular execution review meetings on your leadership team’s 2013 calendars?

Eisenhower famously said, “Plans are worthless, but planning is everything.” We wouldn’t agree that plans are worthless, but his point about planning is right. In fact, planning is so important that the leadership team must not stop doing it just because the plan has been published. Execution-focused leaders continue to meet regularly with the plan in front of them to address questions such as:

• How well is each of us meeting the commitments we agreed to in the plan?
• Who among us needs help, and how can we help them?
• Are our assumptions still correct?
• What unforeseen opportunities or problems should we reflect in our plans?
• Are we smarter about our strategies today than when we first wrote the plan? If so, how should we update our direction?

Monthly execution review meetings work best for leadership teams that want rapid change. Bi-monthly or quarterly meetings work well for everybody else. But when leaders revisit their plans and performance less often than that, those leaders become disconnected from their plans, and their plans become disconnected from reality.

If you didn’t like your answer to any of these questions, just know that most of these problems can be fixed. Doing so just requires focusing not only on your plan’s publication, but also on its execution.

Self-promotional note: Want strong execution management going into 2013? The ELG team can help. Inquire at info@elg.net 

For a pdf of this article click here.

“Goals are dangerous!” That’s what a current spate of management literature would have you believe, stating that goals cause narrow and short-term focus, inept performance, and harmful side effects such as unethical behavior.

Say it isn’t so!

Okay, we will. Goals are not dangerous. Not if they have a bit of strategic thinking behind them.

However un-strategic thinking – when spelling out strategic goals – can be disastrous. But first, the beef against goals.

The Indictment of Goals

Why the paranoia? People who claim goals are dangerous like to bring up anecdotes that, at first glance, seem to support their case. For example,

• The Enron debacle. Nefarious executives with stiff revenue goals and whopping rewards for meeting them. Hey, didn’t goals push them to cook the books and drive the company into the ground?
• The Ford Pinto tragedy. CEO Lee Iacocca demanded from his engineers a car that would be “under 2,000 pounds and under $2,000,” and they delivered a car that met those exact specs … and was incredibly unsafe. In that case, didn’t a goal actually kill people?

Generally, the grudge against goals can be lumped into three categories:

1. 1. Goals trigger sins of commission, such as imprudent risk-taking or side effects that harm bystanders now or in the future. This includes gaming the system.

2. 2. Goals trigger sins of omission, such as neglected opportunities to achieve different and better outcomes, or the chance to help teammates and thereby create a bigger win.

3. 3. Goals hurt the goal-seeker. First, they can de-motivate people who fall short of goal achievement. Second, they can undermine learning, because goals can distract goal-seekers from actually learning how to achieve a goal and instead encourage people to over-focus on performance (actually worsening performance).

Following this logic, should the X Prize Foundation and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency stop offering prizes for technological breakthroughs? Should venture philanthropies such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation stop helping charitable foundations set and achieve charitable goals? Maybe Thomas Edison should never have set a goal to create the electric light bulb. Obviously, there is a mountain of evidence that goals are powerful, effective, and a boon to humankind.

Instead of debating whether or not goals are dangerous, perhaps we need to ask, “When are goals dangerous?” Or, more helpfully, “How can we make goals safe and good?”

Content Precedes Form

Goal content matters. Loads of literature prescribes good goal form (e.g., “start with a verb”), but not nearly enough prescribes the strategic thinking that must occur before worrying about form. Just as a poem can have good rhythm and rhyme, but make no sense, a goal can be well constructed, but ill considered.

As Peter Drucker remarked on the goal-based system, “management by objectives,” “[It] works if you first think through your objectives. Ninety percent of the time, you haven’t.” So, perhaps there is such a thing as a DUMB goal – no acronym intended.

Here are four principles of strategic thinking that drive good – and safe – goal content.

1. Good Goals are About Results, Not Efforts

Many efforts fail because there was no definition of an end state, outcome, or result. In fact, many declared “successes” are based wholly on how much time, effort, or money was spent, without even a mention of results.

IBM – a truly great company – once learned this lesson the hard way by setting goals and rewards based on how many lines of code its programmers wrote; the result was loads of code and not much functionality. Now, they specify what the code needs to accomplish, and they let the programmers exercise their ingenuity toward those ends.

All of us have thought, “I wish my boss would just tell me what to do, and then get out of my way.” But most of us weren’t pleading for a detailed to-do list. We were looking for a description of what needs to be accomplished, and then a little autonomy to work toward that end. Corrosion of self-esteem and creativity comes from telling knowledgeable people how to do something that they’re better off figuring out on their own.

2. Good Goals Aim For The Right Results

If you don’t pause to think deeply about what you are really trying to achieve, it is easy to reach for the obvious (usually short-term) outcome instead of one that considers the bigger picture. Insightful or clever results usually stem from that broader context.

A classic case of short-term thinking is to aim at symptoms rather than causes. “Helping” a son get A’s on his homework, instead of helping him to understand the subject, for instance. Canadian management expert, Michael C. Anderson points out, “It takes hard work to drill down to root cause before developing correct action. But, as physicians know, prescription without adequate diagnosis is malpractice.”

The bigger, broader context goal often gives employees’ work more meaning, and is therefore a more powerful motivator. “We’re here to help make sure people don’t get hurt,” builds a lot more fire in the belly than “we’re here to do safety inspections.” People want to be part of something greater than themselves, and often they are. The right goal can help them see that, but the wrong goal can trivialize even the noblest efforts.

Had those Enron execs had a profitability goal, instead of a revenue goal, they would have been closer to aiming at a “right result.” (And, no, sales from one subsidiary to another, and back again, don’t count toward profit.)

One example is a mental health clinic that went from a ho-hum bromide, something along the lines of “Our role is to help mentally-ill patients” to “Our role is to enable our clients to live in the community.” Big shift, and it had a huge impact on how everyone in the hospital approached their work. More on them in a moment.

Sometimes the “right result” is not better performance of some sort; it’s learning how to achieve better performance. In our line of work, we are often asked to come in and do a project that will fix some kind of organizational issue. Every one of those projects is really at least two projects: (1) Figuring out what’s causing the problem, and then (2) solving the problem based on what we’ve learned.

It is impossible to know the content of the second project until the first one is completed. This approach is common for outside consultants, and most of our clients know it. But people inside organizations are often simply given a goal to improve something without first having a goal to figure out what the heck is going on.

Academics call this sort of goal a “learning goal.” And if you’re ultimately looking for good performance on an unknown task, research shows that “learning goals” need to precede “performance goals.”

3. The Results Are Indisputable

The targeted outcome needs to be empirically verifiable; in other words, everybody involved needs to be able to gauge whether a home run has occurred. The ambiguity (and associated risk of misinterpretation) of “I’ll know it when I see it” breeds frustration and waste. Especially when others’ time, money or even lives are being spent, responsible leaders must be precise about what they are aiming for. How they achieve it (i.e., strategies and tactics) might need to change as they go, but the desired outcome probably won’t change if it’s well considered at the start.

A couple of years ago, we were hired to help improve the alignment and focus of a senior leadership team. On the front end of the engagement, we surveyed each team member on his or her interpretation of the organization’s top-level “goals.” On a senior team of 9 people, there were between 3 and 7 radically different interpretations of each goal. In fact, in the case of one goal we discovered that three different departments had launched large initiatives “in support of” the goal – each going in different directions.

Of course, the advantage of such fuzzy goals is that they are politically attractive: like Rorschach inkblots, we all get to see in them whatever we want, so agreement comes easily. Unfortunately, the arguments and rancor that were so deftly dodged by vague language on the front end are the inevitable comeuppance on the tail end, after all the time and money is squandered, and hope and trust depleted.

On a happier note, the mental health hospital we mentioned earlier made their “right result” into one that was also indisputable. They established a crystal clear goal to “increase the number of days between patient discharge and re-admission by at least 50%,” a target they hit.

So, the point is not only to target a “right result,” but also to make it so clear that it passes the simple “bar bet” test we described in an earlier post: absolute clarity to all about what is meant, and what success or failure will look like.

Incidentally, there’s quite a lot written these days about the role of failure in innovation: frequent, low-risk failure that nets learning and propels you forward. We’ve written elsewhere about success and failure factors in this approach. But one thing is clear: unless your targeted result is indisputable, then no failure (or success) can actually happen. If I kick a football into a field with no particularly clear target, then no particular instance is a success or a failure, and it will be hard to learn anything about what works or doesn’t. This is not experimenting; it’s only dabbling, and it begets little innovation. And that’s fine, if it’s your own time and money.

4. Good Goals Have Guardrails

Almost any time there’s a clear goal and someone motivated to achieve it, you have the possibility of unintended negative consequences. Of course, some side effects can’t be predicted. That’s reality. But many, many of them are easy to list in advance – and with descriptions that are (again) indisputable – so that they can be prevented or at least controlled.

Iacocca’s goal for the Pinto (2,000 pounds and $2,000) has rhetorical oomph, but he could have achieved a historic success instead of an infamous failure with the simple addition of: “AND at least as good a record of safety and reliability as our existing line.”

And the mental health hospital? What were their guardrails? Easy: “Increase the number of days between patient discharge and re-admission by at least 50%, with this restriction: no change in admission or discharge standards.” You see, an overzealous psychologist could have gamed the system by slowing or stopping the process of patient admission, or by discharging only the very few, least risky patients. So, omitting that obvious and pivotal restriction would have been, well, crazy.

A Holistic Approach: Whole Goals

Over the years of helping clients aim and align their organizations, we’ve developed a process for moving from strategic thinking to daily execution. We call this the Whole Goal Process® and, as you might imagine, the four strategic thinking steps we’ve just described are important elements.

We use a Whole Goal template (yes, a “format”) that helps channel the strategic thinking into a clear and cogent statement. Unfortunately, as with any template, it’s possible to fill in the blanks “correctly,” but without the necessary strategic thinking. But done correctly, it gives you strategic thinking in a box, and indeed drives what some of our clients call “organizational wholeness.” So, with that caveat, here’s a potential way to corral your good thinking into a clear goal. A few examples.

Whole Goal of an Operations Manager:

Whole Goal of a Military Base Commander Operating Off-Shore:

Here’s your crib sheet. Note that each of the four italicized words below represents one of the four strategic thinking steps we described above.

 Time, Money, and a Free Template

Of course, schedule and budget must also be clear, and we haven’t discussed those critical factors. But time and money are the things consumed, not the thing produced. They usually require less deep thought than what you actually want to achieve (and prevent). There is room for all those things, and a few other critical elements on the slightly more detailed template we use with clients. If you’d like a copy, click here.

Parting Shot

So, are goals dangerous? Sure, kind of like fire, electricity, mighty rivers, teenage daughters, and many other forces of nature. But there are known rules for harnessing these forces (except maybe teenage daughters). The trick is to think strategically about the content of the goal – and who you’re giving it to – before being satisfied that “our goal is in place.”

Have you got an example of what we’re talking about? Or, have we missed something? Please let us know in the “comments” section.

Additional Resources

Incidentally, if you want to read some of the criticisms of goals, take a look at this summary of one severe academic critique. For a rejoinder, see this response, which we find more compelling in its logic. Or, for a better use of your time, here is smart, sober summary of the scientific research by two giants in the field, Edwin A. Locke & Gary P. Latham.

Also, fantastic innovations are being launched (pun intended, if you know about the X-Prize) with clear goals and cash awards. See this excellent piece from McKinsey & Company on Capturing the Promise of Philanthropic prizes.

Any serious strategist must ask, “How will we know when we’ve succeeded?” Strategies have intended outcomes – goals – and it’s terribly helpful if those outcomes are clear enough that success or failure will be indisputable.

So, we’re offering an alternative to the usual questions such as: “Do we have metrics?” (Or worse, “Do we have enough metrics?”) Instead, lead with, “Is our success stated so clearly that we could place a bet on it?”

The Bar Bet

At some point most of us have been in good-natured arguments with friends that amounted to not much more than redundant bickering. Such as:

You (beer in hand): “Yeah, I’ve seen that guy play. He’s a natural-born athlete. He’s going to have a great first year.”

Friend: “I doubt it. He might have natural talent, but he hasn’t developed it yet. I predict a ragged first year for that guy.”

You: “No way! He’s going to surprise everyone. That guy is good.”

Friend: “You’re crazy.”

. . . and then something magical happens, something wonderful, something that halts the bickering and then transforms conversation . . .

One of you says, “I’ll bet you twenty dollars that you’re wrong.”

This is the kind of comment that, as some academics would say, provokes an “epistemological shift.” Now, you both must work together to agree on objective and verifiable proof of success – a definition of “a great first year.”

If you have ever been through this kind of bar chatter, then you know exactly how to have “the right metrics.” It’s all about crafting a description of success that is so clear, you and a friendly skeptic could bet on it. It’s that simple.

Non-bet-able vs. Bet-able

Some typically vague (non-bet-able) strategic goals, and some bet-able alternatives:

Go Ahead and Argue

Notice that you might not agree with all our bet-able alternatives. That’s a good thing. It means the proposed definition of success is so clear that we can argue over it before we start spending time and money to achieve it!

Next time you make a grand declaration of direction (say, “We’re going to be an employer of choice!” or, “We’re going to provide humanitarian assistance,” or “I’m going to start being a better parent,”) ask yourself how you would define success if someone bet twenty dollars against you. If your declaration passes the “bar bet” test, then you’re good to go. The people paying for the result will know what they’re getting; the people doing the work will have clear direction; and you will have the satisfaction of knowing – without question – whether you’re successful.

Learning “What Works”

Related point. There are many ways to learn “what works.” (A favorite of ours is “be a Borg, like Genghis Kahn.”) Economist Tim Harford’s recent TED talk touts the importance of getting at “what works” through humility, trial, and error (or “trial and correction,” as one friend calls it). The only thing left out of Harford’s powerful talk is the importance of defining “what works.” The bar bet helps you do exactly that.

An introduction: We like Mike Kipp, and we’ve never met him. Over time, we’ve come to admire this fellow blogger’s ideas on strategy – and we’re a bit picky on that topic. (He also has some pretty interesting perspectives on health care, which is his main focus.) Anyway, he is a sharp thinker and writer and has consented to share one of his gems one over here at our outpost.

Regardless of the type of your organization – small business, big business, non-profit, or government – there’s something here for you. Thanks, Mike!

Wendi & Bill

The Challenge of Strategy: Seven Lessons

Mike Kipp

“There is nothing more difficult, nor more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order of things.” -Machiavelli – 15th Century

Each year, thousands of companies go through a ritualized process they hope will prompt new vision, renewed energy and sufficient focus to enable them to prevail into the next century. Nearly 70% are disappointed.

Under the best of circumstances, the intended outcome for Strategy Development is, in the words of James Brian Quinn, “a sustainable pattern of response to market needs, consciously selected in light of probable shifts in the environment, relative competencies of the firm and the anticipated moves of intelligent competitors.” Such patterns initially develop through superior business insight and are maintained through entrepreneurial instinct. Sooner or later, though . . . and increasingly sooner . . . it becomes necessary to formalize the call for insight and instinct.

Four Threshold Challenges

All my work with companies in developing and executing on strategy finds leadership confronting a quartet of concurrent challenges:

• The intellectual challenge of discerning a unique competitive posture within an evolving business environment;
• The social challenge of sustaining healthy dialogue among parties who, for a variety reasons, see the world through different lenses;
• The organizational challenge of aligning activities and processes with strategic intentions; and
• The ethical challenge of living that posture, day in and day out.

Seven Lessons About Strategy Formation

Against this backdrop, seven fundamental lessons about strategy emerge. Three of these concern themselves with content; three with process; and one with leadership:

One: The “Right” Process is the one that gives you the most direct confrontation with your core challenge. In recent years, management has become something of a packaged goods industry with both consultants and academics proclaiming victory through new formulas for business renewal. No size fits all. Although the result of strategic thinking must be managed, strategy making is not a neat, analytical, administrative process. Leadership does best when it endorses an approach which promotes passion and synthesis through an “in your face” relationship with both vulnerability and opportunity. Avoid the temptation to shop for the new “Rosetta stone.” Ask first what the core challenge is under all that third class mail. How is it disguised? Construct all design decisions regarding participation and pre-work so as to keep what it takes to WIN . . . what’s important now . . . at the center of your attention.

Two: Most people are more interested in business as usual than bold moves. As much as we want change, most of us would rather counterfeit the process than undergo the pain of abandoning a past that worked so well. Rather than opening the whole system – market dynamics, organizational design, leader behavior, etc. – to inspection, most teams really want the same business case to work better as an outcome of their deliberations. Focus on concepts and context rather than forecasts and fixes. Proceed on the assumption that operational issues such as on-time delivery have been rectified. What’s the enduring question beneath that question? Engage people in regular dialog around strategic issues to develop cognitive capabilities and maximize the opportunity for ideas.

Three: New initiatives seldom come from old insights. The gathering of new knowledge is essential to new thinking. At its most effective level, this goes well beyond the accumulated experience of customers, suppliers, distributors and internal process managers. Nor is fact gathering the sole purview of a Strategic Planning, Research or External Affairs department. Everyone should be involved in gathering primary data outside the range of their normal experience so as to equip themselves for true dialogue on strategic intent. Make the building of a robust fact base an ongoing project, constantly extending the boundaries of inquiry. Do not settle for cumulative experience alone. Organize your analysis around categories such as Industry, Competitors, Company and Financial Dynamics. Catalog and mine the hundreds of “fugitive studies” that are conducted by people throughout the organization.

Four: Dysfunctional teams prevent both breakthrough and follow-through. Executive teams often handle conflict poorly, conduct themselves according to unwritten rules that limit their effectiveness, and waste time in “violent agreement.” Members bludgeon one another over differences in mindset and style. They tacitly consent not to learn from their collective experience for the sake of keeping peace in the family or “staying safe.” Alternately, everyone speaks his or her mind but no one ever changes it. Unless these dysfunctions are addressed squarely, no process will produce meaningful change. Conduct regular biopsies on the “health” of the Executive team from a process standpoint. Review incentives for (and injunctions against) appropriate and relevant team behavior. Genuinely encourage managers to bring a whole person to work rather than a role and a persona. One of the greatest strengths a team can develop is the capacity to be vulnerable with one another.

Five: Organizations are perfectly designed to achieve the results they are getting. While management texts argue that “form follows function,” form once cast invariably limits function. A three-business unit design, for example, will often impede cross-selling, geographic focus or the achievement of enterprise-wide synergies. Deliberations on strategy that don’t consider design barriers to new behavior unwittingly accept the limits imposed by reporting relationships, work flows and other elements of organizational architecture. Spend time on identifying how key initiatives, best practices or even operations are thwarted by design elements. Ask what unintended consequences might be traced to organization design, going beyond a general critique to a specific taxonomy of design decisions . . . structure, reward systems, information flows, decision protocols, etc. Consider how design will influence decisions regarding participation, the organization of data and the articulation of strategy itself.

Six: People do better at things they had a hand in creating. Executives often ask how they can get “buy in” as if there were an after-the-fact communications program that might “win the hearts and minds of men . . .” At a profoundly important level, however, strategy is not just about facts; it is about meaning…and meaning grows from the opportunity to engage around important matters. Companies that execute well at the “muzzle end of the system” have found creative ways of engaging people in both the development of strategy and its meaning for their work lives. Seek out opportunities to substantively involve people in the strategic dialog . . . stretch assignments; fact-finding missions; supplier councils; customer visits; role swaps, etc. Never be lulled into the view that “all hands” meetings, tee shirts, newsletters or Vision statements communicate depth or behavior.

Seven: All organizational change begins with personal change. It is virtually impossible for an organization to “transform” itself if its members – particularly at the executive level – think “that’s just the way I am . . .” For an organization to truly change, a critical mass of people must fundamentally alter their perspectives on themselves, their working relationships and the world in which they live. Individuals always undergo significant change before organizations do. Any genuine assessment of “readiness to change” must go well beyond markets, channels, technology or “them.” It’s usually not up to them. It’s down to “us.” Ask what the change you profess to desire might call for from you. Use the “more of . . . less of” formula. Ask those who love you, as well as those who clearly do not . . . and listen. Then tell people what it is you are willing to leave behind for the sake of the future you want.

© Michael F. Kipp, May, 1998, 2009, 2011

This article was originally published as “The challenges of strategy: seven lessons” in Strategy & Leadership, 1999, Vol. 27:1

A speaker and consultant, Mike has written for Emerald Press’ Handbook of Business Strategy and McGraw Hill’s Handbook of Consulting based on his role in the development of IBM’s consulting skills school. He has authored articles (quite Google-able) such as, “Seven Mindsets in Strategic Governance,” “The Accidental Leader,” “Mapping the Business Innovation Process,” “Governing Boards at the Crossroads,” “Frameworks for Board Development,” “Strategy and the Board,” and “Rethinking the Non Profit Board.” He blogs regularly at www.thetripleaim.com about leadership for a re-formed healthcare.