Archive for November, 2009
Four Secrets For Driving Organizational Results
A secret is defined as something hidden or concealed. On the other hand, some secrets are hidden in plain sight. You just have to know what to look for.
So it is with these four secrets for driving organizational results. These “secrets” are hidden in plain sight, but not used by most business leaders for a variety of reasons. “We’ve never done it that way before.” “I don’t have time to figure out a new way of doing things.” “The results we get are not great, but they’re consistent.”
Whatever the reasons for not using these “secrets,” here are four secrets that can significantly improve organizational results if you will use them in your organizations.
- Improve Employee Performance. Organizational results is a function of individual employee performance. Whether you implement behavioral interviewing, improve leadership effectiveness, increase employee accountability, improve the effectiveness of decision making, make meetings more productive or learn to have more honest and direct conversations, you can directly improve the performance of your employees individually and collectively.
- Organizational Process/Structure: Your organization’s processes and structure are either helping build productivity and organizational effectiveness or your processes and structure are working against your efforts to improve organizational performance and results. Organizational process and structure can create limitations, obstacles and a culture of “it’s not my job.” Or, organizational processes and structure can create a balance between giving employees the responsibility they want while, at the same time, providing high levels of accountability for results. Apply this secret and it will feel like you’ve released the emergency brake while driving down the road.
- Breakthrough Strategic Planning: If your strategic planning efforts are based on forecasting forward the same 2.5% growth from the last three years to next three years, it’s not strategic planning. Breakthrough strategic planning involves looking for market opportunities where you can win and where your competitor’s can’t win. What are the strengths unique to your organization and how can you capitalize on them? Figure that out for your company and organize to take advantage of those opportunities. If you do, you’ll set sales and profitability records that will stun you.
- Management Model Innovation: Face it, while we have a great track record for product innovation and technology innovation in the last fifty years, we have nothing to show in terms of management innovation. We are, today, using virtually the same management model that was designed by people born in the late 1800’s to usher in the industrial revolution. Job descriptions, organizational charts, titles, productivity measures and a fanatical focus on efficiency are all creations of the industrial age management model. These 100+ year old practices were not designed to address today’s issues of global competition, deregulation, technology advances, 5 generations working in the same workforce, the increasing pace of change, information overload and the impact of the Internet. Find new ways to manage the organization of today and you’ll build competitive advantage that cannot be matched.
Four “secrets”, each of which can improve organizational performance dramatically. Decide on which “secret” you want to focus on and gather the resources necessary to implement some of these proven practices.
If you do, you’ll get to the end of 2010 and be amazed at your progress. If you don’t, you’ll be disappointed as you look back at the opportunities you missed out on in 2010. The decision is yours.
Strategic Planning and Beyond
Hopefully you operate your company with a yearly business plan that includes a plan for sales growth and a budget based on reality. And, hopefully, you compare your progress compared to plan throughout the year and make adjustments accordingly. At the very least you should be using these tools. If you’re not, you’re driving the company bus with your eyes closed.
If you see value in planning beyond one year, you are probably doing some form of strategic planning. An effective strategic planning process helps you proactively determine the future of your organization by taking advantage of market opportunities that your competitors are not as well equipped to take on. An effective strategic planning process will have a direct positive impact on your company’s profitability and organizational results. If you are using strategic planning as a tool to lead your company, your eyes are open and you have a pair of binoculars, while your competitors are planning to buy some binoculars someday when they get a chance.
What’s beyond strategic planning?
While strategic planning can add significant results to your organization’s bottom line, there is something you can do beyond strategic planning to create breakthrough results. Management innovation. Management innovation is defined as anything that substantially alters the way in which the work of management is carried out.
Face it, the management models we use today were created by industrial age pioneers born in the mid to late 1800’s. But, we’re not in the 1800’s or the 1900’s any more, are we? Today’s challenges include globalization, deregulation, the pace of change, the impact of the Internet and so on. Our current management models were not designed to address the challenges we face today.
A growing list of companies are challenging their assumptions about their current management practices and creating management models that address the challenges in today’s society. The results are organizations achieving breakthrough results not even imagined possible by business or strategic planning. How did they do it? Fewer layers of management. Increased levels of accountability and passion. Every employee focused on delivering financial results. No, it’s not a dream. And, yes, it is possible.
Where do you find resources for management innovation? One resource that I recommend is The Future of Management by Gary Hamel. Warning! The material in the book, like the author, is a bit dry. OK, very dry. In addition, the book is aimed at Fortune 500 companies. You’ll have to do some translating to make appropriate application to your company. However, it’s a great starting point.
Where do you find resources to help you create and implement management innovation in your company? Call us. We’ve helped many organizations implement innovative management practices that resulted in our clients becoming leaders in industries where there hasn’t been anything new in years or decades.
Management innovation is game changing. Change the game before your competitors change it for you.
More Of The Same In 2010
Eariler this week two Federal Reserve governors delivered bad news and really bad news. Both said that, while the economic recovery is underway, we are likely to experience a “jobless recovery.” Worse, they said their analysis indicated that unemployment would recover over a period of years, not months.
In light of these challenging reports, what are you doing to improve the current and future results for your company? What we’re experiencing is not a pause between innings. We’re now playing a different game.
With the game now tennis instead of kickball, some business leaders still insist they still don’t want a tennis racket? They’ve decided to kick the tennis ball. Let us know how that works.
Maybe it’s time to think about making the changes you should have made five years ago in your company. Today could be the day when you establish the plan that will lead your company out of the danger zone. If you wan’t an outsider’s perspective, call on us for a free no-obligation consultation.
