Focusing Change To Win Series – How Can You Lead to Thrive?

Posted on January 20, 2015 by agincourtarcher

Series Introduction

This is the eighth in the series of highlighting contributions from 1072 Business Leaders and Consultants from 80 countries in 19 Industry Sectors detailed in our book Focusing Change to Win. Each blog gives some of the key findings and a sample of useful tips. In this blog we are focusing on How Can You Lead to Thrive? Here are the other book sections we are highlighting:

8. How Can You Lead to Thrive?

Clearly from this survey, leadership skills that focus change to win are at a premium. Today, change is the norm. It is neither random nor regular but hovers somewhere between. How these interrelationships arise and how they challenge organizations is not well understood (IBM & KMPG Surveys endorse this)

Why should leaders focus on their organization’s essence?

An organization’s essence is the amalgam of mission, vision, values, intent and ethics. These components should be the focus of aligning and realigning people rather than delivering the corporate directives after a strategic planning retreat. Sustaining an organization’s essence is a dynamic that requires everyone’s engagement to define and redefine under changing situations.

It’s only by leaders “inter-reacting” that they can develop people’s shared clarity about the organization’s essence – “what we stand for!” From shared clarity comes confidence, from confidence comes cohesion and from cohesion comes the freedom to decide and act. That’s how organizations will stay on track today. Many people making many decisions true to their organization’s essence.

It’s also expected that some employees (including some executives) will not “buy into” an organization’s Essence once it is clearly defined. Leaders should then be ready for those employees and managers to transition out of the organization. This will benefit them and organizational cohesion

What are the dangers of using technology to increase control?

Technology increases the illusion of greater control which can feed a leader’s “Control Addiction”. More measurement equals more control. But measuring what is easy to measure can have the very opposite effect. The problem is that most of what is easy to measure has already occurred. What is difficult is dealing with the factors that are difficult to measure and with forecasting what is likely to happen down the road. We can’t spend more time looking through the “rear view mirror” when we have a winding road ahead of us. Technology’s cheapness and speed feeds this addiction with the past and “looking in the rear view mirror” by access to ever more data and information at the cost of acquiring knowledge and wisdom.

This condition is worsened by technologists clinging to largely sequential design and deployment processes which are not fully user or client inclusive, e.g. “Waterfall Process”. Contrast this with agile processes which are fully supported by our contributors. See the link to comparing the Waterfall Process with Agile Methodologies.

Why do we have difficulty developing leaders that can thrive in today’s conditions?

Today’s conditions are not good proving grounds for the leaders we need. More of doing more with less, multi-tasking and the growing doubt that we may be doing the wrong things means that decision-making, and expectations are now more compressed. Consequently, entrenched expediency leads us into solving one problem so quickly that we find we have now created five more problems. We are so busy trying to solve problems there’s no time for “Where the hell are we going?” These conditions are not good for selecting or developing leaders who can work well under fluid and complex conditions.

How do we develop leaders that can thrive?

The tension between what Leaders want to achieve and their current culture prevents traditional leadership training from making a significant impact. For example, many leaders’ previous training has left them feeling that they could do a better job doing it themselves. Of course, too often this has not happened together with little sign that they have addressed their own or their junior leaders’ performance issues. The consequence is that leading up to a change they lack confidence and skills to handle the natural uncertainty that change creates. Consequently, they default to avoidance and expediency and as a result staff resistance rises morale suffers.

The conclusion is that Leaders need to develop a better framework to assess their competence to lead people, make the next and later changes more effectively.

In this section we outline how leaders can be developed to increase their chances of achieving both measurable short- and longer term results than traditional leadership training. It is based on approaches:

Aligning People – Getting people on the Same Page
Action Learning – Solving Difficult Problems while developing leaders’ skills

A Final Thought

Our position is that it’s only by energizing people and harnessing technologies better than anyone else that organizations can survive and thrive. Genuinely aligned, empowered and collaborative people will outperform the competition every time. A leader’s role is to create successful change that fulfills people and avoids human casualties. Leaders need to create working relationships that are rewarding not just superficially productive.

Action Points 7: Leading to Thrive

A Leader’s greatest impact is when they motivate their followers to action by appealing to their shared sense of their organization’s essence. Use these questions to rate your leaders’ abilities:

To what extent do your leaders focused on developing rewarding not just working relationships?
How reliant are your leaders on “command and control”?
How well do they really engage those they lead?
How well do they foster a culture of collaboration? Consider both internally and externally.

Leading to the Essence

Do your people know what your organization stands for? Specifically:

How well understood is the organization’s essence? (mission, values, intent and ethics)
How well aligned are my people with the Organization’s Essence and where it’s headed?
To what extent do leaders use the essence to guide and coach their people?

Developing Leaders

To what extent are you distributing and empowering leaders at all levels.
What evidence do you see of true “inter-reaction” where success and failure are openly discussed?
To what extent do they then take lessons learned and use them to repeat success and avoid failure.
How well do they use processes to help people stand back, objectify problems and make people’s thought processes transparent?
To what extent does the urgent drive out the important and mask how things accumulate, misalign and make each subsequent more difficult?

Problem Solving

How often do your leaders try to solve complex problems with processes geared to “benign or simple problems”?

How often do leaders face complex or wicked problems?

Leading Learning

What expectations do we have of people to develop shared knowledge from similar situations?
How much effort have you put into helping people express being puzzled or misunderstood?
How well do they lead people on tackling problems and solutions by sharing understandings, resolving differences and producing agreed courses of action?
How well have leaders, especially senior leaders, consistently expressed their expectations of learning to all levels across the organization?

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Developing Leaders for Effective Change

Posted on January 6, 2015 by agincourtarcher

Leading in times of transition is at best a significant and complex challenge. At worst it can be a leader’s darkest nightmare. The tension between what leaders want to achieve and their organization’s culture often means that traditional leadership training has not equipped leaders to effectively lead the organization through major changes.
Too often previous leadership training and a history of failed change contribute to the tension between the forces for change and those for maintaining the status quo. Unfortunately, as each attempt to use training to improve leadership competence fails so do the chances of successful change decline.

One reason leadership training lacks impact (no matter how good) is the lack of rigorous and continuous linkage between advancing change and advancing competence. Consequently, leading up to a change, those expected to start the change become part of the problem, not the solution. Too often they are unable or unwilling to tackle rising uncertainty and resistance.

How can you re-engage managers and develop their leadership competence?
This blog looks at how you can develop both measurable short- and longer-term results based on:
1. Getting People On The Same Page by Aligning People and then;
2. Making Better Use of What You Have by using Action Learning to help managers solving difficult problems while developing their leaders’ skills.

Continue reading →

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Focusing Change To Win – How Effectively Are You Communicating Change?

Posted on January 6, 2015 by agincourtarcher

Series Introduction

This is the seventh in the series of highlighting contributions from 1072 Business Leaders and Consultants from 80 countries in 19 Industry Sectors detailed in our book Focusing Change to Win. Each blog gives some of the key findings and a sample of useful tips. In this blog we are focusing on How Effectively Are You Communicating Change? Here are the other book sections we are highlighting:

7. How Effectively Are You Communicating Change?

The following is based on 684 contributors who chose to add comments on communicating change. Unsurprisingly, contributors see their people at the heart of any successful change process. They see gaining stakeholder commitment as a force multiplier of powerful change ambassadors. Essential to creating that commitment are leaders taking their people into their confidence with honesty and courage.

Surprisingly, however, our analysis also sheds light on some blind spots. Overall, contributors focus more on technique than systemic or strategic issues when communicating change. For example:

They (Leaders) lack the ability to motivate or hold people accountable….they do a poor job at this…..lots of saying nothing….People are told, not asked.

Change Communication Blind Spots

How do communicate change. Zone of Concern Chart

Real change requires authentic communication and dialogue across all organizational levels. Although, employee’s resistance and disagreement are unavoidable, contributors show how it can be managed through multiplexed and constant communication. They stress that this only happens when change communication is centered on establishing and retaining trusting relationships. If employees feel fairness, they will trust more and trust is the glue of success.

So, what role does communication play in reducing change mistrust and cynicism among employees? Frequently, it’s people’s sense of fairness. The communication timing, involvement and sequence impact their sense of justice.

Where’s the Requiring Environment?

There seems little focus on improving alignment and change success. Issues like change management, communication, and change measurement were under 6% of contributors’ comments on communicating change.

Looking in more detail, a third of contributors said that they didn’t know of any change related communication or that their leaders don’t communicate enough.

For most contributors, real change is the outcome of authentic communication. They show how change can be managed through constant communication. Contributors often commented that trust in management was the only variable that significantly impacted change resistance.

However, comments on authentic communication and building trust seem to collide with those related to top down led change. Critical contributors point out that top down rests too often on leaders clinging to the belief that power, privilege and success lie in their core group. Whatever blend of top down and bottom up it is clear – one should be intentional and as one contributor said:

Being solid in the values you hold as a leader that needs clearly articulating and solidifying with your change management team before you start planning.

Our contributors are clear. Lay the groundwork for successful change before trying to carry out the next change. This starts with putting the change management team together before a specific change is planned. Then develop a shared governing set of values and design the change measurement framework.

Implementing Effective Change Communication Processes – A Questionnaire

This 38 question instrument was developed from 755 contributor comments on implementing an effective communication change process. It is designed to engage those involved in change management and leadership in selecting relevant questions and then reaching a consensus on improvement areas.

Analyzing Change Impacts
Set-up Change Program with Metrics
On-going Communication & Training

Action Points 6: Implementing an Effective Change-Communication Process

Based on your answers to the questionnaire above, use the following questions to develop your plan for developing effective change communication.

Have you established an explicit set of shared governing values?
How are you getting people ready for the inevitable change?
Have you engaged stakeholders and change agents?
Have you put the change-management team together?
How do plan to align the team’s values of change and their expectations of one another?
How are you going to improve leaders change communication skills?
Who is going to ensure that real change will be the outcome of authentic communication?
How are you going to ensure that all your people know and understand your change rationale?
How are you going to monitor employee’s sense of fairness and trust? (Remember: trust is the glue of success.)
How are you going to establish dialogue between groups and individuals, in often tense situations?
How are you going to establish and monitor your change’s requiring environment? Is there a set of aligned change expectations between leaders and each individual?

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Focusing Change To Win – Is Your Organization Thriving or Just Surviving?

Posted on December 9, 2014 by agincourtarcher

Series Introduction

This is the sixth in the series of highlighting contributions from 1072 Business Leaders and Consultants from 80 countries in 19 Industry Sectors detailed in our book Focusing Change to Win. Each blog gives some of the key findings and a sample of useful tips. In this blog we are focusing on Is Your Organization Thriving or Just Surviving? Here are the other book sections we are highlighting:

6. Is Your Organization Thriving or Just Surviving?

This in-depth analysis shows the wide range of factors that go into developing the Thriving Organization. Our intent in being comprehensive is deliberate. We want leaders to select which questions are most appropriate to them.

Our reasoning is that there are no simple solutions or steps to follow. What we urge is open debate in leadership teams to reach a commitment to those few things which can make a difference between being ahead and just playing catch up.

Thriving or Surviving Questionnaire

Enabling Factors

There are 69 questions to select from divided into seven categories to help as you develop your plan for building a more vibrant and competitive organization.

Leadership in Thriving Organizations
Change Management in Thriving Organizations
Planning to Thrive
Agility to Thrive
Thriving People
Communicating to Thrive
Learning to Thrive

Action Points 5: Developing the Thriving Organization

Based on your answers to the questionnaire above, use the following questions to develop your plan for developing a more vibrant and competitive organization.

Leadership in Thriving Organizations

What is the one thing you can do to improve your leaders focus for your current change?
What is your strategy for building leadership capacity and competence in the longer term?

Change Management in Thriving Organizations

Which aspects of change management do you need to address now?
What are you going to do differently in managing change in the longer term?

Planning to Thrive

How can you improve planning for change for the next time?

Thriving People

In terms of the current change, what can you do to focus people on making this change successful?
What is your focus going to be in improving peoples change readiness and agility?

Communicating to Thrive

Where do you need to focus in terms of improving communication?

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Focusing Change to Win Series – Why Bother Measuring Change?

Posted on November 11, 2014 by agincourtarcher

Series Introduction

This is the forth in the series of highlighting contributions from 1072 Business Leaders and Consultants from 80 countries in 19 Industry Sectors detailed in our book Focusing Change to Win. Each blog gives some of the key findings and a sample of useful tips. In this blog we are focusing on The Why and What of Change. Here are the other book sections we are highlighting:

Why Bother Measuring Change?

Most of our contributors do measure change, but 37% either don’t measure change or they don’t know if they do or feel measuring change is too difficult. So, here’s some evidence why this is worth struggling with. For example, learning is the most mentioned benefit of measuring change (27.1%). Yet, if this is so important then why the lack of focus on vehicles like coaching, mentoring and training to capitalize on this learning.[3]

Another striking disconnect is the low numbers of those who see benefits of measuring change’s impact on marketing and customers. This is curious, as our contributors’ most common reason for losing customers is not price but poor quality (92.2%), poor follow-up by sales people (76.5%) and making the wrong assumptions about customers (64.5%). After detailed analysis, it would seem that the relationship between change and competitive advantage is not as clearly visualized as one might think.

In addition, the use of employee metrics including personal performance, resistance to change, improvement to company culture and understanding our purpose, are low compared to satisfaction surveys. Most concerning is the lack of focus on individual behavioral change and tracking pay-related rewards. This is further evidence of little focus on accountability and establishing a requiring environment

Even when metrics are agreed upon, the next challenge is creating greater transparency so that they are used to create and sustain change momentum.

What Questions do Change Metrics Need to Answer?

Overall, there needs to be more focus on developing effective change metrics. The challenge is: How well do your change metrics accelerate learning, problem solving and decision making?

In Section 4, we distilled contributor questions on what they need change metrics to answer into a questionnaire. We ask readers to go through and rate their current metrics under three sections:

Navigating during a Change
Reviewing a Change
Planning the Next Change

Our contributors suggest establishing a change scorecard with their leadership team and key stakeholders. For example by:

Agreeing on those questions which the team needs to answer
Deciding what current metrics could be put to good use
Assessing during the change process how well they cover the risks of losing customers through poor product or service quality and poor sales follow-up.

And finally……Asking how well your scorecard helps you sell this and subsequent changes?

Action Points 3: Developing More Effective Change

Metrics

Protocol

Three themes were referenced in contributor comments about change metrics and how to test their overall effectiveness.

How well do your change metrics accelerate learning, problem-solving, and decision-making?

Establish Your Change Scorecard

It is strongly suggested that you go through this process with your leadership team and key stakeholders. (See section 7 for more details.)

Review the table Contributor Questions.
Agree on those questions your team need to answer when you are doing the following:

Navigating a change
Reviewing a change
Planning the next change
- What current metrics could be put to good use?
- How well do they cover the risks of losing customers through poor-quality sales follow-up during the change process?
- How well do they inform you that the organization is reducing assumptions about customers’ view of the change and how the change responds to their needs?
- To what extent do your selected metrics allow you to preempt or least respond quickly to competitors
- How well do these metrics allow you to gauge and track employee stress around the change?
- To what extent will your metrics allow you to respond quickly and effectively to employee stress before it hardens their change resistance?

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Focusing Change to Win Series – Why do people resist change?

Posted on October 28, 2014 by agincourtarcher

Series Introduction

This is the third in the series of highlighting contributions from 1072 Business Leaders and Consultants from 80 countries in 19 Industry Sectors detailed in our book Focusing Change to Win. Each blog gives some of the key findings and a sample of useful tips. In this blog we are focusing on Why Do People Resist Change. Here are the other book sections we are highlighting:

3. Why Do People Resist Change

Here’s the reality, Leaders need employee support and trust if their change is going to stand any chance of success. Our contributors underscore this. If people are cynical about a change, pessimism will set in, and failure is assured. Our contributors show that there are no simple remedies, no sound bites or grizzly 7 step plans. Yet, at its core there are fundamental values that, if believed in, will offer a sound basis for planning and executing successful change. Change failures have left their mark on our contributors over the last eight years. Through their eyes, resistance is a brownfield site where change is synonymous with downsizing, doing more for less, and treating people poorly.

Accelerated change demands more of everyone. Such change has major consequences for employees. Accelerated change failure creates cultural toxicity. Crucially, leaders need to separate the symptoms of change resistance from the stress that causes it. If they don’t, they are just like bad sales people trying to overcome objections and not realizing 60% of those objections are of the salesperson’s own creation. These contributors, they are saying that change resistance is natural, but you don’t need to make it more difficult if you do some things profoundly well. The chart below gives a sense of the avoidable.

Change Resistance Factors

Once you recognize that Change Resistance causes stress then you can be more effective in reducing it. Our contributors say that, if leaders create clear and consistent frameworks, you help most people make informed decisions about committing to a change or not. Here’s what our contributors are saying:

Align Expectations between leaders and people
Set Clear Direction: Leaders clarify their change’s What, Why, How and WIIFMs (What’s In It For Me) for different groups and people.
Develop Accountabilities: by developing the rewards and consequences that assure expectations of both leaders and their people are met.

These are sound practices for reducing and managing people’s stress, but only if leaders realize the importance of Walking Their Own Talk.

Action Points: Managing Change Stress and Resistance

All these contributors are saying that change resistance is natural, but you don’t need to make it that difficult if you do some things profoundly well.

This starts with recognizing that change resistance is caused by stress. So why not treat the cause and not the symptom? Stress is natural and good if managed. Stress is reduced if leaders create clear and consistent frameworks that help people make informed decisions about committing to a change or not. Here’s how we interpret what our contributors are saying

Clarifying the Direction:
Leaders clarify their change’s what, why, how, and WIIFMs¹ for different groups and individuals. What does this mean for me? This leads to aligning expectations.

Aligning Expectations:
This is a process flow in two directions between leaders and each individual.

Developing Accountabilities:
This step develops the rewards and consequences through performance measurement, management, and rewards that ensure expectations of both leaders and their people are met.

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Focusing Change To Win Series: How is your “What” connected to your “Why”? – Setting-Up Change For Success.

Posted on October 14, 2014 by agincourtarcher

Series Introduction

This is the second in the series of highlighting contributions from 1072 Business Leaders and Consultants from 80 countries in 19 Industry Sectors detailed in our book Focusing Change to Win. Each blog gives some of the key findings and a sample of useful tips. In this blog we are focusing on The Why and What of Change. Here are the other book sections we are highlighting:

How is your “What” connected to your “Why”?

We take an in-depth look at how our contributors improve their chances of thriving, by communicating in ways that build trust and engage people. For these contributors, communication must constantly focus on the Why of Change & What is Expected and what the change is not about. This is the Change Expectations Framework. It engages deeper understanding and helps everyone manage stress more effectively.
Note: You may think everyone does these three steps, you are probably wrong at least 70% of the time according to studies over the last 10 years. Here’s why it is even more important today. Most contributors (89%) say that their organizations change at least every 12 mths . These changes are driven by 3-4 simultaneous reasons for change . All these changes should have three things in common. What you expect people to:

Stop doing, (so that they can start doing new things)
Start doing, and
Continue doing

How often does your organization initiate change

Yet, this survey’s findings show that contributors rarely mention all three in the same contribution. Why is this important? It creates increased stress and potentially change resistance. It works like this.
Assuming we are always managing change with limited resources like people, money, technology and time, leaders have to manage the tension between these three elements of stop, start and continue. Then, after deciding the commercial need for change, leaders need the Emotional Intelligence to identify which groups and individuals are likely to experience unhealthy stress and resistance.
This underscores the need for leadership consensus on why are we changing. For many contributors, leader inconsistency fuels people’s natural resistance . The ever-increasing rate of change demands that leaders give clear and compelling reasons for employees to overcome their feelings of here we go again . Unfortunately, we conclude that too many leaders either ignore, or are unaware that change will be stressful for their peers and employees.

Contributors readily see the need for change to adapt, survive or improve. The world’s ever-increasing pace demands that leaders give clear and compelling reasons for employees to overcome their feelings of here we go again. That response begs the question: What can leaders do about this condition. What follows are some thoughts.
All those implementing change know in advance, to some extent, that a change will be stressful and that not everyone will be willing to engage. For example, people often work well under certain stress to increase productivity. But, under other circumstances, they are surprised at the stress that another aspect of change can induce. So, stress can be negative, positive or neutral. For example, passing in an examination can be just stressful as failing. The problem occurs when people are under excessive or prolonged stress – Unhealthy Stress. The challenge for change leaders is that stress is unique and personal. A situation may be stressful for someone, but the same situation may be challenging for others.

Action Points: Reducing Employees Stress to Manage Change Resistance

Most contributor responses indicate that their organizations change anywhere from daily to annually. These changes are often unique to the organization, the triggers for change, and how change is managed. Yet all change has three things in common.

The Three Common Elements of All Change

Defining your own change and how it is managed starts with the following:

Identifying what you expect people to stop doing, so that they can start doing new things
Specifying what you expect people to start doing
Confirming what you want people to continue doing, while continuing to coordinate and keep the organization running.

Focus on communicating constantly the why of change and what is expected for your change to be effective and communicate what the change is not about. This is the change expectations framework, which engages deeper understanding and helps everyone manage stress more effectively

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Tracking Expectations to Avoid IT Project Failure

Posted on March 5, 2014 by agincourtarcher

(Abstract from Take Control of Your Project – Using Expectation Alignment to Avoid IT Project Failure by Terry Merriman, PCO Associates LLC)

Whether large or small, IT projects are complex change events. They need cross-functional collaboration between two or more departments or teams. Their success or failure reverberates throughout the organization and often impacts customers. Countless studies and papers on reasons for IT Project Failure cite two critical factors:

Poor interpersonal communications
Lack of professional project management

Numerous studies have shown that up to 70% of IT projects fail. Over 20 years, Terry Merriman and the other contributors to the White Paper – Using Expectation Alignment to Avoid IT Project Failure continue to uncover the usual cast of suspects like:

Customer requirements not being adequately defined
Customer requirements kept changing
Acceptance testing was slim to non-existent

These failure statistics are fully in line with the findings of the survey of 1072 business leaders and consultants summarized in my book Focusing Change to Win which I wrote with Kelly Nwosu.

How can that happen with professionals on both sides of the design effort? Weren’t they in the same meetings? What happened to the agreed requirements? testing regimens? and change request process?

Of course, they did all those things. What they didn’t realize is what they believed they understood of each other was at best misaligned. The IT professionals and the business professionals each assumed that the other understood the precise meaning with each communication; each assumed specific activities were part of the other person’s normal routine in a development project. So, projects failed to achieve the desired results due to::

Expectations not being made specific to the project or explicit to each other
Tasks not done as expected
Delivered Functionality did not meet expectations
Requirements weren’t met

If you are interested in having the authors speaking to your organization fill out this form.

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Rebuilding Trust is Productivity’s Cornerstone

Posted on September 20, 2012 by agincourtarcher

Globally there is a slow erosion of those binding forces for people to “go that extra mile” . The employee-employer psychological contract is degrading. The degree to which people identify with their job and consider job performance as important to their self-worth is slipping .In our recently published survey Focusing Change to Win identified the main culprits:

Poor Planning
Lack of Leadership
Inconsistent leadership
Poor Implementation
Lack of Adaptability
Lack of Communication
Lack of Control

More than ever, we need to repair, build and protect the trust people have in their employers.

In North America, our evidence from 8 expectation alignment projects ranging from Royal Bank of Canada through Nature Conservancy to Turner Construction shows a clear trend. Leaders consistently under-estimate the gap between what they expect of their managers and what people think is expected of them. In all studies, leaders had 65%+ more expectations than their people were aware.

In the UK, managers need to do more if they want to earn employee trust , according to the latest survey into employee attitudes from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD). Trust in senior management is declining, particularly in the private sector, with

Only 25% employees willing to place a lot of trust in senior management to look after their interests and
Only 41% placing little or no trust in them to do so.

Essentially, new research suggests that many employees are losing faith in their management yet it seems leaders have don’t connect this condition with losing ground competitively. Continue reading →

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Realigning Schools for the New Normal – The Administrator’s Challenge

Posted on August 30, 2012 by agincourtarcher

Introduction

At school and district levels, managing scarce resources to sustain or improve results has never been more Multiple Choice Testing challenging. Striving for consistency and efficiency builds tensions between those who care most about equipping children for an uncertain future.

Increasingly critical eyes on the education system advocate blunt instruments like “stronger management”, more top-down management, tighter controls, and simple incentives. This is surprising since such methods are failing the private sector by dispiriting and limiting people’s contribution. So, why should we expect anything different in education?

This is aggravated by the economy. We simply don’t know what jobs will be there in twenty years. Today, apart from a few core skills we cannot know what knowledge or skills will be needed in the future.

The consequences are that teachers complain that their jobs, while rewarding, are getting harder because of too few resources, too much paperwork, crowded classrooms, students with emotional problems, low pay and high-stakes standardized tests.

Isn’t time to realign administrators, unions, teachers, parents and students? The realignment is from teaching a curriculum more efficiently, to one of inspiring lifelong learning to thrive in a rapidly shifting economy.

Here’s the case for realignment Continue reading →

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The Red Tape that Refuses to Die

Posted on July 24, 2012 by agincourtarcher

Listen to the Radio Show of this Blog

This month’s theme.

The difficulties of cutting the red tape in Government.

Here’s an example. Many Calgarians voted for change last October or November because they didn’t see things changing, but how much more difficult is it to change organizations like the City of Calgary? (See Naheed Nenshi’s “cutting the red tape” podcast that contributed to his election for Mayor of Calgary) Here’s his latest comment on his cutting red tape campaign and how long it’s taking:

“We are actually going to look at a reinvention of how we do the whole process of planning, approvals and permits, and that’s going to get underway right now,” Mayor Naheed Nenshi told reporters, after a council committee approved $150,000 for public consultations on cutting red tape, an initiative that already had a $236,000 budget.

But while staff are already working on that major overhaul, Nenshi clarified later that it will likely be a year before changes are in place. Council will be looking to the incoming planning general manager to oversee much of that internal revolution.

The red tape consultation with businesses drew 202 submissions, and the vast majority concerned the city hall division responsible for permits and business licensing.

One particularly shocking testimonial read: “Two different city inspectors were actually arguing in the parking lot as to what the rules meant or did not mean in relationship to requirements for our equipment. Seven inspectors went through our warehouse before we could receive our (occupancy) permit.”

In another case, the development permit process stifled the creative process. “We want to paint a mural on a building and the DP is going to cost more than the mural!”

Major reduction of red tape at city hall won’t occur until 2013.By Jason Markusoff, Calgary Herald June 5, 2012

The first thing leaders have to cope with is more complex politics. On top of internal politics that exist in any organization they also have the political dynamics of executives, elected representatives and their appointees. Continue reading →

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Change Management Fallacies – Survey

Posted on June 19, 2012 by agincourtarcher

The continued high failure rates of implementing change owe much of their origins to the fallacies of change management and how people view research (based on Korzybski). We would like to know how prevalent these fallacies are in your organization’s leadership team.

Please read the following and then click on the link to complete the survey.

Complete the survey

1. Over-Simplification: The belief that complex organizations mirror what their leadership think .

“I think we have a pretty good handle on what people think, we don’t need a survey to tell us what we already know”

2. Re-definition: A propensity to cast strong sub-cultures as sources of weakness when they may in fact contribute to the organization’s identity.

“It’s the field technicians that’s the problem. They are still resistant to the newer products ans systems”

3. Missionary zeal: The belief that a complex community can be converted to a single purpose that overrides its fractional – often factional – interests and perspectives.”

“I am sure when the see the case for this change they will come along”

4. Displacement: the attribution to cultural causes of structural weakness. It is not the values but the organisation or control system that is faulty.

“You know if we had a fully integrated reporting system I think we could overcome many of communication problems”

5. Scapegoating: The attribution of group’s values to responsibility for failure.

“It’s sales responsibility to ensure good customer follow up but they just don’t seem to care and want to go on to the next deal”

6. False Attribution to one cause what is due to many causes. E.g.

“they didn’t adopt the new technology because they weren’t computer savvy”

7. Discounting: Concluding that because one factor plays a role, another does not; the fallacy of drawing negative conclusions from positive observations. E.g.

“Our exit interviews show that people are leaving for higher pay and so it’s not anything that management can do differently”

8. Myopia:The idea that change management can divorce the individual from their working environment. E.g.

“People are change resistant because they don’t like the new curriculum”

9. Gut over Data: Drawing conclusions on implied assumptions that when explicitly stated are rejected. E.g

“Yes, I know that’s what your findings say but I think it’s really a recruitment issue”

“You can prove anything with statistics”

10. Politics: Many assumptions influencing reasoning are of the hidden, unconscious type. E.g.

“When we presented our findings only Joe and Lisa said what they felt, the rest just looked uneasy”

11. Hereditary: Demonstrating that a characteristic is hereditary and not alterable by the environment E.g.

“We found that traditionally main land Chinese expect a “thirteenth month’s pay before Chinese New Year, and there’s nothing we can do about it.”

“We wouldn’t have any of these problems if we could get more mid-westerners with their good work ethics”

12. Environment: Demonstrating that a characteristic is altered by the environment and claiming that it is not hereditary. E.g.

“We are getting more quality problems since we installed the new line. It’s the new displays they don’t understand”

Since all important human characteristics are environmental, therefore environment is all-important, hereditary unimportant, in human affairs E.g.

“It’s not so much their experience that matters it’s how they are led. We need our leaders to lead not shilly-shally around having more team meetings”

Great, but how can this help me?

This is probably the first thing on your mind after reading this Blog.
How about asking us? The first call is free! Just email me to set it up.
Don’t wait, get The Crispian Advantage working for you!. If our conversation leaves you needing more, we offer at a reasonable fee telephone and video coaching improve bottom line results.
If that still doesn’t do it, we’ll work with you on a solution.

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© Copyright All Rights Reserved, The Crispian Advantage and Walk the Talk – A Blog for Agile Minds, [2010-2012]. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Nick Anderson, The Crispian Advantage and Walk the Talk – A Blog for Agile Minds with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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Meeting Today’s Leadership Challenges in a Complex World

Posted on April 4, 2012 by agincourtarcher

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN COMMERCE, IT & MANAGEMENT VOLUME – III, ISSUE – IV (APRIL, 2012 (ISSN 2231 – 5756)

Abstract

Today leading in a complex world is one of the hot topics being discussed across organization and conferences. Every one faces complexity both in a small or large-scale industry. This complexity is driven by uncertainty and accelerating change. For organizations to thrive in this rapid challenging business environment, leaders must learn to adapt and embrace the complexity, to see it as opportunity to achieve uncommon result. This chapter present valuable insights about KPMG study confronting complexity. It identifies factors that cause complexity. It also suggests ways through which a leader can address complexity and turn it into competitive advantage.

Authors Kelly Nwosu and Nick Anderson

1.0 Introduction

The challenge with managing complexity and leading in a complexity world has become an excuse for some business people to keep the status quo, to abandon thinking ahead and to push strategy to one side, because they don’t believe it can be flexible and responsive enough to help them in a rapidly changing world (ED, 2011). But, most organizations that succeed in the midst of complexity are those that think differently and turn the potential challenges into a competitive advantage. They also see it as an opportunity to make their company more efficient. According to the recent study confronting complexity conducted by KPMG International, the study reveals that more than 90 percent senior executives across 22 countries say their organization’s success depends on managing today’s complex business issues. Yet, less than half executives believe the actions they are taking to manage complexity have been very effective (KPMG, 2011). On the other hand, the IBM survey on global CEO’s also show that the language for reducing complexity has change, CEO’s are now talking about how to transform complexity into an opportunity to gain competitive advantage (Balkan, 2011). In our research, we were able to identify what complexity is all about, factors that cause complexity and actions to discuss the issues of complexity. In particular, this chapter covers three parts. Part 1 focuses on managing complexity while the second part focuses on leading to the essence then part 3 focuses on leading learning.

For the full article please go to www.ijrcm.org.in

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN COMMERCE, IT & MANAGEMENT (ISSN 2231 – 5756)

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Why do people resist change? Leadership Survey Findings (1072 managers, 510 CEOs, 80 countries)

Posted on March 15, 2012 by agincourtarcher

Here’s the first findings from research conducted jointly with New Catalyst.(http://changeisessential.com)

Click Video link to view Nick Anderson position the upcoming publication of the full research report – Stategies for Managing Change and Winning in Todays Competitive Environment

Since change management came into fashion, a litany of failure has left its mark and our respondent’s echo what many have gone through in the last 8 years. It seems through their eyes, resistance has to be viewed as a “brown field” site. Gone is the naiveté of “a job for life” and an enduring contract between leaders and other stakeholders. Now, change is synonymous with downsizing, doing more for less, etc. For these respondents, they paint a picture of failed change, broken trust, fractured communication and poor leadership. We summarize their comments into the following:

Cultural Toxicity of Failed Change
“If people don’t trust you, what change do you stand?”
“People can’t be bothered”
“What’s in it for me?”
“Not knowing the purpose of it all” – a litany of communication failure
Poor Leadership embeds and accelerates resistance

Continue reading →

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Avoiding the Pitffalls of Strategic Planning

Posted on January 26, 2012 by agincourtarcher

Introduction

Getting people focused and committed on implementing a strategy has never been more difficult as von Moltke said:

Strategic plans do not survive first contact with the enemy, and hence must be always open to revision.

In today’s competitive environment every action has many reactions that aren’t easily anticipated. This is probably a major factor why 60% of change initiatives fail in North America and why something is going wrong with strategic planning.

One area that many executives either ignore or only pay lip service to are the cynicisms that previous initiatives strategic planning have accumulated in the organizations psyche. Here are some that you ignore at your peril

Crucial to understanding your people, as Peter Senge describes, is identifying where people are on the apathy-commitment continuum. He identifies two areas of personal need that they want satisfied in their working lives:

personal benefit which comes from compensation, benefits, position, recognition, or other non-tangible benefits
personal sense of fulfillment of their life’s purpose, vision, or calling.

Leaders need to grasp how well each person’s attitude and their contribution is met directly by company goals or objectives. Then they can assess where people sit on the apathy/commitment continuum. Any misalignment between personal needs and your strategy will generate unproductive or counterproductive behavior, if not actively managed

Continue reading →

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Getting Competitive in Turbulent Times

Posted on January 19, 2012 by agincourtarcher

Introduction

The avalanche of data at ever increasing speeds creates greater corporate ADHD. The result is decision making suffers from “24×7 news cycle” thinking where now is better than later. Competitively, it means increased market stress and rapid cycles of wicked problem solving. So, what can we learn about remaining competitive?

It’s 20 years since I produced my Masters Thesis on managing change for competitive success based on Pettigrew & Whipp’s research of the later 80s and 90s. Since that time, strategic planning was reborn in the 1990s. New approaches for strategy focused on growth through mergers/acquisitions and joint ventures, generation of innovative ideas through decentralized strategic efforts within the company, emergent strategy, and the leveraging of core competencies to create strategic intent. By the start of this century the focus shifted to strategic and organizational innovation, including reconciling size with flexibility and responsiveness. New alliances mean cooperative strategies, complexity, changes in commitments of corporate social responsibility, etc. Today’s strategic planning and execution requires new models of leadership, less formal structures, and more commitment to self-direction.

Unfortunately, both strategic planning and implementation’s effectiveness leaves a lot to be desired with 60% of all change initiatives failing. Sydney Finkelstein summarizes areas of most strategic planning failure: launching new ventures, promoting innovation and change, managing mergers and acquisitions and responding to new environmental pressures. So in this era of dramatic change, global alliances, and a variety of environmental pressures, the potential for failure is very real.

This blog looks at what leaders need to consider to avoid being another survey statistic.

Continue reading →

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If people don’t trust you, Change will Fail?

Posted on January 9, 2012 by agincourtarcher

On both sides of the Atlantic, the employment compact is fracturing along the lines of manufacturing outsourcing, poor change communication and inconsistent leadership. The bottom-line is that “doing more with less”sounds macho in closeted executive strategy sessions. The reality is that those who get the work done feel the stress of over-work and unabated insecurity is eroding trust in their leaders.

How close are we getting to the “old lie”?

Dulce et Decorum est Pro patria mori.( Translation: “It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country.”

Wilfred Owen – Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori – it is sweet and right to die for your country. In other words, it is great to work your butt off and then a get a pink slip

North Americans grow more cynical of being asked “go the extra mile” with even fewer resources. As a result, change resistance is increasingly more complex and individualistic.

This fracturing eats away at competitiveness. The leadership challenge then is to repair, build and protect the trust people have in their leaders and other functions.

In North America, over the last ten years I have conducted expectation alignment projects in very different organizations like Royal Bank of Canada, Qwest Telecommunications and Turner Construction. In every project, leaders consistently under-estimated the gaps between:

What they expect of their people and what the people actually think is expected of them.
What they think people expect of them and their people actually expect of their leaders

In all projects, leaders had 65%+ more expectations than their people were aware. As you read on you will see that my findings are disturbingly endorsed on both sides of the Atlantic.

Continue reading →

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What’s changed in Key Account Management in 15 yrs?

Posted on December 15, 2011 by agincourtarcher

Back in 1995 I worked with my client Peter Barlow then VP Global Account Management and Major Projects for APV (Food Process Engineering Company) on developing a Major Account Management System. Now over 15 years on I ask:

What’s changed in Key Account Management 15 years on?

Building and maintaining profitable relationships with your most important customers is more challenging than ever. The stakes are even higher of investing reduced resources on a few customers (accounts) with that nagging doubt of “backing the wrong horse”

“… (Managers) often don’t realize or understand how markets change and believe sales to be just how it was fifteen years ago.” (TACK Sales Leadership Survey 2011)

“Doing business with and actually making money from your largest strategic ‘partners’ has never been more difficult….Only a few corporations are getting it right.” (Richard Ilsley, SMCG 2010)

This blog takes a hard look at strategic, key or major accounts (KAM) and why many senior executives remain concerned 15+ years on. To do this retrospective I have drawn on several current experts in the field including a paper by Richard Ilsley of SMCG, TACK International and Mercuri.

Continue reading →

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Getting the Best out of the Matrix

Posted on December 7, 2011 by agincourtarcher

Introduction

For 40 Years few have challenged Matrix Management’s viability. Most writers remain convinced that a matrix approach is superior to a hierarchy, but why hasn’t it been more successful? This blog looks at pointing the reader to answer:

How do ensure we get the promised rewards of the Matrix?

First, a definition for SHRM

In a matrix structure, an employee reports to two managers who are jointly responsible for the employee’s performance. Typically, one works in an administrative function, such as finance, HR, information technology, sales or marketing, and the other works in a business unit related to a product, service, customer or geography.

The matrix model is a network of interfaces between teams and the functional elements of an organization. As its simplest it is:

think horizontal – think vertical – think interface.

Here are some of the challenges facing those thinking of improving or moving to a matrix based organization.

Continue reading →

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Key Account Management Series: Why are Sales Compensation Hydraulics Still Leaking?

Posted on November 29, 2011 by agincourtarcher

1. Introduction

I developed this as a discussion paper for a client’s European Sales Management Effectiveness Project. The interesting perspective is how the issues raised in the early 90’s are still validated by Deliotte’s 2010 survey of 250 Sales VPs. It begs the question:

Why are Sales Compensation Hydraulics Still Leaking?

1.1. How do you design a good sales compensation plan?

Specifically, a good plan:

Uses performance metrics that drive the company’s overall strategy;
Ensures roles, skills, selling, processes, internal culture, etc. are consistent with the overall sales force strategy
Are mechanically sound ; and
Can be administered efficiently.
Fits for your sales organization?
Can be administered with existing people, processes, data, and technology

(The following is based on Frank Cespedes book Concurrent Marketing, The Management of Major Sales (Neil Rackham) and 2010 Strategic Sales Compensation Survey by Deloitte & Varicent)

1.2. Compensation Hydraulics springs a leak

Since the mid 90’s the great bulk of literature still emphasizes what might be called

“Compensation Hydraulics”: Push this pay lever and get this kind of behavior.

This type of thinking fails to recognize that sales compensation is dependent upon, data analysis, strategy, values and human motivation. Many forget to ask:

How should we pay our customer facing people? (Which inevitably involves a range of business issues?)

Continue reading →

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Problem Defining & The Consulting/Intervention Process

Posted on October 24, 2011 by agincourtarcher

Problem Defining & The Consulting/Intervention Process

Calif Manage Rev. 1979 Spring;21(3):26-33.Kilmann R, Mitroff I.

Intervention theory¹and the consulting process² have developed to provide more effective methods by which organizational change is conducted. These methods have emerged in order to operationalize a theory of changing rather than a theory of change. The latter is what Bennis³ found to be the focus of most discussions on organizational growth and change; yet a theory of changing is needed to create planned change in organizations and not just to explain natural change after the fact.⁴

Continue reading →

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Managing Change for Competitive Success – Questionnaire

Posted on October 21, 2011 by agincourtarcher

Managing Change for Competitive Success – Questionnaire

This interview structure is designed to help interviewees talk about their principles and core values about leading which guide their behavior at work. In each section, interviewees are asked about their proposals for change and how they should be implemented and then asking why they feel implementing such proposals are necessary. It is this “why” question which is the most important. It is the answers to these “why” questions that particularly should allow comparisons between each interviewee’s guiding principles and values of leading, in specific situations. It should then help us decide how we are going to develop a coherent sales strategy by understanding what people mean by:

“building a rich, engaging purpose”
“creating more effective management processes”
“developing their capabilities and broadening the way they look at the world of work”

Continue reading →

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Leading in Complexity – Discussion Starter

Posted on October 21, 2011 by agincourtarcher

Introduction

This discussion starter gets leaders thinking about leadership and help them move toward consensus before starting a major change initiative. (For more in-depth discussion please go to the Leading in Complexity Blog Series).

A critical issue is helping the team to “walk through” the range of relations they will meet managing change, dealing with the practicalities and intricacies
of people, departments, factions and geographies.

A large part of the task is not just ensuring leaders understand their change environment but that the organization can continue to learn and act on over time.

Continue reading →

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Effective Communication & Perception – Why is this so difficult?

Posted on October 18, 2011 by agincourtarcher

INTRODUCTION

Accurate communication can be defined as

“an idea transplant from one mind to another”.

Unfortunately, between two minds there is often a breeding environment for misunderstanding and distortion. It’s where phraes like “I don’t think we are on the same page”

originates. Many factors influence such distortions. These include:

style and structure of the communication
social climate between the sender and recipient of a message,
integration of the message with other experience and learning
motivation of the recipient to listen. Continue reading →

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Presenting a Persuasive Case – How do you sell an idea?

Posted on October 18, 2011 by agincourtarcher

INTRODUCTION

A frequent and often crucial situation in management today is one in which one person is seeking to persuade another to accept proposals for change. This situation commonly occurs when a subordinate presents a case to his or her boss.

Unfortunately, people usually spend a great deal more time and effort in collecting supporting facts and figures than in planning for the face-to-face interaction on which the success of the whole exercise usually depends. Careful consideration of interactive strategy at the planning stage can both assist in the selection of effective arguments and result in more persuasive interactions.

Feature Dumping

This discussion of the issues involved concentrates on persuasion in the boss-subordinate context; but the principles considered apply equally well to any situation in which one person is seeking to gain the co-operation or the consent of another.

Continue reading →

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Complexity, the New Normal 4: Improving Sales Performance – Are you ready for the Challenge?

Posted on May 17, 2011 by agincourtarcher

This is the forth in a leadership series – Complexity the New Norm. This series is looks how we implement successful change that fulfills people and avoids human casualties.

Our question is, how do we create working relationships that are rewarding? (Rewarding not just productive). Why?

It’s only by energizing people and harnessing technologies better than anyone else that companies can thrive.

Genuinely aligned, empowered and collaborative people will outperform the competition every time.

This month I consider probably one of the most difficult areas is sales, especially complex sales.

What makes sales complex?

Classically, “Many to Many” Think of it like a bow tie. On the left side you have the selling organization and on the right Complex Sales. Typical characteristics:

Many decision makers
Team selling
Proposal or tender based selling (RFP)
Post sales support requirements like after sales service
Needs tailored solutions
High value, e.g often needing board approval
Long sales cycles
Technical/knowledge based elements
Consultative selling requirements
Customer relationship focus

So, more people across the company need to communicate with customers and prospects before, during and after the sale. This increases complexity and the difficulty of “Keeping Everyone On The Same Page”

Continue reading →

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Complexity, the New Normal! 3: Listen to your guts – Are they really on the same page?

Posted on April 17, 2011 by agincourtarcher

This is the third in a leadership series – Complexity the New Norm.This series is looks how we implement

Seeing the Wood for the Treessuccessful change that fulfills people and avoids human casualties.Last time, I asked how we create working relationships that are rewarding. (Rewarding not just productive). Our position is that it’s only by energizing people and harnessing technologies better than anyone else that organizations can survive and thrive.Genuinely aligned, empowered and collaborative people will outperform the competition every time.Many surveys show executives say that their people aren’t ready to handle this “new norm” So, what’s getting in the way?When the urgent drives out the important, many leaders ignore what their “guts” are telling them, even when they sense people aren’t on the same page. They’ve sensed it before and seen the results. Yet, complexity and urgency mask how things accumulate, misalign and make each change more difficult.You know that feeling yourself. We’ve all worked in dysfunctional work places. You pick up on people’s differences (often unstated in team meetings) and how they use their experience to justify their positions. They are oblivious of others views. Worse still they believe that their views are shared by everyone.If leaders are aware of these things, why don’t they do something?I think it’s like how people put up with physical pain and stress – take the pain killers and go on. And I am not implying they’re weak but their strength to persevere can be a two-edged sword. Here’s some examples of what leaders ignore and don’t realize their effect:It’s expecting things to be done and repeatedly being disappointed.It is the lump in your stomach when they are handed yet another impossible deadline.It’s feeling that they have to be a mind reader to figure out what is expected.It’s that welling anger they get when important decisions fall apart (because there really wasn’t any buy-in).These are all misalignments. People not being on the same page. It’s costly, pervasive and accumulates.Now, add increasing complexity and we need to say – we can’t go on like this anymore. The busyness of complexity masks misalignments especially when wicked problems get into the mix.You’ve mentioned wicked problem solving before….But why is it so important in leading in complexity?Wicked Problem Solving

Horst Rittel coined the term Wicked Problems as he found traditional approaches to design and planning were not effective. It’s how we solve benign or simple problems.

Gather data
Analyze data
Formulate Solution
Implement Solution

This apparently very reasonable approach starts faltering when you:

1. Don’t understand the problem until you have developed a solution.

You can’t search for information without having some sense of what a solution looks. Rittel said:

“One cannot first understand, then solve.”

And what ‘the Problem’ is depends on who you ask – different stakeholders have different views about what the problem is and what constitutes an acceptable solution.

2. Don’t have a nice neat ending.

If there is no defined ‘Problem’, there can’t be a definitive ‘Solution.’ So you can’t solve the problem with the ‘correct’ solution. Herb Simon, called this ‘satisficing’ — stopping when you have a solution that is ‘good enough’

3. Don’t have right or wrong solutions.

Solutions are simply ‘better,’ ‘worse,’ ‘good enough,’ or ‘not good enough.’ How “good” they are will vary widely and depend on different stakeholder values and goals.

4. Can’t draw on past experience

There are so many factors and conditions that no two wicked problems are alike.

Here are a few examples of wicked problems:

Whether to route the highway through our city or around it?
What should our mission statement be?
What features should be in our new product?
How should we respond to a competitors new…fill in the blank?

The point is managing complex and wicked problems shifts the center of gravity toward peoples’ relationships and interactions. It shifts from relying on expertise and pride in accumulating knowledge to learning with and from fellow learners, honestly disclosing doubts and admitting ignorance.

I am thinking leaders who are listening will be saying: OK, I get, it but where do I start?

As I said last time, complexity and misalignment is best handled by those directly involved. So, leadership should be devolved to the lowest level. This means expectations you have of your leaders need to be clear, agreed and tracked. There are several alignment areas that senior people need to address with lower level leaders, which I will cover in later programs. But, I will start with a key competence that leaders need improve in their teams and activities. It’s a bastion against the confusion that comes from poorly managed complexity

Leading Learning

Leaders have to shed their prejudices and bad experiences of learning at school, – like cramming or memorizing, and that learning by doing is good enough. Many leaders will have to unlearn, and then learn about Leading Learning. There are five criteria you should expect your leaders to evidence in their learning expectations: Are they …..

Planned?
Action-Focused?
Constructive?
Social?
Time-Bounded?

Using these criteria, leader expectations need to specify what they expect of their people and draw out what their people expect in return.

What do you see as the main areas for leaders to think about when it comes to leading learning?

Here are four things to reflect on about your organization. Ask yourself:

How do we really match-up when it comes to leading learning?

Learning team-based sense-making process.

1. Learning is team-based sense-making process.

What expectations do you have of your people to develop shared knowledge from similar situations?

Why?

Shared situations builds shared sensing, which builds common frames of reference.
Positive shared experiences strengthen organizational culture.
Shared situations builds shared learning and reduces the exclusivity of individual experience

Can you find expectations that say it’s OK for people to express feelings of being puzzled or being misunderstood:

Why?

Such expressed feelings are often the tender shoots of learning and if subject to making people feel stupid will stunt learning before it has even got going.
Sharing puzzlement develops learner ownership because there’s “gas in their tank” to do something about it.
You don’t know how many others have the same feelings until they are expressed.
Getting people on the same page only happens when people’s feelings are transparent to others. It takes the guesswork of where people are coming from. It reduces assumptions about people’s intention, motivation and agenda

2. Learning is a socially negotiated

Leader expectations need to specify that making sense of problems and their solutions needs to be negotiated with the intention of reaching understanding, resolving differences and producing an agreed course of action.

Why?

What’s agreed is far more likely to stick
Stakeholder and team member interests of are more likely to be respected and served
Better alignment leads to growing trust and openness which leads to people being less guarded

3. Learning is multi-level sense-making

Leaders, especially senior leaders, need to ensure that their expectations of learning are expressed to all levels both vertically and horizontally across the organization. The belief that knowledge is only in one person’s head went out with the craftsman and his apprentice. Knowledge and reasoning need to be used for collective sense-making.

Why?

It’s the social process that bonds people together. As we engage with others we influence and are influenced by our working community their beliefs and values.
This type of participation is how we absorb and grow a healthy culture.
This is how we grow as individuals and develop rewarding relationships

It’s crucial that leaders understand that activity constrains and defines the learning that can occur, so the last point

4. Learning is a product of activities, systems and processes

Learning through Activities

The blend of people, their experiences, values and beliefs are not reducible to individual actions in complex situations. So, leader’s expectations need to shift from the individual to the team.

Why?

It’s not about you; it’s about us – “Leave your ego at the door!”
Information isn’t any good if it is not shared, in ways that others can understand
If you don’t interact with others your chances of building trust, respect and other relational glue is remote

If I am a leader or business owner listening to this today I might be saying that’s all very well but I have a business to run. What advice would you give them?

Do what you’ve always done, get what you’ve always got! – Not!

1. Hire people who evidence lifelong learning – if people aren’t curious they are not for you.

2. Make sure you pay people for doing different things not just doing what we have always done – cos if you don’t you will get what you’ve always gotten.

3. Ensure you make sure all people know learning is a priority and it’s not something left to chance or the competition

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_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
For Help in Getting Your People on the Same Page
Nick Anderson, Senior Partner, PDS Group LTD

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Listen to the Radio Show of this Blog

© Copyright All Rights Reserved, PDS Group LTD and Walk the Talk – A Blog for Agile Minds, [2010-2011]. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Nick Anderson, PDS Group LTD and Walk the Talk – A Blog for Agile Minds with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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Complexity, the New Normal 2: Leading to the Essence

Posted on March 20, 2011 by agincourtarcher

Listen to the Radio Program – 15mins

In my last blog I introduced my new leadership series – Complexity the New Normal.

It’s time we had a debate about how we develop rewarding working relationships today. (Rewarding not just productive). It is the competitive core – energizing people and harnessing technologies better than anyone else.

The ultimate standard for such rewarding relationships is a leader’s ability to sustain superior results over an extended period. The debate should focus three

The Gordian Knot

questions:

What does it mean to lead?
What does it mean to follow?
When do you choose one from another?

Why is this debate needed for us to climb out of this recession?

People have lost trust. Many business leaders, too many unfortunately, are seen as self-serving and subservient to shareholders.

What happened? “Org Chart Thinking” increasingly doesn’t work. Knowledge workers respond to learning not “command & control”. Plus, young people don’t want to wait in line to lead. Most important, people are searching for genuine satisfaction and meaning. For example, “restoring people to full life and health.” Medtronic.

Continue reading →

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Complexity, the New Normal! 1: Aligning Leaders for a Complex World

Posted on February 20, 2011 by agincourtarcher

Every one faces complexity driven by uncertainty and accelerating change. It is the “New Normal” making leadership more demanding and in demand.

Listen to the Radio Show

Leadership on its Head

Accelerating Complexity places extreme demands on leaders. The leader’s ability to relate, energize, and develop their followers is critical to empower them to act without direction. It’s a competitive imperative and requires a new balance of more effective and affective leadership. It’s the ability to produce results by being affective. That ability to influence people, in the way they think, feel and act is now paramount

As Peter Senge said Leaders “…cannot afford to choose between reason and intuition, or head and heart, any more than they would choose to walk on one leg…”

So, this month I deal with what leaders need to do – the easier bit. Next month, I cover the tougher piece on how leaders need to lead transformationally.

Continue reading →

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Getting People on the Same Page – Preparing for Change

Posted on February 2, 2011 by agincourtarcher

Listen to the Radio Show based on this Blog

In this blog I want to focus on Preparing People For Change by over viewing improving people productivity and it’s connection to gaining people’s commitment.

Why is this so important as we climb out of this recession?

It’s a good question…over the last 15 years the odds of making a successful change in North America haven’t changed appreciably. Two thirds of change initiatives fail, including family businesses trying to pass on their company to the next generation. Number 1 reason executives surveyed said “People”

What is your take on the reasons for such a high failure rate?

The performance challenge is greater than ever. How you rebuild and lead an organization to perform near its potential is even more difficult today.

As Tim Kite of Focus3 Consulting says:

It’s challenging because an organization is the sum of its parts piecemeal improvement doesn’t address the organization’s system. To meet this challenge you need to be really clear on the difference between performance drivers vs. performance indicators. Too many people focus on the numbers and too little on Drivers:

20 Communication Channels to Get Aligned

• Key Drivers produce performance

• Key Indicators only measure performance (even well designed ones)

• You can’t manage indicators only drivers can be managed
There are Five Drivers that cover your business system

• People – Selection, Development & Retention

• Culture – Clarity, Consistency & Connection

• Strategy – Value Proposition, Marketing, Sales Customer Care, Financial Goals

• Processes – Work Flow

• Structure – Organizational Design, Role, Relationships

When you align these Five Drivers you need to ensure that:

Culture aligns and motivates people,
Strategy delivers in line with Customers needs,
Systems delivers high quality consistently,
Structure empowers people and smoothes workflow
People Driver recruits, develops and retains the right people.

How do you assess if these drivers are broken or needs repair broken?

Let’s take costs. To manage costs effectively across the Five Drivers you need clarity as to what are Core and Non-Core expenses or to put it another way what directly contributes to Top Line revenue vs. the cost of doing business which only indirectly contributes to revenue

Core Expenses are what drives Top Line Sales Revenue

So, Core and Non-Core Expenses first. You are likely to find functions which are internally misaligned present opportunities for improved productivity. Coupled with this is looking at inefficiencies when functions work collaborate with each other

Consider a company with nine functions, such as Production, Marketing, Finance. How many communications channels? You have 9 functions with 9 communication channels less 9 channels within each Function = 72 Communication Channels

Additionally, within one function say you had 50 people 2450 channels potentially.

As you look at these channels you find inefficiencies. Friction between Finance and Marketing is not unusual. So, what happens to communication flows? Communication reduces and fall back on being formal and response times get slower. We call these Expectation Gaps

Expectations Gaps Are like Pot Holes. Fill them quickly before damage occurs

It sounds like they don’t know “who’s on first” and even if they did no one is holding people accountable good starting point?

Exactly. It’s like many poor performing teams at least one of the following will apply:

•      Four Team members called Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody.

•      There was an important job to be done.

•      Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it.

•      Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it.

•      Somebody got angry about that because it was Everybody’s job.

•      Everybody thought Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn’t do it.

•      It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done.

How expensive is that?

What signs should look for to see if think is going on?

“That’s not what I meant…”

“This is not what I asked for!”

“My colleagues don’t seem to do what I expect…”

“They never tell us the whole story!”

“I can never do anything right!”

“They never send us information; we’re always sending information to them!”

Sound Familiar?

Yes, I know several organizations where those examples would get a lot of nodding. Do you have any idea what misalignment costs?

60%+ of change initiatives fail in North America

70%+ of leaders expectations are
not understood by their people about a major change

In the last 12 years, 2 in 3 failure rate has not changed Harvard (1996) to McKinsey (2009)

Executives surveyed continue to say the number one reason for such failures is PEOPLE. It really goes into the millions and can close businesses. In one survey 134 public companies average cost of failed IT projects was $12.5m. This does not account for the cost to their cultures and people.

What are the human costs of misalignment?

With misalignment the first to go is Trust coupled to a Fear Of Conflict. When these two exist, a Lack of Commitment grows and its partner Avoiding Accountability rears its ugly head. Finally, silos are reinforced, people do what they have always what they have always done and improved performance doesn’t happen. As these dysfunctions grow over time you will find that the 8OOlb Gorilla feeding on what’s left of your enabling culture.

800lb Gorilla of Mislignmenton a rich culture of unstated expectations and assumptions.

How many of these are due to people not being on the same page?

In our projects 70%+ of leaders’ expectations of each other and those implementing a change have not expressed. Apart from unstated expectations, how do you identify poor expectations

The biggest culprits are the expectations are ambiguous, lack specificity which leads to disappointment, failure and bad feelings etc. here’s some typical language that predicts performance improvement failure:

• “Soon…….”

•      ASAP

•      “Right Away….”

•      “I’ll Try To Get To It………”

•      “Later….”

•      “By The End Of Next Week

So, Practically what can people do about this when they hear language like this?

First get key players get them to articulates and record expectations then apply:

“The three most important rules in creating accountability cultures are:

Specificity, Specificity, Specificity

Dealing with Expectations Gaps

1. Which expectations gaps are barriers to improving performance and reducing expenses?

2. Who do you need to gain agreement from?

3. Once agreed, ask them to tell you what evidence you will see that your expectation has been met?

4. Then, hold them accountable – “Inspect what you expect”

5. Then, what do you think others expect of you that is connected to these gaps?

6. Now, repeat steps 2,3 & 4

Have you done any projects locally where you have helped fill such expectation gaps?

Ken Genzink, Genzink Steel tried twice over the last five years to reduce his operational management of the Family Steel Fabrication business. On both occasions he had to reengage to save the business.

As says in his testimonial, “I realize now more than ever that many decisions and observations were assumptions”

This resulted in problems like:

• Job Shop Scheduling software didn’t work

• People were cynical about it ever being useful.

• Structural Steel side of the business was losing money due to poor estimating

• Difficulty in retaining skilled people

The Implementation consisted of the following activities:

• Developing a vision for change to reduce dependency on the

• Owner’s day-to-day management.

• Isolate key Alignment Components and their definitions which Ken Genzink saw as crucial to achieving greater market responsiveness and help him devote time to his other businesses

• AlEx™ was then configured specifically for Genzink Steel. AlEx™ is an Automated Accountability Tracking tool that identifies expectations gaps and monitors people’s progress in filling them.

Ken now works at another location devoting the time he needs to the other Family businesses. Gross Revenues have steadily increased from $20 to $30m, and

Genzink is now on the acquisition trail.

“104 jobs: Genzink Steel Supply and Welding Co., maker of metal wind turbines, and other fabrications”(GR Press Aug 2008)

Tip of the Month

If you are getting people ready for change

My Expectations of Others

• What I expect you to keep doing

• What I want you to start doing

• What I want you to stop doing

Others’ Expectations of Me

• What things I think others want me to keep to keep doing . . . .

• What new things I think others want me to start doing . . . .

• What things I think others want me to stop doing . . . .

Then meet with those who you need to implement your change and compare your answers – be prepared for surprises.

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Great, but how can this help me?

This is probably the first thing on your mind after reading this Blog. How about asking us? The first call is free! Just email me to set it up. Don’t wait, get TCA working for you!. If our conversation leaves you needing more, we offer at a reasonable fee telephone and video coaching improve bottom line results.
If that still doesn’t do it, we’ll work with you on a solution.

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For Help in Getting Your People on the Same Page
Nick Anderson, Senior Partner, PDS Group LTD
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© Copyright All Rights Reserved, TCA and Walk the Talk – A Blog for Agile Minds, [2010-2011]. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Nick Anderson, PDS Group LTD and Walk the Talk – A Blog for Agile Minds with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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Getting People on the Same Page – Seven Leadership Challenges

Posted on January 22, 2011 by agincourtarcher

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Like most consultants, we are often accused of borrowing the clients watch, tell them the time and then hand it back with a bill………So, given the threats to our economy, it’s a statement of the obvious. We live in turbulent times… only this time what follows is free.

I got to thinking what are the challenges of leadership in the times we are living in:

Some years ago I noted this quote:

“Business is now so complex and difficult, the survival of the firm is so hazardous, in an environment increasingly unpredictable, competitive and fraught with danger, that their continued existence depends on the day-to-day mobilization of everyone’s intelligence”

(Konosuke Matushita, founder of Matsushita Electric)

It struck a chord…to mobilize everyone’s intelligence… for regular listeners you will recognize a theme in our work at PDS…releasing and focusing people is still a crucial ingredient to survival and sustained success

So, my focus in this blog is theSeven Challenges of Leadership in Turbulence

OK. I know you well enough by now to know there’s a core to these challenges…

Spot on….it’s Bravery…

“Bravery is the capacity to perform properly even when scared half to death.”
Omar N Bradley

The first step “walk and talk – – – the same talk” constantly. Alignment between attitude, philosophy and actions is key! That consistency is hard to find, particularly since producing a payoff in change is often more about emotion and intuition than it is about analysis and logic.

Where’s the bravery you ask?

Try making emotional and intuitive decisions which may or may not be born out by analysis and logic! Yet I like, Peter Senge’s viewpoint:

“high levels of mastery….leaders cannot afford to choose between reason and intuition, any more than they would choose to walk on one leg and see with one eye”

It’s that outward calm of seeing a swan glide across the water, yet below the water line…furious paddling.. It’s about not losing your head those around you are running around like chickens with their heads cut off…..what are we going to do….

The bravery comes to challenge how your company operates, its implicit beliefs and philosophies (e.g., The unspoken creed…once in automotive always in automotive). Your culture can create its own distractions which interfere with what seems right, intuitive and obvious. Many times, discussing this tension is repressed so that “we don’t take our eye off-the-ball,” or so we don’t offend others. Consequently, leaders often focus on the seemingly “urgent” and let the critical issues slide. They take refuge in “safe” financial performance targets that can’t be easily disputed. These targets rarely support desired behaviors or intuitive outcomes.

Yet there are automotive dependent manufacturers in West Michigan that are wondering how to “keep it shiny side up!”

So in this fog of war, where do leaders look to survival?

If you look at successful companies, they have varied strategies, structures and systems. However, their leaders do have something in common. They share surprisingly consistent philosophies.

These successful leaders have moved away from over reliance on very formal ways of running their organizations (like articulating strategies, building structures and developing systems). They have moved toward using more organic ways of managing (like engaging people in defining a purpose, implementing through necessary and defined processes and developing people).

So what does this point out? It goes to the root of why so many change initiatives fail (60% +) even after overdosing on business re-engineering and other scientific management techniques. Many Leaders manage what is easy to manage (like managing numbers and not people). They’ve been trained in the scientific disciplines. They forget they are managing an “organism.” They dismiss the small and gradual steps associated with real change for grandiose strategies

So, let’s put this into perspective. Successful leaders recognize that an organization’s purpose is more important than short-term outcomes. Why? Outcomes change – the purpose does not! Their focus is on how they can create committed members of a purposeful organization. Putting purpose above outcomes, allowing new improved outcomes to take precedence and promoting different things to be done takes bravery.

Why is bravery so important?

It takes bravery for leaders and executives to address seven critical challenges. Without question, addressing them is about not acquiescing to “legacy tendencies” but about incorporating “what now works” into the development of “tomorrow’s legacies”! Bravery is about doing “different things,” not about making excuses as to why you can’t do different things.

Getting above the white noise of excuses is not for the faint hearted….getting up with clamor of resistances and fear

Where do we start with these challenges? Is there a sequence or are they inter-related?

1. Embedding Purpose

Where are you on the continuum from Undefined or Conceptual to Clearly articulated & translated?

So, you’ve written and articulated the corporate purpose! But, do the troops actually understand what this means to their everyday behavior and actions? So often the organization states its purpose without regard as to whether or not it has created any ownership in that purpose.

Essential Questions:

How will you gain widespread organizational support for your purpose?
How will you ensure new activities, actions and behaviors invigorate your purpose?
How will you ensure your expectations are aligned with what people assume is expected of them?

2: Removing Distractions

Where you on the continuum from Unidentified to Identified and Managed Distractions?

There are always distractions that deflect an organization from its “appointed” tasks. If these distractions go unidentified, they grow stronger. Distractions don’t just miraculously disappear. The longer they last the more they clog corporate arteries. Executives need to lead the “charge” in identifying and eliminating distractions.

Essential Questions:

How will you convince people to dismiss actions, operations and processes which stimulate doing old things?
How can you eliminate duplicate processes and reports that slow the organization down?
Who will oversee the distraction-elimination process; and, what authority will they have?

I can see how that would help but does this really get over the fog of war…that we face today?

Getting People on the Same Page

3: Aligning Organizational Expectations

Where are you on the continuum from Defused & Misaligned to Focused & Aligned Expectations?

Over and over again, employees say,

“I wish someone had told me exactly what was expected.”

Have you ever considered that others’ assumptions of “what is expected” might be counterproductive to your purpose or outcomes?

“Are people doing what you expect or what they think you expect?”

Essential Questions:

What are the key components that reveal your organization’s direction and success?
How will you translate these words into actions, competencies and behaviors that can be managed?
How will you measure the degree of alignment with your purpose, and what evidence of alignment are you looking for?

Doesn’t this demand more from a leader than just stating the facts?

Making clearer emotional connections

“Its alarming how one individual can undermine a change simply by being out of touch with intuition and empathy. One of the most overlooked, yet common ways, leaders fail albeit unintentionally, is not to express appropriately, candidly and consistently what they feel as well as what they think. This is known as unintentionally ambiguous behavior which gives gives mixed messages. Next to aggressive behavior ambiguous behavior can cause the most tension for sellers and buyers alike” (Adapted from Robert Cooper’s book, Executive EQ.)

4. Creating Differentiation

Where you on the continuum from Competitively Vulnerable to Differentiated & Own Your Niche?

If you feel like you’re the same in the marketplace, odds are that’s how the customer sees you. As a leader, you are responsible for creating a climate of differentiation.

Essential Questions:

How will you ensure that customer contact people and others connect with one another to develop differentiable approaches?
How will you measure the degree and profitability of differentiation?
How will you leverage differentiation to lead your market place?

I can see how these first four create a platform for success…but how do leaders get this to stick and not just be another “flash in the pan”?

5: Coaching Strategically

Raising the Bar

Where you on this continuum from Coaching being Isolated & sporadic to Cascaded & Consistent throughout you organization?

We know, we know …. your people coach! The real question is, do your people coach with the right intensity and frequency to replicate successful behaviors? Or, is coaching infrequent, informal and isolated?

Essential Questions:

What will you do as a leader to establish your coaching cascade? (Starting with you, of course)
What is the right intensity and frequency of coaching needed under present competitive conditions?
How will you know that coaching is effective?

6: Replicating Success

Where are you on this continuum fromUsing Lagging Indicators to Using Leading Indicators to replicate success?

The words, “best practice” seems to have permeated the corporate world. Your people undoubtedly have their own practices of choice, honed by years of personal experience. Often corporate rewards go to these people rather than to those who demonstrate the “best practices” that everyone can adopt and benefit from.

Essential Questions:

What will your real best practices look like?
How will you tie best practices to behaviors which can be evidenced and replicated without alienating the productive, “lone rangers?”
How will you use your “language of leaders” to make managing easier and more measurable?

7: Rewarding Change

Where you on this continuum fromHistorical & Slow to Related & Responsive when it comes to Rewarding Change?

If the recognition and reward systems of your company run on “legacy,” it will only encourage doing things differently, not “doing different things!” To change, you need to consistently reward the new behaviors, not the “reward legacies” of the past.

Essential Questions:

What proportion of people’s compensation should be tied to adopting the new behaviors?
How will you measure and reward those who support your purpose?
How will you “raise the bar” so that over time people demonstrate excellence in the new behaviors?

Where do you go from here?

Ensure that your “walk and talk” are consistent. This relates to your language, how you reward excellence, how you coach and how you react when things go wrong! Bravery means displaying an attitude of distinction.

Create a cascade of conversation and coaching that gets above the “white noise” of legacy…..that’s doing different things!

Align the expectations of the organization. Bravery is found in exposing misalignments and distractions for immediate correction.

Tip of this Blog

Look at your team/colleagues…whose up for a fight?

He that outlives this day

“He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,

Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam’d,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,

Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbors,
And say ‘To-morrow is Saint Crispian.’
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say ‘These wounds I had on Crispian’s day.’
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he’ll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words”

(William Shakespeare, Henry V part of his speech before the Battle of Agincourt)

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Great, but how can this help me?

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For Help in Getting Your People on the Same Page
Nick Anderson, The Crispian Advantage

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Improving the Payoffs from Oil Sands Projects

Posted on January 16, 2011 by agincourtarcher

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This month I continue to look at different industries that have difficulty in implementing successful change. Last month we looked at the problems cutting red tape in local government, this month we look at large Oilsands construction projects

Ugh?? Why? Bear with me readers….here’s some facts

Fact: Canada has the largest reservoir of crude bitumen in the world. Making Canada’s total oil reserves the second largest in the world, after Saudi Arabia’s.

Fact: Crude oil prices will go through the $100 pbl this year. Making Canada’s oilsands economically viable once again, especially with advances in production technology.

Fact: Forecasts say Canada will 5.0+ million barrels per day by 2035

Fact: In the last boom (2005-08) these projects ran notoriously over budget and behind schedule.

So, what’s going to happen in the next boom AND why should anyone care about what happens in the barren lands of Alberta?

Basically, the more delay in these projects, the greater the cost and guess who’s going to end up paying at the gas pump. Here’s some disturbing evidence. In a recent survey of Oil & Gas Industry executives, most said they were:

Dissatisfied with project performance (40% of capital projects overrun); Highest ever level of dissatisfaction

Agreed that poor project performance is not acceptable when the market expects predictable strong returns.

Agreed that they can’t afford to miscalculate project risks, yet they don’t have a good grasp of how manage them.

(Booz Allen Hamilton “Capital Project Execution in the Oil & Gas Industry”)

You would think these executives would have their act together by now. What sorts of things did the survey identify were going wrong?

Good question. Another survey identified several things, including:

1. Late scope changes

2. Insufficient resources

3. Poor support

4. Poor contracting strategies

5. Poor communications

6. Poor project processes and controls

7. Poorly developed teams

8. High Team turnover

9. Lack of stakeholder identification and engagement

(PriceWaterhouseCoopers 2004)

It strikes me that lot of these come down to people not being on the same page. For example, to what extent are late scope changes the result of inadequate communication between different groups?

Quite often. We find people in construction projects aren’t aligned early enough. For example, the owner may expect the Contractor (EPC) to have conducted a thorough review of specifications prior to start of drafting only to find out later the review was inadequate. And the longer specification mistakes remain uncovered the more expensive they become to fix.

The key problem is layered change. It builds pressure to “to get on with it”. Under stressful conditions, the ramifications of meeting the latest change order are not fully considered. So, more change orders are approved without sufficient time or budget for professionals to consider their impact and cost. This sets up “wicked problem solving” – you “solve” one problem but create five more – and so on.( C. West Churchman, 1967)

We have seen this happen when three projects were running in parallel on the same site where increasing Change Orders led to increased Requests for Information (RFIs)

It reminds me of a Monty Python sketch – Mr. Creosote . Creosote is an impossibly obese man who is served an enormous amount of food After being persuaded to eat “just one more mint wafer”, he explodes in a very graphic way.

Another good example are Poor Partnering Strategies – Normally performance guarantees and risk sharing are agreed to contractually between, say, Contractor and Sub-contractor. But, invariably no one then takes preventative action align specific expectations to avoid their use. As many say, “if you have to get the contract out then we really are in deep do-do!”

What have you found to explain this a lack of specific expectations and how it contributes to these problems?

At the start of a project, construction people are under enormous pressure to “get on with it!’. So, they agree too readily to others’ expectations of them and accept others’ agreement of their expectations. This ready acceptance of expectations is especially true between professional disciplines and companies. The problem is people don’t really specify what is being agreed to. This only emerges when the expectation’s Receiver doesn’t deliver what was expected by the Originator and then the remedy is usually expensive. At its core is a lack of understanding of what alignment is really about. Alignment requires a Responsibility Shift between an expectation’s Originator and Receiver. Let me explain.

The Alignment Responsibility Shifts

When the Originator has an expectation, they are responsible to initiate discussion with the Receiver(s) (70% of the time this doesn’t happen – LOL)

Shift 1. If the Receiver agrees to the expectation, then the responsibility shifts to the Receiver. To tell the Originator what they will and will not deliver to meet the agreed expectation.

Shift 2. Now, the Responsibility shifts back to the Originator to assess the Receiver’s need for help to meet their expectation. (Contrary to what common sense would indicate):

Shift 3. and most importantly the Originator still has the responsibility to provide that help. For example, like briefing, coaching, advice, support etc.

Now, Originator and Receiver stand a chance of being aligned. The key is that success is more likely, replicable, faster and at reduced cost.

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. (Chinese Proverb)

Why don’t project management processes cope with this sort of problem very well?

Two factors. As someone once said:

“If everything is going according to plan, something somewhere is going massively wrong’

First. There is an over-reliance on such processes like accountability matrices (A grid of who does what, who they should consult and inform etc.). They fail to reflect the dynamics of a complex construction project. Back to Mr Creosote….it’s not so much about adding more! (Reporting, processes, communication etc.) but having clear expectations on how we handle problems and opportunities as they arise. Such rational planning processes needs strong emotional glue to be really effective. Let me explain.

Emotionally intelligent glue consists of compounds like trust, constructive criticism and holding each other accountable. And like glue needs “curing”. It needs controlled heat, and a blend of team members to initiate and harden commitments, just like using high-performance adhesives when you need strong bonding.

The second factor compounds the problems of over-reliance on traditional project management processes. It’s the number of lines communications and deciding which are needed under pressured dynamics. Just take a 100 person project, potentially you could have 9,900 possible communication links. Regardless of matrix, project or siloed command structures, you still need a way of managing the myriad number of cross functional, organizational and contractor expectations. And if not surfaced and managed will negatively impact project execution.

How do you respond to those that say, “ This is why we have all this technology available so that all those involved have access to what everyone else is doing?

But, somebody has to feed the technology. More reporting what’s been done comes at a price – Time and declining utility. Unfortunately technology has become a two-edged sword….efficient yet overwhelming. It produces so much data that it dilutes information and makes sense making difficult. This then hobbles a team’s ability to cope with problems, delays and change and what they need to do.

Teams are most productive when they are bonded by the following curing process:

1. Sustainable Trust leads to

2. Healthy Conflict which leads to

3. Solid Commitment which builds

4. Owning Accountability which enables

5. Keeping Focused under the pressure of delays and problems

If these are not present cracks appear and quickly team adhesion fails. These cracks occur because expectation gaps and misalignments are not addressed early enough.

Let me explain how team adhesion is lost:

Lack #1: Trust

When team members get unsure what others really expected of them; as opposed to what their company has committed them to legally. This uncertainty is then compounded by cynicism from previous project experience. A typical cause of which is when:

“People get so absorbed in what they are doing that Key Stakeholders are not actively involved. This has led to tension between them and the project team”

Lack #2: Conflict

Lack of trust stifles teams engaging in unfiltered, passionate debate about key issues. This can develop into resistance to following through with expectations. Negative attitudes and unstated resistance occur evidenced by politicking, and regressing into pure self interest. Effective teams need to have:

“Iron sharpening iron, so one person sharpens the wits of another. (after Proverbs 27:17)

Lack #3: Commitment

Without conflict, it is difficult for team members to commit to decisions and ambiguity becomes the default. The resulting lack of direction and commitment can make project partners and teams disgruntled, falling back on required formal communication and lead to slower response times.

“We are reactive and respond too quickly to changes to understand the implications and impacts on other elements and groups”

Lack#4: Accountability

When teams don’t commit to a clear plan of action, even the most focused and driven individuals hesitate. They hold back from calling their peers on actions and behaviors that are counterproductive. This procrastination means correcting a situation becomes very difficult without direct confrontation of the issue for the overall good of the project.

“We could be better at identifying problems and their solutions before they actually occur. We are too reactive and this slows us down”

Lack #5: Focus

Now the lines are drawn. Project team members circle their wagons. They fall back into the distraction of putting their own needs first. If a team has lost sight of the need for collective achievement, the project will ultimately suffer.

“We don’t reuse what has been done before – “Reinventing the Wheel” is costly and takes time”
“Measuring the impact of what we do is too subjective and lessens our ability to stay within budget”

These five cracks are rooted in problems of not aligning and managing expectations.

“Expectation Gaps are like pot holes, the more you leave them the deeper they get. The impact of misalignment leads to cost and time overruns and then bleeds over into subsequent projects” (Nick Anderson, PDS Group LTD)

Successful projects are founded on:”Get Personal before you get contractual!”

In summary, no matter how well a project is planned, it is executing the plan that ultimately determines success. Project success demands authentic communication to align expectations and then track them methodically. Tools needed to measure, manage and facilitate easier communication and alignment of critical expectations among project participants

So, you’re saying that those managing complex projects, like oilsands, need to stand back and consider what they do differently…..if past delays and overruns are to be avoided?

Certainly, there’s a case to answer and look at a new way of Expectation Alignment for More Effective Project Management. Let’s face it, You Can’t Manage What You Cannot Measure

As many project people will us:

“Building the thing is not difficult compared to managing all the people involved”

So called “soft” skills need hardening. Effective Communication should not only be acknowledged, but recognized as a cornerstone of successful project management. Why then is it so metric and data starved? How can we manage what we cannot measure?

So, here are the questions that took us 10 years to answer effectively:

How do we develop measurable ways of effective Teamworking?
How do we assess people’s expectations of others with those others have of them?
How can we drive performance discussions between groups and individuals on their expectations and assumptions that result in:
Specifying clearer performance criteria against which individuals/groups will be measured
Removing expectations that are non-value added and not strategically aligned
Identifying significant issues to address for project advancement
Creating an accountability framework
How can we help people be more aligned and focused?

I guess the question in readers minds is: If you make such an investment what do I get in return?

The ROI for Oilsands Projects – Sources of Payback

Expectation Alignment has been successfully employed midstream to “projects in crisis”, but its highest ROI is realized as preventative medicine used in real time to ensure proper project planning and execution.

We’ve covered Late Scope Changes and Poor Partnering Strategies of the 9 sources of failure. Let’s see how the others can be avoided or protected against by applying Expectation Alignment:

Optimized resources / Better support – Early definition of resource expectations all the way down the chain of command can avoid costly delays and expenditures. Similarly, competency gaps can be identified sooner by engaging in expectation alignment processes.
Improved communications – With numerous stakeholders involved in an oilsands project, static project charters and the like are not designed to manage the thousands of changing expectations. Successful project execution rests on agreeing, discarding or identifying the unresolved… Expectation alignment methods identify teams and managers who are especially strong or weak at communicating . Coaching or other remedial actions can thus be undertaken and the results monitored.
Accountability Tracking – Expectation Alignment’s regular and measurable process of developing and agreeing project expectations are taken to a level needed for a given project. Unlike project reporting which can often identify symptoms, Expectation Alignment tools also make accountability for task execution highly visible. Expectation Tension Ratings may also reveal important tasks that are not necessarily on the critical path but can have huge ramifications to project schedules or budgets.
Better Team Development– The Expectation Alignment process demands that Expectation Originators ensure that Expectation Receivers have the competency and resources to complete the required tasks. In situations where senior managers are working with junior personnel, assumptions are often made on their level of process knowledge and industry practices. Expectation Alignment addresses these issues by facilitating the alignment conversations that reveal experience gaps early enough to develop people and avoid later termination.
Effective Contracting Strategies – Incorporating subcontractors and key suppliers in the Expectation Alignment process often reveals owner expectations and other stakeholders are not captured in specifications and contracts yet play a significant part in them being effective
Reduced Team Turnover – Again consider the 5 key” Project Dysfunctions”. (Absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability and inattention to results). Getting teams participating in facilitated expectation alignment sessions creates an objective assessment of team stressors and progressively builds a more robust and productive project team culture.

Based on this foundation , Expectation Alignment becomes an effective tool to getting new people up to speed and address competency gaps before their credibility is damaged

Improved Stakeholder Engagement – while inclusion of all stakeholders seems an obvious remedy to avoiding later project problems, the explicit definition of mutual expectations, especially of external stakeholders can yield big paybacks. The process that enables external stakeholders to explicitly state their expectations and have them acknowledged also build good relations both in the current and subsequent projects.

In summary, where project delays are millions of dollars per day, the simple alignment and monitoring of expectations to make the many thousands of required daily decisions more accurate, is strongly beneficial and has been shown to result in very tangible savings.

Tip of the Blog

Here are some questions that are crucial to successful project execution. The above benefits accrue when all people understand:

What is expected of them
What they can expect from others
How well they are strategically aligned
How their performance is measured and compensated
What they can stop doing
What they need to focus on
What information and resources can be used to achieve their goals
How they are going to be supported and coached

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Great, but how can this help me?

This is probably the first thing on your mind after reading this Blog. How about asking us? The first call is free! Just email me to set it up. Don’t wait, get PDS working for you!. If our conversation leaves you needing more, we offer at a reasonable fee telephone and video coaching on change, alignment and executive performance that improves the bottom line. If that still doesn’t do it, we’ll work with you on a solution.

_______________________________________________

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Cutting Red Tape in State, Provincial & Local Government

Posted on December 18, 2010 by agincourtarcher

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Over recent months, we have covered what creates successful and sustainable change in the corporate world. Why this focus for our business community? Why should it concern you?

Studies continue to show that up to 70% of all change initiatives fail. Why?

Certainly, the issues and challenges organizations face today are more complex than ever before. But still most leaders don’t appreciate the need for high-involvement change strategies to lower resistance and generate buy-in to change. Without such strategies to engage and involve people, organizations often fall short of delivering promised benefits. Even worse such shortfalls negatively impact productivity and morale. Add to this the time and money wasted and we should be concerned.

Now, let’s move to this month’s theme. How to cut the red tape in State, Provincial and Local Government. Why? Many people voted for change last October or November because they didn’t see things changing, but how much more difficult is it to change these organizations? For Example Naheed Nenshi’s “cutting the red tape” podcast that contributed to his election for Mayor of Calgary

Secondly, most change is frequently opposed by at least some proportion of the electorate, population and political class. Change is difficult and unpopular for some of those affected. What this means is that when the @#$% hits the proverbial fan, it doesn’t quietly go away – it explodes and everybody knows about it (especially if the press, opposition and those adversely affected are doing their jobs). For good or ill, whether it is effectively managed or poorly handled, change in government is far more public.

Thirdly, the addition of an audience to any activity increases the strain on performers. Few audiences are larger, more demanding, or more critical than taxpayers. Few activities draw a larger crowd than those that purport to ‘change’ something. Few elected officials have had to cope with viral social media.

So, it makes me think how does anything get done?

Aside from major crises like the attack at Pearl Harbor, the Cuban Missile Crisis and more recently 9/11 such disparate interest groups are not motivated to act in concert. Like any newly elected body, they want to be the “New Broom” and give the electorate what they voted for. Unfortunately, they frequently lack sufficient understanding of how to implement change. Too often they have limited understanding of the complexities, intensity and resources needed to overcome organizational and political inertia.

In practical terms, as reality sinks in, they learn the insufficiency of resources or political power to push things through. In reality, most of those newly elected are astonished to learn how little a mayor, governor or even the President can do unilaterally. Of course, politicians don’t help themselves by making unrealistic promises during campaigns.

Consequently, they are drawn into launching their changes prematurely by using normal decision-making processes. This is sometimes called “Death by Committee” as the necessary compromises and dilutions occur just to get things done. The reality is that the actual machinery required to implement change is the very same which is traditionally most opposed to it. For example, in Calgary, the newly elected mayor, Naheed Nenshi campaigned on “cutting the red tape” especially reducing the rules on planning and zoning. Guess who will implement these changes? The very officials who administer the current rules will have to streamline the permit process and advise those elected on interpretation of the new regulations.

But it’s only natural that in trying to get things done, the path of least resistance is adding rather than replacing departments, people, processes and regulations. The outcome is invariably another layer of barnacles encrusting the organization’s hull and slowing progress.

Where did you think the term “Red tape” came from?

It is used to refer to the seemingly endless parade of paperwork that accompanies official matters. Originally, thick legal documents were bound or tied with red tape. By the 19th century the term had become pejorative referring to “any official routine or procedure marked by excessive complexity which results in delay or inaction.”

It is the process of “layering regulatory barnacles” that builds upunnecessary rules, paperwork, licenses and approvals that make conducting your affairs slower, more difficult, or both.

Here are some examples “Rules That Refuse To Die”

During the Boer War, a British artillery gun crew consisted of 5 men. 1 man carried ammunition, one man loaded the gun, and one man fired the gun. The other 2 men stood at attention. An efficiency expert was brought it to find out why. It turns out that the 2 men standing attention were there to move the horses. The problem was that the British artillery no longer was using horses.

In England (1963), a taxi driver was charged under Section 62 of the Town Police Clauses Act, 1847, for leaving a taxi-cab, unattended in a side street where, apparently, there was no traffic of any

Hackney Carriage

kind….. Section 62 reads…”If the driver of any such hackney carriage (taxi) leave it in any street….without someone proper to take care of it, any constable may drive away such hackney carriage…and the horse or horses harnessed thereto, at some neighboring livery stable…”..

In Calgary Alberta, there is still a by-law that requires businesses within the city to provide rails for tying up horses.

And where else but in California . . . . it is illegal for a vehicle without a driver to exceed 60 miles per hour.

How do these complexities affect managing change in such bureaucracies?

This regulatory layering effect tends to develop “Manager Experts”. They are the people who have captured the organization’s wisdom. This often leads to a condition where they tend to excessively focus on procedural trivia rather than on overall performance, quality and results. This focus on “low-level” trivia often delays decisions, clouds overall goals and objectives, and restricts the flow of information between employees.

Unfortunately, such managers rarely see anything wrong in their behavior. They often rebut criticism by seeing themselves as “structured” or “organized.“Manager Experts” then fall into the trap where they not only tell a subordinate what to do, but they dictate how to do it. Ultimately, such managers then delegate accountability for failure but not the authority to take alternative, successful actions. This is compounded during distressed economic times and government cuts—the pressure to keep your head down and not take risks is ly acute. Rare is the government employee willing to innovate or try new things with the potential risk of losing one’s job as a result. It’s much safer and easier to play a waiting game and keep your head down. And above all, guard knowledge jealously.

In a time of turbulence and change, it is more true than ever that knowledge is power”

John Fitzgerald Kennedy quotes (American 35th US President (1961-63), 1917–1963)

Regardless of managers’ motives, potential effects include:

Resentment and mistrust in both “vertical” and “horizontal” relationships
Interference with existing teamwork and inhibition of future teamwork
Disengagement, often to the point that employees label their manager as “control freaks.”
Suppression of creativity and constructive criticism that could otherwise lead to internal reform
Increased turnover, as subordinates feel the only way to change their workplace environment is to leaveDamage to the organization’s reputation, as those who felt they had leave have few reservations about speaking out frankly The resulting damage may even increase insecurity among management, prompting further micromanagement to cope with this insecurity.

What can new leadership do to counteract this negative spiral?

By the time new political leaders arrive on the scene they are facing an uphill struggle. Usually, this culture is widely internalized as “standard operating procedure”, compounded by employee distrust of the new leadership. Now, you can see why newly elected leaders might not consider loosening the reins as a viable course of action.

Getting rid of this must be a “root and branch” approach to be successful. Essentially:

The head of the organization must have the authority, independence and then represent all divisions simultaneously so factions and fiefdoms are not emboldened.
The leadership team must exhibit the attitude and specific actions that demonstrate complete disinterest in factional or political positions – they must be seen to serve the organization’s best interests and its citizen’s charter.
These attitudes and actions require a “loosening of the reins” throughout all divisions, even at the very times when individual managers feel most tempted to seize and maintain personal control. For example, during times of hardship – for instance when all divisions are under scrutiny as potential targets for cutbacks.
Loosen the Reins!

The first two criteria I see the need for, but can you give examples of “loosening the reins”?

It comes down to aligning and realigning expectations to navigate change obstacles. It may be too steep to suggest that such a process makes change easy (or popular) in a bureaucratic setting, but it can make change management easier. The simple reason is that aligning expectations maximizes output by streamlining input: it creates efficiencies by removing inefficiencies. Politically speaking some voters will like a particular change, others will not – but all of them appreciate efficiency in government’s bottom line.

Establishing an Accountability Culture must ensure from the outset that any change effort is capable of objective measurement, and that “policing” is seen to be fair, consistent and unflinching. It has to be that way to handle the inevitable denial and “finger pointing” between subordinate managers who retain a vested interest in the status quo.

The essential foundation for accountability is when stakeholders understand or realize each others’ expectations.

It sounds simple, but managing the complexities of multiple stakeholders’ expectations can be daunting! especially as it requires a high degree of trust in the intentions of the other…something that seems to be in short supply, certainly in American politics.

Initially it starts with a general flow like this:

Develop a consensus of those alignment components with all Leaders & Stakeholders – in this case, those about “loosening the reins” across all divisions.
Coach Leaders in generating performance expectations for each alignment component
Provide analysis and feedback to the leadership team, isolating key initiatives to embed change and head off resistors
Develop sufficient trust and transparency as the means to eliminate factional conflicts
Use accountability and evidenced based management as the means to accomplish and maintain momentum
Facilitate managers to coach others to reach higher performance standards that meet their expectations
Develop a reward system to reinforce the change.

The Heart of Changing the Status Quo – Enabling Delegation

The core of “loosening the reins” lies in Managers being expected and required to delegate responsibilities to others who have the ability to “hold the reins.”

Enabling others to do a job for you while ensuring that:

They know what you want
They have the authority to achieve it
They know how to do it.

Communicating clearly:

The nature of the task
The extent of discretion
The sources of relevant information and knowledge

To get to the state where effective delegation can flourish people need to be aligned.

What is alignment?

Clear Expectations

– Validating & agreeing statements about what two people expect of one another

– Agreeing on measureable deliverables that will evidence fulfillment of each expectation.

Mutual Accountability

– Accepting responsibility & authority for agreed upon expectations between two people, for tasks performed & results achieved

– Accepting positive or negative consequences of that performance.

Real Alignment

Real “loosening of the reins” ranges from the formal to informal. Yet for any change effort to stick, managers and leaders have to constantly reinforce the need for effective delegation. This inherently involves coaching, particularly when expectations relating to effective performance are made explicit. It is the responsibility of the Originator of any expectation, usually the Receiver’s Manager, to gain agreement to it, and the Receiver’s to give the evidence they are going to meet it. This is a very effective way of reaching mutual understanding so that the rating of performance and coaching is objective and “loosening the reins” becomes a reality.

So, , it seems that government might also practice some of the key management practices we’ve talked about in past blogs?

That’s right , but of course, the common sense of that action may totally escape our political (“P” or ”p”) leaders, even though they may have practiced some of it in a former life. What is more difficult for those managing change in local or provincial government is the current political landscape. It bears the scars of intrigue and scandal. People both in the USA and Canada are looking for greater transparency and simplification. Without these two, their positive judgment as to the fairness and honesty of governance will be unlikely. For example, Google, “political scandals Canada” and you get 336,000 hits including Dar Heatherington – forced to resign from Lethbridge City Council in 2004 after being convicted of public mischief.

So, what would your Tip of this Blog be?

I have a lot of time for Naheed Nenshi in his inclusivity and transparency in Calgary; he is a breath of fresh air to those dusty city halls. He knows that the heavy lifting starts now.

My advice to him and other recently elected representatives would be to ensure that expectations between stakeholders are publically available so people can see just how implementation is progressing before concrete results are demonstrated. I recommend that a progress report is issued to show:

What expectations have yet to be discussed
Which expectations have been agreed and what is being delivered as a result and by when.
Which expectations have been discarded (really important to stop doing things if you are to cut red tape)
Which expectations are unresolved for either or both the executive and elected officials to debate

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Top Down or Bottom Up – Making Change Personal

Posted on November 22, 2010 by Terrance Merriman

By Contributing Blogger – Terry Merriman, PCO Associates

Implementing successful and sustainable change is tough, strategic change initiatives fail two-thirds of the time in North American business (Kotter, 1996, and McKinsey, 2009). How can your organization succeed? You can succeed by making change personal! Remember, performance is personal before it is organizational.

Isn’t this a truism, a matter of common business sense?

Since when was common sense common practice! It is common for many leaders to plan their change initiative, communicate it to their leadership team, tell the organization to watch for it, set some goals and measures, and incorporate the goals in their team and department objectives. Then, the change dies and the leadership team wonders why. The answer; the change was never translated into personal action!

If your people don’t embraced change and those in your value chain (including your customers and vendors) it will fail. Why? If your people do not understand the change initiative, buy into it, and integrate it into their daily activities, it will not work. Consequently, planned change and personal action don’t mesh as people are skeptical, don’t understand why, don’t see the need, and don’t know what’s in it for them.

So how do you make change personal?

Define, Communicate, Delegate and Track change related expectations. We usually get the organization’s side of change, define and communicate, pretty well. Where we fail is in putting the personal side of change, communicate, delegate, and track, into play.

Define the change in terms of broad categories of activity to which everyone in the organization can relate, and specific results that benefit the organization and its people.
Communicate the change initiative, and include the message that leadership will be expecting everyone to participate by defining specific expectations of each other necessary to carry out the change.
Communicate More, by focusing on individual working relationships by:
- Get each leadership team member identify specific expectations of each other as to what they must do to successfully implement the change. Ensure the expectations are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time and budget bounded, Ethical and Recorded.
- Have each leader discuss their expectations of the receiver expected to execute, and ensure each accepts accountability for each other’s expectation. This helps to create a productive relationship and integrate the change into the business at the leadership level.
Delegate by cascading the above process to each leader’s direct reports, peers, and business partners to those teams that are considered key players in the change initiative.
- Ensure people delegate not only the responsibility and accountability but also the authority to execute each expectation. In this way people can develop ownership of those expectations other have of them. This step integrates the change throughout the organization as it becomes a part of each person’s work responsibilities and commitments.
- Ensure each expectation’s originator is held responsible for assessing the receiver’s ability to meet their expectations and coach them to develop their competence.
Track each expectation’s results. This means each person holding accountable the person who agreed to meeting and reporting progress to an expectation’s completion. So, the Accountability Culture is born. The expectations approach challenges leaders and their direct reports to get personal first perspective and serves to foster improved communications between them.

The Expectations Approach makes change personal by casacading accountability for implementing change throughout the organization in a way that helps people understand the reasons for and expected results from the change, and buy into it. We’ve found it one of the most effective ways of implementing successful and sustainable change in organizations. The side benefits of this approach are that it improves accountability throughout the organization, and encourages creation and development of productive relationships between people, leading to improved organizational performance.

Where has this approach been used succesfully?

This approach has been successfully employed in Fortune 500 companies and family owned businesses, from new selling strategies to management transitions (See Project Summaries) It has been shown to work in for-profit and non-profit organizations from large to small, and it also works in government organizations (it’s been used in the British Navy by its developer, John Machin).

“Change is Hard and Real Change is Real Hard!” If you want to be successful at change, you have to be prepared to tackle the hard part of change – making it personal.

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Great, but how can this help me?

This is probably the first thing on your mind after reading this Blog.
How about asking us? The first call is free! Just email me to set it up.
Don’t wait, get The Crispian Advantage working for you!. If our conversation leaves you needing more, we offer at a reasonable fee telephone and video coaching improve bottom line results.
If that still doesn’t do it, we’ll work with you on a solution.

_________________________________________________________________________
For Help in Getting Your People on the Same Page
Nick Anderson, The Crispian Advantage

E-mail I Web I Linkedin

© Copyright All Rights Reserved, The Crispian Advantage and Walk the Talk – A Blog for Agile Minds, [2010-2012]. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Nick Anderson, The Crispian Advantage and Walk the Talk – A Blog for Agile Minds with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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Leading Competitive Differentiation

Posted on November 13, 2010 by agincourtarcher

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Last month we looked at competitive differentiation and emphasized the importance of Competitive Value Discovery as fundamental. It helps you discover value potential over your competitors. Finding value that the Customer had never thought of before is competitively differentiating. Also, whether it’s your existing customer or you are trying to secure a new client, they always weigh your value against your competitors’. Focused Value Discovery helps you gain greater control over what they weigh, how they weigh it and, as importantly, what the competition is doing in the same regard so that we can counter such tactics. So, if we have far better intel and a better sense of the client’s changing priorities we can work both offensively and defensively to influence their Decision Guidelines.

In sum, you need to gain the high ground

What have you chosen for us this month?

This month I want to explore why planned and focused value discovery is vital to creating and implementing a successful sales strategy. Aligning where you are going with your resources gives you the best chance for creating new or additional revenue sources. This means being competitively clear about how you are going to choose the products (or services) you want to build. For instance:

Build the product you want to build,
Market the product you want to build,
Sell the product you want to build,
Service the product you want to build
Build the next generation

Determining where to differentiate based on market conditions is a strategic value conversation. You have to know your products as well as you know your competitor’s. Then determine strategically where competitors are most vulnerable and how to deliver those messages. You must regularly test your premise with the customer…

How easy is it to find out how your competitor is differentiating themselves?

Not easy! Sure, hard product functionality is on their website – that’s the easy bit. It’s difficult because most think each competitor is static and consistent – but they are not! Many competitors don’t even behave the same between their different regions or divisions. For example, a competitor can be your partner in one geography, yet be your competitor in another. Typically, this occurs in IT. So, what they do in Idaho is often very different than what they are doing in Chicagoland. With one client, we helped them find out that a technology partner was in fact competing against them using two strategies. The first was in schools districts and the second in State Government. They were losing 8/10 sales to them. After we determined this we helped them reverse that condition.

Why do so many companies fail to recognize such competitive strategies?

Because they don’t have the focus, processes and ability to read their competitive environments. Such signals are not easy to read: they are weak ambiguous, and need deciphering. Only a systematic and aligned process can decipher competitive signals early enough to make a difference.

It is difficult. First, top management is never close enough to the market. Second, some top executives can’t see competitive reality. Somehow they become insulated from competitive reality by relying on intelligence that is invariably biased, subjective, filtered or late.

By the time most executives get evidence of changes in their markets, they have already lost touch with customers, technology, competitors, suppliers, government and the other forces operating to squeeze their profits.

The question is, if you do nothing, what are the competitive consequences? Without taking specific preventive measures, such as ensuring that top managers consider competitive information in making decisions, companies will be hit on the head by change – time and again.

You may be thinking, who has the time to continually and systematically identify such signals early? Who has the expertise to attempt to decode all of them? The answer is: Your people – those who are in daily touch with the competitive arena.

Survival depends on competitive agility when facing changes in the environment by:

Continuously moving on three fronts – content, context and process
Being unpredictable and so easily identifiable to your competition
Being experimental

To compete in unstable markets you need to be competent in two things:

Identifying and understanding the competitive forces at play and how they change over time, linked to
Mobilizing resources to respond competitively

How do you get this flow of competitive intelligence to decision makers?

The Five Aspects of Competitive Strategic Change

Our uncertain environment means strategic change involves parallel streams of activity. There is no easy logic; It’s more like brewing a culture– like beer. It’s a difficult complex process where a manager’s ability to cope with ambiguity is paramount.

It’s not surprising then that higher performing firms handle five interrelated aspects of strategic change better:

1. Assessing the Competitive Environment
2. Leading Competitiveness
3. Linking Strategic & Operational change
4. Learning Competitively
5. Orchestrating Competitive Change

Let’s look at the first of these five.

1. Assessing the Competitive Environment

The firm has to be an open learning system and not reliant on one specialist function.

As Romme (1989) puts it:

“There is the problem of not only environmental “sensing”, but also “sense-making””And sensing tends to be by individuals whereas sense making nearly always involves collective processing…

Successful competitive sensing and sense making is requires:

Key people to champion assessment techniques which increase openness
Both structure and culture to encourage environment-facing behaviors

Even with these factors are present there is no guarantee anything will change without actions which stabilizes and drives this assessment capacity forward. .

Presumably, this means leadership style has to change?

2. Leading Change

I agree, it’s not is not just ensuring that the environment is understood; the vital need is to ensure that the organization learns and acts on new information that requires courageous leadership. The leadership challenge is that unpredictability makes the prospect of greater control remote. So, big initiatives in themselves are of limited value and may well be dangerous. Paradoxically, effective leadership relies on the gradual and modest. This includes assessing, for instance, through “problem-sensing” and “climate-setting” management can assess the political implications of a competitive strategy. Effective leadership relies on shaping a long term process rather one direct initiative. These processes have to encourage analysis and actions which are sensitive to changing circumstances.

Competitive research suggests that leading an organization through change does not imply reliance on one leader. Great emphasis in those organizations studied was placed on:

Creating a broader notion of collective leadership at higher levels
Embedding a complimentary sense of leadership and responsibility at lower levels

Leaders need to be “Radical Gradualists,” knowing where they need to go using incremental and unspectacular steps.
It involves integrating competitive actions at all levels.

Building a climate for leading change also needs to raise energy levels and set new directions. The conditions needed are:

Showing why the changes are needed
Building the organizational capabilities to mount the change
Establishing an agenda which sets direction, visions and values

What’s the next challenge for becoming more competitive?

3. Linking Strategic & Operational Change

The cumulative effect of separate acts can be powerful. As Pettigrew & Whipp puts it:

“Translating strategy into operational action does not occur by a neat sequence of steps to a logical outcome; it may include…iterative actions in order to break through ignorance or resistance; it often requires…aborted efforts and the buildup of slow incremental phases of adjustment which….allow short bursts of concentrated action…”

You need to focus on:

Opening up people to reach closure on what worked in the past and reinforce the changes that need to be made
Sustaining speed, intensity and momentum of the process
Recognizing that re-formulation of the strategy will occur – Set the expectation that you can’t to get it right first time
Translating strategic intent into operational reality – WIIFM

Then, new knowledge and insights gained during implementation of a strategy can be captured, retained and disseminated. So, replicate success and avoid failures better than you competition

I am curious to learn about the next step

So, the next step is about the organization’s ability to keep learning about its competitive surroundings

4. Competitive Learning

Peter Senge defined learning organizations as:

“Organizations where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning to learn together.”

Competitive learning organizations need to create positive learning spirals that:

Develop the value of competitive knowledge as a key differentiating weapon
Facilitate learning that generates, maintains and regenerates that knowledge
Find ways of exposing knowledge locked-up in the procedural repertoires of the firm
Ensure that the knowledge base of the firm matches changing competitive conditions

Competitive learning spirals involve observation, reflection, hypothesizing, experimentation, action and “hands-on” application. What is learned has to be codified and diffused.

Such spirals are team based. People collectively developing their knowledge, values and shared mental models of their competitive environment. It goes beyond training. The need is for a much broader approach which embraces “play experimentation”, developing appropriate language as well as reshaping attitudes and values.

Often overlooked, is the need for breaking down entrenched knowledge and beliefs – “unlearning”. – Shedding outmoded knowledge, techniques and beliefs, and then learning new ones to carry out strategies is crucial. The ability to do so faster and more effectively than your competitors becomes almost priceless!

How do Leaders juggle all of this?

5. Orchestrating Competitive Change

It’s about holding a firm’s strategic thinking together, while carrying out the reshaping and adjusting which new or emergent strategies demand. Research shows the need for competitive integrity between the strategic competitive position adopted by the firm, the internal resources and external collaborators

Such orchestration is not easily attained or maintained. It means solving analytical, educational and political problems.

The problem of orchestration lies in the divergence between official goals and more routine decisions. As Kanter (1983) says, “there are many rules for stifling innovation”. These include multiple layers of managerial approval; intensive controls; secretive decision making; and suspicion of new ideas. In other words, corporate contradictions prevent change – the formidable obstacles to which many give little attention.

Are there any other aspects which leaders should consider when conducting competitive change?

Developing Competitive Networks

A key aspect is developing competitive networks. It’s investing in networks to build up, for example, a set of complimentary assets which it needs in order to exploit its knowledge base.

Networking focuses on developing relationships between your firm and others which are directly concerned with generating new intellectual capital (IP) For example, sharing life science research with a collaborator. Each has one piece of the puzzle, so they build a database by sharing intellectual property.

It also is about developing relationships which affect the firm’s process of generating and altering its knowledge indirectly. An example here is with data centers and different IT firms used to support the customer’s service in that data center.

Developing such networks requires learning local cultural and market conditions, techniques of partnering, negotiation skills and collaboration. Such networks are often invisible assets which cannot be readily purchased and controlled.

So, I guess the real question is how well an organization develops its competitiveness by being better at discovering customer values and then aligning their organizations and partners to meet those demands. Right?

Competitive Value Discovery is the tip of the spear targeted and driven by superior focus, processes and leadership that galvanizes the organization. It is sustained by the belief that being competitive is about making sense of changing market conditions, customer needs, priorities and competitive responses.

Competitiveness rests not only aligning such aspects, but also replicating what works over and over again. Can you tell me what those systems are in your organization?

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Great, but how can this help me?

This is probably the first thing on your mind after reading this Blog.
How about asking us? The first call is free! Just email me to set it up.
Don’t wait, get The Crispian Advantage working for you!. If our conversation leaves you needing more,
we offer at a reasonable fee telephone and video coaching improve bottom line results.
If that still doesn’t do it, we’ll work with you on a solution.

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Who’s got the best mouse trap? or How do Consultants Differentiate?

Posted on October 13, 2010 by agincourtarcher

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This month’s topic looks at Competitive Differentiation in the Professional Services Sector. This sector typically includes accountants, lawyers, bankers and financial services, like planners etc. All these professionals offer very similar services due in part to regulations, certifications, disintermediation and the power of technology.

Go to any law firm’s web site like Varnum and Clark Hill, or large consulting firms and they look the same. They apparently have the same mouse trap.

Why did you choose your….attorney, accountant, financial planner etc?

So, how do professionals differentiate themselves?

On the basis of their expertise and their ability to develop Trusted Adviser status. David Meister asks: What benefits would you obtain if your clients trusted you more? For example, the more they will:

Treat you as you wish to be treated
Lower the level of stress in your interactions
Be comfortable and allow you to be comfortable
Involve you early on when their issues begin to form, rather than later (Open up)Share more information that helps you to help them, and improves the quality of the service you provide
Be inclined to accept and act on your recommendations
Bring you in on more advanced, complex, strategic issues ( Your are in the board room not waiting in the corridor awaiting instructions)
Refer you to their friends and business acquaintances

What characteristics would you look for in selecting your trusted adviser

Here are some of David Meister’s traits that Trusted Advisers have in common. Clients say they:

Make us feel comfortable and casual personally (but take the issues seriously)
Seem to understand us, effortlessly, and like us
Act like a person, not someone in a role
Are reliably on our side, and always seem to have our interests at heart
Don’t try to force things on us
Help us think things through (but emphasize that it’s our decision)
Criticize and correct us gently, lovingly
Don’t pull their punches: we can rely on them to tell us the truth
Are in it for the long haul (the relationship is more important than the current issue)
Give us reasoning (to help us think), not just their conclusions
Give us options, increase our understanding of those options, give us their recommendation and let us choose.
Are always honorable: they don’t gossip about others (we trust their values)
Help us put our issues in context, often through the use of metaphors, stories and anecdotes (they recognize that few problems are completely unique)

You said he listed “traits” as in a person’s character? So for example the adviser who is not honorable can’t be trained to be more honorable, right?

It’s a good point, in last month’s blog I made the distinction. Candidly, Meister’s list is mixture of Competencies and Traits. “So what?” you must be thinking,” I said, “Bottom line, you hire traits and develop competencies! Remember:

Competency : “The ability to do something successfully or efficiently.” ”Having the necessary ability, knowledge, or skill to do something successfully:”
Trait: “A characteristic or quality of a person.” (They are wired that way

For all intent and purposes professional advisers reading this should focus on what they can learn and develop to be competitive differentiated trusted advisers. But, here is the rub. Developing trust is not well defined. For example, research I did with Linda Marsh into Mortgage Loan Advisers we found that the customers trusted those who used more “Transitional Structuring” WHAT! (Some people call it sign posting). Like,

“We have now covered David’s Trusted Adviser traits and we are now looking at Adviser Competencies…

We and others have identified observable and trainable behaviors that impact those traits that David mentioned like making the client “feel comfortable”. Now, here’s the fundamental point about developing trusted adviser status:

How do you balance helping potential clients feel understood while ensuring they understand the issues and options available?

That’s difficult because if they don’t feel understood they aren’t really going to retain what they are told AND won’t likely see you as a trusted advisor. It takes me back to the most fundamental process of when people make a decision to change. They have to be sufficiently disturbed or concerned about their current condition that they look for a solution that enables them to resolve their negative condition. If Advisors, don’t know how to locate where a client is in this process and help them through at their pace any residual trust will be eroded.

What competencies have you and PDS identified to help develop competitive advisers?

In the world of Professional Services regulations dictate levels of certification – so the expertise playing field is level, for the new client looking for an adviser. So, we at PDS isolate “Competitive Competencies” which:

Make a disproportionate contribution to customer’s perceived value
Are “competitively unique” or superior
Are extendible: providing “gateways to tomorrow’s markets”

The Value of Effective Competencies

Greater objectivity – less biased by the manager’s interpretations of what happened but what actually happened
More Useful – less dependent on the manager’s judgment, more on the Adviser assessment (crucial if they are to learn)
More focus – less overwhelming as it encourages managers to match the feedback to the Adviser’s ability and their willingness to receive it
More quantifiable – greater understanding what of works and what doesn’t under defined conditions and allows people to compare themselves against a standard
More effective – less guess work about how outcomes are achieved. (How you Win and Lose)

It suggests that Advisers needs someone to coach them?

Yes, it is essential. All those firms we have worked with try to get people effective coaching to secure and retain clients from their competition, like, Ernst & Young, who I helped develop their Relationship Management Program, Watson Wyatt, Royal Bank of Canada, JP Morgan Chase

In your experience, what traps do advisory firms fall into?

To put our recent study in context, most professionals we work with love to do a great job. As one senior adviser said to me “I treat my clients as my children…”

But, being a trusted adviser today is not enough. We surveyed advisers to see how they were competitively differentiating themselves. In summary.

1. Most do not truly understand what a competitive Client strategy is.

2. People don’t understand the difference between Competitive Value Discovery and Differentiation.

3. They do not understand the difference between preparation and planning.

4. They do not understand the difference between offense and defense

5. Because any strategic plans were not common amongst the troops, the plan is not maintained or advanced.

Can you explain the difference between Competitive Value Discovery and Differentiation?

Competitive Value Discovery helps you increase value potential. The idea of finding value that Client’s had never thought of before is competitively differentiating. So, we can introduce clients to ideas they may never have thought of and help them see the competition as “not on the ball”. Whether it’s your client or you are trying to secure a new client, they always weigh your value against the competition. What we have more more control over is what they weigh, how they weigh it. Additionally, we need to plant what the competition plants in the client’s mind. Then, we have far better intel and a better sense of the client’s changing priorities to influence their Decision Guidelines both offensely and defensively – Competitive Differentiation.

“Given the same amount of intelligence… timidity will do a thousand times more damage than audacity” “The best form of defense is attack.”
Karl von Clausewitz

What else did you find out?

1. Their language is predominately about reacting to clients’ needs with no language of competitiveness.

2. No sense of doing things in a relational way but with competitive intent.

3. They see the activity of competing as separate from looking after the client.

4. The idea of decision guidelines and working to putting value behind them is a language that is foreign to them.

5. They don’t have a competitively strategic context for their day to day client interactions.

6. Largely, they have a passive position without having a strategy to extend the services they offer outsourcing.

What did you say to them about these findings?

How much profit are you leaving on the table because you are not managing our relationships with competitive intent?
So why are you not purposely discovering client value that will allow us to “Differentiate the Firm?”
How much more intent and purpose can we build if we develop our competitive competencies?

Tip of the Month:

What can Advisers start doing to differentiate them?

Get Competitively Aligned. For example:

In your firm, are you Competitively Aligned?
To what extent does management understand how to think and act competitively . . . with competitive intent?
How well aligned are your competitive account strategies with other parts of your firm
How many of your top client plans have an offensive element to their strategies?
Where do you see the main competitive misalignments within your practice or firm?

Then develop Clear Competitive Expectations

Validating & agreeing about what people expect of each other competitively
Developing effective deliverables that will demonstrate offensive or defensive actions against selected competitors

Competitive Accountability

Accepting responsibility for agreed competitive expectations for tasks performed & results achieved
Accepting that Win/Loss Reviews are not personal but are a natural process of getting more competitive

Evidence-Based Change

Gaining & maintaining competitive differentiation must show measurable proof to the firm and its clients.

Proving differentiation requires constant change & must be “evidenced” to:

Management

Organization

Customers

What evidence of change do we show?

Listen to the Radio Show

Great, but how can this help me?

This is probably the first thing on your mind after reading this Blog.
How about asking us? The first call is free! Just email me to set it up.
Don’t wait, get The Crispian Advantage working for you!. If our conversation leaves you needing more, we offer at a reasonable fee telephone and video coaching improve bottom line results.
If that still doesn’t do it, we’ll work with you on a solution.

Name

Email

Industry

Feedback

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For Help in Getting Your People on the Same Page
Nick Anderson, The Crispian Advantage

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© Copyright All Rights Reserved, The Crispian Advantage and Walk the Talk – A Blog for Agile Minds, [2010-2012]. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Nick Anderson, The Crispian Advantage and Walk the Talk – A Blog for Agile Minds with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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Paying For Sales Performance – A Myth?

Posted on September 19, 2010 by agincourtarcher

This blog’s topic looks at a cherished belief of many executives that pay for performance compensation schemes motivates people to higher performance. Yet, pay is just one thread in a tapestry that covers the state of motivation in organizations today.

(Listen to Walk the Talk – Radio for Agile Minds – The Pay for Performance Myth )

In this piece, I want to challenge manager’s over-reliance on paying for sales performance to stop relying on this apparently sensible idea and. Let’s rethink what effective management has to offer in creating a Motivating Environment.

Just to give you how addicted US Companies are to pay-for-performance; here’s a couple of statistics:

Average incentive income for US Salespeople is 40% of their total compensation.
Overall, 85% of this group work under some type of pay for performance compensation plan.

W. Edwards Deming (1982) “Pay is not a motivator” He called the system by which merit is appraised and rewarded:

“The most powerful inhibitor to quality and productivity in the Western World”…..”it nourishes short-term performance, annihilates long-term planning, builds fear, demolishes team work, nourishes rivalry and…leaves people bitter”

“Money can nevertheless be a demotivator” Frederick Hertzberg

Pay for performance advocates obsess about “How should people be paid?” But it is not as important as managers think and is in fact a distraction from the things that really matter.

The real issue is how do people become motivated to produce competitively superior results:

Managers ask: ‘How do you motivate people? – Answer is ‘You Don’t’ (Douglas McGregor)

So, if you see books like “How to Motivate your work force” “Making People Productive” can be safely passed over because the enterprise it describes in wholly misconceived.

Of course, you can get people to perform using rewards, punishments and operational controls. But, the desire to do it well, simple cannot be imposed. It’s a mistake to talk about motivating other people. All Managers can do is set up conditions that can develop an interest in what they are doing and remove constraints to their improvement.

What are the ways of creating The Motivating Environment?

Probably one of the best authors in this field , Alfred Kohn, stated three Basic Principles.

Pay people generously and equitably – Do your best to make sure they don’t feel exploited. Then, do everything in your power to help them put money out of their minds! Problem with incentives is not that people are offered too much. It’s that money is pushed in people’s faces and offered transactionally, e.g. “You do this and you will get that” Getting rid of conditionality is the first step in fixing what’s wrong

The trouble with money is not itself per se but with the way people are made to think about money and the way it is use to control them.
We need to decouple the task from compensation

“For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil… (People) craving money have wandered from the truth and pierced themselves with many sorrows… (1 Timothy 6:10)

OK. So, how should you pay people, other than well and fairly?

A good starting point is asking yourself:

What makes some people more valuable to the organization that most will see as fair and achievable? (e.g. not based on being a family member- LOL) Examples:

Time employed
Special skills, professional qualifications

Deming, most Japanese and other countries follow this philosophy and now a minority of US Companies – the gradual realization that pay-for-performance is an inherently flawed concept.

But, what do you do about paying people if they perform better than their peers?

Well, it leads to another common practice of linking pay to the outcome of the dreaded annual performance appraisal. This is typically a stressful annual ritual and should have been retired long ago. OK. So what do we replace it with?

Let’s look at a second principle to creating the Motivating Environment, let’s Refocus Evaluation. An obvious question:

Why are people being evaluated? Possible answers:

“Performance Evaluation persists as a effective tool for controlling employees…(that) should not be confused…with motivation of employees”
It allows supervisors to shift the responsibility for solving problems to their subordinates

“Using Performance appraisal of any kind as a basis for reward is a flat out catastrophic mistake” (Peter Scholtes)

It is “foolish to have a manager in the self-conflicting role as a counselor (helping improve performance) when at the same time, he or she is presiding as a judge over the employee’s salary…”(Herbert Meyer)

The Insight is that the entire process of providing feedback, assessing progress, and developing development plans ought to be completely divorced from salary determinations. Such sessions must have no rewards or punishment hanging in the balance.

So, how do you get genuine motivation?

It’s a good question How do you create conditions for authentic motivation?

Significantly Alan Binder pulled all available research on this subject, Paying for Productivity: A Look at the Evidence and concluded:

“Changing the way workers are treated may boost productivity more than changing the way they are paid”

Or to put it another way:

The Pay Cart is in front of the Motivation horse. Motivation produces results not pay.

In surveys there is a broad consensus on what managers should do to create the Motivation Environment:

WATCH: Don’t put employees under surveillance; look for problems that need to be solved and help people solve them.
LISTEN: Attend seriously and respectfully to workers’ concerns
TALK: Provide plenty of informational feedback as opposed to judgmental feedback. People need to reflect on what they doing right, to learn what needs improving, and discuss how to change
THINK: why do you use power they way you do?

What do managers need to be careful of when dealing with performance improvement?

The main failing we see in our work is the extent to which rewards are not made contingent on some specific desired behaviour change that impacts business performance. Many clients are concerned about the very subjective nature of rating performance and therefore allocating performance related pay equitably. Often we start by comparing the client’s existing competencies with how they rate performance with those selected from the PDS Competency Library. Candidly, the Client’s Competencies are a mixture of Competencies and Attributes. “So what,” you say. Bottom line, you hire attributes and develop competence! Typical definitions:

Competent: “The ability to do something successfully or efficiently.”

Competency: ”Having the necessary ability, knowledge, or skill to do something successfully:”

Attribute: “A characteristic or quality of a person.”

Frequently, Competencies often contain a mixture of attributes which should be part of the recruitment and selection process, around which you choose a path of development for each individual. Relying on attributes as a basis for incentives naturally leads to the problem of subjectivity in performance ratings. Too many times people are swimming around in a sea of ink and rhetoric when it comes to recognizing and developing leadership and other competencies? Is more being written and discussed than applied to create the Motivating Environment?

Many authors of Competencies are not clear as to what a competency really is. (Is it a skill? Is it a behavior? Is it knowledge? Or, is it a value?). For example: A competency that deals with diversity has been described this way; “sensitivity to different races, cultures, nationalities, sexes and disabilities”. Many would agree this competency is more of a value (attribute). However, if that is the case, developing this competency presents a formidable challenge, since values tend to evolve over a lifetime.

The difficulty we have in agreeing on what competencies are required is practically dwarfed by the complexity of the motivational and therefore, the competency development challenge. Of course, the beliefs and customs of a culture play an incredibly significant role in influencing beliefs, attitudes and values. We have to recognize that behavior can be adapted, but attitudes and values are relatively rigid.

What we now know about competencies shows that matching behavior patterns and attitudes of people to the demands of a position is crucial to creating the Motivational Environment

This knowledge can also assist organizations to understand the challenges in trying to get people to adapt their natural behavior patterns and attitudes to accommodate organizational needs. Recognizing that competencies are configurations of behavior, attitudes, beliefs, knowledge, intelligence and skills are essential in the people evaluation and development process.

It is a truism that if individual talents are matched with the most important job requirements it can create optimal motivation and therefore superior performance. People whose natural behavior matches the requirements of their jobs and are rewarded for their true aspirations and passions naturally:

Perform better
Enjoy the intrinsic rewards of their work
Are loyal and enthusiastic
Often need to be told to go home

The main responsibilities in managing these people are to:

1. Keep them informed to align their efforts with changes

2. Make sure the building is open

3. Make sure they have the resources to do their job

4. Encourage them to maintain balance with activities outside of work.

As a rule, a “hands-off” leadership style tends to work best with people who are well matched to their positions. Micro-management or command and control techniques may drive these people to the competition. Although this kind of a “hand-in-glove” fit between people and positions may be difficult to maintain in the face of continuous change, the effort promises to return rich dividends in terms of self-directed performance, positive morale and commitment.

The matching process starts by identifying position requirements in terms of the competencies required for superior performance (built on and around attributes, whatever they may be). Every effort must be made to ensure this process is objective. Position requirements must be analyzed in terms of:

Behavior
Competencies (including soft as well as hard skills)
Attitudes (attributes)
Knowledge or experience.

An objective process for analyzing position requirements is needed whether the focus is leadership or management, technical, professional or driving a truck. What does this mean in terms of assessing the context, skills, competencies, attitudes and experience?

Summary

Creating the Motivation Environment and produce competitively superior results relies not so much on pay for results but these key factors:

Build a firm foundation for your organization based on values, principles, servant leadership,
Create and reinforce a “needs-driven” purpose or mission that is consistent with potential employees philosophy and values.
Skip incentive pay and pay people fairly or even generously for the position,
- Hire good life skills (attributes) and teach job skills (competencies).

It is crucial to properly matching peoples’ gifts, talents, expertise and passions to the job.

Hire the “right” person for the “right” job,
Coach positively for improved competence, and avoid annual performance appraisals which are linked to pay
Develop servant leadership that clears away the barriers to people’s success and avoids command and control leadership

Tip of the Blog

Ask yourself:

Do you have competencies for those positions which are crucial to your organization’s performance?
How well do they separate the Knowledge, Skills that are developable vs. those attributes that you need when hiring or promoting?
Honestly, how well are these attributes used to objectively anchor the recruitment process?

(Listen to Walk the Talk – Radio for Agile Minds – The Pay for Performance Myth )

Great, but how can this help me?

How about asking us? The first call is free! Just email me to set it up. Don’t wait, get The Crispian Advantage working for you!. If our conversation leaves you needing more, we offer at a reasonable fee telephone and video coaching on change, alignment, personal and executive performance that improve the bottom line. If that still doesn’t do it, we’ll work with you on a solution.

© Copyright All Rights Reserved, The Crispian Advantages, [2010-2011]. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Nick Anderson, The Crispian Advantage with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Creating a virtuous loop in pay-for-performance (sarahdillard.wordpress.com)
What Is The Difference Between Pay for Performance and Accountable Care Organizations (diseasemanagementcareblog.blogspot.com)

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Leadership Skills Series: 4 Controlling Meetings

Posted on September 10, 2010 by agincourtarcher

This is the fourth in our series to help Leaders assess their behavioral skills. This series is based on research of common commercial interactions that has led to many useful insights into how to create and manage effective meetings and deal with those who are most difficult to persuade – Low Reactors. This week I am focusing on those behaviors Leaders use when controlling meetings. (Research conducted by Warr, Bird, Honey & Rackham ATTITB and Huthwaite Research Group).

The first Group of Behaviors is Clarifying Behaviors used for theexchange of information, facts and opinions and, of course clarification. For this Blog, we will consider, the four main behaviors which when used in meetings go to the heart of meeting effectiveness.

Testing Understanding seeks to establish whether or not an earlier contribution has been understood by the individual. It differs from seeking information in that it is an attempt to ensure agreement or consensus of some kind, and refers to a prior question or issue (i.e. “Can I take it that we all now agree on our tasks assignments for this week?”). This behavior is similar to Summarizing, but takes the form of a question.

Summarizing restates the content of previous discussions or events in a compact form. This behavior can be useful to make sure that the entire group is up to date with events that have transpired (e.g. “So far we have agreed that John will finish module A, while Maria and I begin module B.”). This will ensure that you and the rest of the group have a clear understanding.

Seeking Information seeks facts, opinions, or clarification from another person pertaining to a proposal (e.g. “What sample size do you think will be needed for statistical reliability?” and “Which tests will you use?”).

Giving Information makes statements that offer facts, opinions or clarification to a proposal (e.g. “The new system is easier to operate.” and “I’m worried about missing the deadline.”).

Now, we will focus on the above behaviors Chair People (Chairs) use during meetings to attain successful outcomes. These findings help leaders diagnose their meetings and how too much, too little or the wrong balance of these four behaviors can waste time and often make meetings very frustrating and ineffective.

Does this apply to all meetings, like in Not for Profits?

Essentially, the commonality is problem solving and decision making, not just exchanging information. As long as you have desired outcomes like:

Deciding how we are going to cope with rising demand and falling donations, OR
Problem solving why attendance is falling,

then you have a meeting.

Why do you say “not just exchanging information?

Good point! There are now so many better ways of reporting progress or a lack thereof, including email, SharePoint etc. that you should not encourage people to have weekly meetings where they have to wait their turn to report back. This “hub and spoke” type of meeting is boring, as participants have to wait for their colleagues report to the “boss” and hear them being questioned. Also, participants’ post meeting ratings change negatively when a meeting has a high level of Giving Information and is seen as Time Wasting. It happens when everyone in the meeting wants to add yet another reason, anecdote or opinion as to why an initiative should or should not be pursued; all of which tend to encumber the decision making process.

The Chairing vs. Managing Meeting Dilemma

In most situations the person running the meeting has two competing roles:

Chairing – The ideal Chair is an important role, concerned solely with the efficient and fair conduct of the meeting. The perfect Chair is not interested in the content, but in the meeting process.
Managing – In the real world though, the Chair is either the most senior manager present or the person who has called the meeting (a Leader). In either case he or she has considerable interest in the content and is rarely, if ever, neutral.

These two roles are not easily compatible. For example, many chairs have a continuous incentive to manipulate the process of the meeting in order to influence the content and therefore its outcome.

How often have you been in meetings with the feeling that you are not being really engaged for your input but merely your support for the Chair’s pet project?

So, are you saying that if we are chairing a meeting we should be neutral?

Well, in most situations the Chair’s preferences, views or pet projects are known beforehand. So, even if they strive for neutrality and focus on process, their attempts can be counter- productive by creating suspicion.

So, I am sure you have a research finding or two on how skilled chairs perform this balancing act?

Indeed…and an important distinction to draw at this stage is differentiating the wider skills of managing meetings from the narrower skills of chairing. As a starting point, the basic behaviors of chairing are worth focusing on.

Sample: 31 Chairs selected on the following criteria:

1. People rated their meetings as fair and efficient

2. They had at least five years experience of chairing

3. They were chosen from 47 who met the first two criteria.

The researchers found that skilled Chairs’ behavior differed significantly from participants; for example, the type of Proposing (putting forward new & actionable ideas, suggestions etc.).

Both Chairs and Participants had the same volume of Proposals but they were very different types:

*Behavior*	*Chairs*	*Participants*
Content Proposals	1.8%	11.1%
Procedural Proposals	9.6%	2.4%
Totals	11.5%	13.5%

Procedural Proposal Examples:

“I suggest we only spend 10 minutes on this item”

“I propose that we take item 6 next”

Content Proposal Examples:

“I think we should put the IT Cabinet next to Shaft 2”

“We need to ensure that employees are kept in the loop”

OK, so that’s Proposing– where to next?

There is an important distinction to make between the two initiating behaviors: Proposing and Building.

Proposing is a new suggestion, proposal, or course of action (e.g. “I suggest that we organize the project into five modules.” or “The File Menu should contain an option to print”).

Building on the other hand takes the form of a proposal, but actually extends or develops someone else’s proposal (e.g. “…and your design would be even better if we added a scroll bar at the edge of the window.” or “A pizza sounds great, and some sodas would be good too.”). Since the initial proposal is not the final solution, building is effective in producing an alternative or revised plan.

Chairs tend to use Building as a way of integrating different people’s ideas.

For Example:

“John has suggested we reduce the workload in Accounts. Bob says he has spare capacity. Are there some people who could be used at high work load times like month and year end?”

In contrast, Chairs used only about 1/3^rd of Participants Supporting or Disagreeing Behavior i.e.:

Supporting makes a conscious and direct declaration of agreement with or support for another person, or his/her concepts and opinions (i.e. “Sounds okay to me” or “Fine”). Positive feedback is always good.

Disagreeing is the direct objection to another person’s opinions. Disagreeing is an issue-oriented behavior (e.g. “Your third point just isn’t true.” or “What you’re suggesting just won’t work.”). This behavior is normal in a discussion, but don’t let it evolve into a Defending or Attacking behavior.

It’s hardly surprising that Chairs support people, not issues. For example:

“Louise is right, to bring this up.”

Instead of directly disagreeing, Chairs will bring in other particpants who may disagree in the same way.

I would have thought skilled Chairs use a lot of Testing Understanding and Summarizing in meetings….is that right?

Another good point! The research showed that there was a correlation with the number of misunderstandings and misinterpretations after meetings with the amount of Testing Understanding and Summarizing occurring during meetings. In all 49 Meetings were so observed, and in those, 297 participants.

Those meetings that were low in Testing Understanding and Summarizing had significantly more errors and omissions in people’s accounts of the principle decisions agreed to. (Note: As meetings differed in length the researchers took Testing Understanding and Summarizing as a percentage total meeting behavior).

The findings were rather disturbing:

<2.5% – Testing Understanding and Summarizing Participants averaged 4.3 errors or omissions on what was decided.
>10% – Testing Understanding and Summarizing averaged only 1.2 errors or omissions

Good Chairs had Testing Understanding 15.2% vs. less effective Chairs 3.1% and similarly, Summarizing 11.5% vs. 0.7%

Seeking Information – 29.3% vs. 16.3%
Giving Information – 21.7% vs. 39.4%

So, how can people use this Chairperson Profile?

Training other leaders as well as for your own use…

How do Chairs betray their bias?

Using Content Proposals . Other ways they show bias? Using a lot of Disagreeing, Defend/Attack and Giving Information, all of which control content not process.

How do biased Chairs use directional control to influence a meeting’s direction?

Procedural Proposals combined with Shutting-out or Bringing-in by either excluding or involving participants including facilitating the exchange of ideas and asking people to share their opinions. It is interesting to note that Chairs who control participation and involvement are often seen as unbiased and fair whereas this can be a more subtle approach to controlling both the direction and decisions made.

So what questions would you ask yourself to be more effective when running meetings?

My questions to leaders would be:

What is the level of participants understanding and commitment to taking their part in following the issues outlined above?
How well are your expectations understood regarding what attendees need to prepare for your meetings? For example:
- “Come prepared to analyze the missed delivery windows on second shift” or
- “Ensure you come with three ideas about how we are going to overcome the conveyor problem on Line 3
How well do meeting participants know what behavior reduces meeting effectiveness? For example:
- Giving long reports as to what happened versus focusing on conclusions that identify problems and offer options for their resolution
- Offering many reasons to support a proposal versus giving just two strong reasons in support
How well do people understand your expectations when reviewing each meeting’s effectiveness. For example:
- Delta reviews of pluses and minuses
- How well did participants’ preparation help or hinder the meeting’s effectiveness
- How well were ideas considered before deciding or passing judgment
How appropriate is it for you to chair every meeting, even when everyone knows that you have a vested interest in certain solutions?
- Why not hand the Chair over to one of your people?
How well do you understand what are your participants’ expectations? For example:
- Does everyone have to attend all meetings rather than just meetings about issues that concern them.
Great, but how can this help me?

This is probably the first thing on your mind after reading this Blog.
How about asking us? The first call is free! Just email me to set it up.
Don’t wait, get The Crispian Advantage working for you!. If our conversation leaves you needing more, we offer at a reasonable fee telephone and video coaching improve bottom line results.
If that still doesn’t do it, we’ll work with you on a solution.

Name

Email

Industry

Feedback

Δ

_________________________________________________________________________
For Help in Getting Your People on the Same Page
Nick Anderson, The Crispian Advantage

E-mail I Web I Linkedin

© Copyright All Rights Reserved, The Crispian Advantage and Walk the Talk – A Blog for Agile Minds, [2010-2012]. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Nick Anderson, The Crispian Advantage and Walk the Talk – A Blog for Agile Minds with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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Leadership Skills Series 3: Handling Difficult People

Posted on August 25, 2010 by agincourtarcher

This is the third in my Leadership Skills series to help Leaders assess where they need to develop their people skills. In my last Post I introduced the research-based model that led to many useful insights into how to create and manage effective meetings. I covered the impact of Filter and Amplifier meetings which were the names the researchers coined to distinguish the different ways in which ideas or proposals were managed. This Post focuses on people who are difficult for many to handle or feel comfortable with, and you may be one of these people under certain circumstances.

Typically, you will work with one of these people who naturally behave this way and, in certain situations you may change the way you behave, often without realizing it.

How do you recognize you are dealing with one of these mysterious people?

Let’s look at one aspect of behavior – Reacting. It’s a group of behaviors you can choose to use; each of which when used repeatedly will have certain effects on the people you interact with, for better or worse. Let’s take the first of the Reacting Group – Supporting someone’s ideas or position – what’s your most likely response?

Supportive, likable…I guess

Yes that’s right. Secondly, there is Disagreeing with someone’s ideas or position. How are you likely to feel?

Well, I could see them as negative if they are aggressive or defensive…

That’s interesting….funnily enough people don’t see people who are high in disagreeing as necessarily negative, because they are rational, and seen as more objective…if they stick to a person’s proposals or ideas and do NOT focus on the person themselves. If they do get defensive or aggressive they are not disagreeing, they are Defending/Attacking. No surprise there about how such emotional people are viewed by colleagues and family members, for that matter.

OK, so who’s this mystery person… high “disagreer,” or defend/attacker?

Neither, this person is called the LOW REACTOR; they use lower levels of all three behaviors in both their verbal and non-verbal behavior, they show very little reaction to others

So, they are very quiet individuals..right?

Not necessarily. They may, for example, have high levels of Initiating and/or Clarifying behaviors. The only thing they avoid is Reacting.

Why is this Low Reactor a problem?

They give very little feedback about whether they approve of points you present. This tends to make people feel uneasy and people tend to handle them ineffectively. For example, even experienced sales people find it difficult to make their case convincingly when they are faced with somebody whose lack of response makes it hard to judge. One salesperson summed up the difference between high “disagreers” and low reactors.

“You know where you stand with someone who is prepared to disagree. What makes it hard with the Low Reactor is that he doesn’t’ even disagree!”

Some research to back up this comment was presented in the famous Xerox Research Project in the late 70’s (Neil Rackham, Simon Bailey & Linda Marsh, Huthwaite Research Group), one element of which looked at this very point. The researchers showed that while high “disagreers” are harder to sell to, the hardest to sell were the Low Reactors.

How much different were sales people’s success rates?

It was quite striking. The researchers looked at calls which advanced to the next stage or a deal was signed. For average reactors, salespeople were successful in about 11 out of 20 sales, where selling to high “disagreers” only 8 out of 20, and finally, Low Reactors only 3 out of 20 sales.

That’s a big difference…did they find out why selling to Low Reactors was so difficult?

It turns out that there are Five Common Traps people tend to fall into when trying to persuade a LOW REACTOR. Let’s see if you have experienced any of these…

Ok Go ahead… I am sure I have fallen into at least one and not realized it

That’s an excellent point…most people don’t know what’s happening to them … other than this person seems awkward to deal with.

Trap 1 – Losing Control Over Your Speaking Pace

Because people lose confidence in front of Low Reactors they do one of two things, either they talk faster to get to something that will spark interest or they run out of things to say due to the lack of reaction. For example, sellers’ normal speech rate was 119 words per minute (wpm) where it was 138 wpm when selling to Low Reactors and the number of pauses, or “umms” more than doubled. In fact, the number of redundant words significantly increased as well, like “Well, you see…what I meant to say…”

I bet this doesn’t apply just to sales situations?

Quite right, job interviews are another good example of finding Low Reactors – more situational – Interviewers know they are not supposed to support or disagree.

Fascinating, what’s the second trap?

Trap 2: Losing Sequence During Presentations

This was common in any situations where someone needs to make a verbal presentation. If either the decision maker or Leader is a LOW REACTOR or they are evaluating and making a big decision presenters will tend to jump around or lose sequence. In a study of 23 leaders, presenters “back tracking” occurred over 50% more often and “jumping the Gun” occurred 3 times as often.

What’s the Third Trap?

Trap 3: Over-Reacting. (Over-stating to get a reaction)

This is the most common and most dangerous trap to fall into. In a study of twenty-eight trade union officials and their management counterparts researchers actually observed real life labor negotiations and listened for emotionally charged statements. The differences were stark when the low reactor was on either side of the negotiation table – nearly 50% more emotionally charged statements were made.

In another study of salespeople, selling to LOW REACTORS led to a drop in factual statements and overstatements went up from 4% average to 13% with LOW REACTORS also untruths went to 3% from 1%.

Well it confirms that sellers do lie on occasions..doesn’t it?

Yes, BUT, so does the general population…some of the time.

OK… two more to go,…what’s number 4?

The Five Traps

Trap 4: Asking Fewer Questions Than Usual.

Asking more questions is usually a good thing to do with LOW REACTORS to find out where you are if nothing else! Especially; “How do you feel about this point?” Unfortunately 80% of people say they should ask more questions yet only 30% actually do. In one sample of 196 sellers questions fell by one-third to one half.

What’s the fifth trap?

Trap 5: Giving Too Much Information

For example, in selection interviews, law courts and other places where low reaction is normal, people often come away having given a great deal more information than they wanted to. In one study, sales people gave 50% more feature statements to LOW REACTORS.

Do we all fall into these traps?

No. Some people are more susceptible than others.

The 5 Traps: Your likelihood to fall into them

1 Pace 10-15%

2 Sequence 25-30%

3 Over Reacting/Stating 55-60%

4 Fewer Questions – 75%-80%

5 Blah,blah, blah (Talk too much) 75%-80%

What proportion of the population are LOW REACTORS?

That’s difficult to say considering factors like ethnicity and cultural differences – e.g. Scandinavians vs. Italians. What the researchers indicated is that the bigger the decision someone makes the more likely that their reaction levels will be lower. For example, in selling larger sized machines researchers found that LOW REACTOR levels rose from 18% to 46% and when people were making a decision for someone else Low Reacting goes from 16% to 47%.

How do you define Low Reactors?

Typically researchers found that Reacting Behaviors less than 10% of all behaviors identified a LOW REACTOR.But it’s clouded by reaction levels being higher in one-to-one situations, so for groups the number is 7%, and the other problem is with those people who just don’t say much at all.

What is the significance for Leaders?

Let’s look at how leaders could actually set up their people to fail (placing these traps in their way unintentionally). If you are not aware of how your reaction levels drop, and under what circumstances they drop, you can set up your people for progressive confidence loss. Are you a natural LOW REACTOR anyway? It is natural for many leaders, as they rise up the corporate ladder, to learn that reacting either in support or disagreement too quickly can create risks. So, many senior leaders exhibit the “keeping your cards close to your chest” behavior.

Your Low Reacting behavior can deplete your peoples’ confidence and create risk avoidance in their behavior. This can result in lower levels of informal communication, especially from junior staff members. The point is that Leaders may not want to lower their reactions with their people too often. For example:

Can you imagine leaders lowering their reaction levels during big presentations? Given the above traps, less experienced people might suffer a confidence loss and start to think you are disagreeing with them, when in fact you are thinking things through.

How are you going to set and manage team expectations to avoid – or at least manage – falling into one of the above traps?

Think about your expectations when people are preparing next year’s first round budget presentation. How apprehensive were they last time? How did this detract from an effective process and the team’s engagement?

How can you set expectations to improve this process?

For example, you might say:

“I expect that you will give me feedback on the impact of my behavior when making big decisions.” (How are you setting yourself up for unintended Low Reacting?)

“At the end of this meeting we will agree to expectations that I have of you and what you expect from me.”

“Before we start budget planning I expect people to come to a review meeting to assess how effectively the process and people’s preparation helped or hindered during that first round?”

Given that Low Reaction levels will occur, how can you help your people feel more comfortable?

Brief your people when you know your reaction levels are likely to fall. If several subordinates are presenting, it can be helpful to ensure certain reactions are planned. For example, say something like:

“I expect team members to give feedback directed at the expectations we set in the Review meeting…”

“I expect that all feedback will focus on the evidence presented and not how it was presented.”

“I expect that all proposals put forward during presentations are not rejected or accepted immediately.” (We owe it to the presenter to seek to understand and try to help their ideas come to fruition.”)

What Conclusion Can We Draw?

Low reacting levels are normal and often more situational, rather than an indicator of a person’s preferred behavioral style. As a leader, it is within your control to set expectations to avoid and/or manage the negative impact of such behavior.

Low reacting can be turned to advantage, forcing ideas to be fully explored before people react. It also facilitates a sense of team by encouraging Building rather than Reacting Behavior.

What can you do about this situation?

Madness can be defined as “doing what you have always done, yet expecting different results.” So, what expectations do you now have for yourself in terms of managing your reaction levels?

Doing different things is about “purposeful practice” and then getting feedback from others, What mechanisms or structures do you have in place to do this? How are you going to restructure major interactions with your staff to lower their chance of falling into traps?

Great, but how can this help me?

_________________________________________________________________________
For Help in Getting Your People on the Same Page
Nick Anderson, The Crispian Advantage

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Leadership Skills Series 2: Developing Profitable Ideas

Posted on August 24, 2010 by agincourtarcher

Now That’s Viable!

This the second in my series to help leaders assess their interactive skills. In my last blog I introduced the research based model that led to many useful insights into what the more effective communicators do in different settings and focused on what happens when meetings become imbalanced by getting stuck in too much Initiating, Reacting or Clarifying.

In this blog I want to get readers thinking about getting more productive meetings i.e. generating more commercially viable ideas to compete and improve.

What type of research was involved to develop these models?

I want to focus on two key Initiating Behaviors and their relationship to meeting success, namely

Proposing – putting forward ideas, suggestions courses of action

Building – sounds like a proposal, which extends or develops another person’s proposal

The difference between them is the Proposing is an independent idea and Building must be dependent on another person’s idea.

What I want readers to think about is the proportion of these two behaviors in their meetings at work, church etc. and how it influences meeting outcome.

So, I am assuming that you would need to consider both the quantity and quality of ideas put forward?

That’s an excellent point. The research looked at the sort of Initiating going on and could it be more effective.

The research was based on 23 working teams to see if there was a connection between effective performance and Initiating Behavior. The teams were mostly research and project teams. We established their levels of effectiveness against three criteria:

The number of ideas brought to management’s attention
The number of ideas accepted for implementation
The estimated commercial payoff

The results clearly showed that these three criteria were significantly related to the ratio of proposing and building behavior. The more building, the better the performance

Sounds like “Building is a good thing!”

Unfortunately, like so many simple conclusions it is only partly true.Studies of other groups that were efficient and effective used no building at all.

Why should it prove to be a strong predictor in some situations and not others?

It puzzled us until we started to look at how a group deals with ideas. Groups seemed to take two very different approaches by either focusing on Proposing or Building.

We first looked at groups that were very much higher in Proposing Behavior and used little if any Building. Here’s a typical sequence

First person puts forward the first idea (P1)
Others don’t like it and it gets rejected (DS)
On the next agenda item another idea is put forward and then countered by another person.(P2/P3)
The second and third ideas are considered and the group likes the third idea.(P3 +SP)
A change of topic and another idea is not fully accepted e.g. buy five machines gets reduced to 3 machines.(P4> p4)

So, What’s happening to how this group handles ideas?

It sounds like ideas would not be fully considered before being either accepted or rejected?

That could be true if the ideas were complex and impactful. But your description is accurate, this group either filters or reduces the number of proposals – FILTER MEETING

Because of the low level of building, proposals are not develop by others. They are either accepted, rejected or reduced.

Too many people think that all meetings should focus on building on each others’ ideas. However, Filter meetings can be incredibly efficient and effective where management has too many ideas already and needs to pare down and get focus on doing something.

So, how do you judge when a filter meeting is not the right way to go in handling ideas?

Essentially it comes down to four negative impacts:

1. Ownership and the Win-Lose Problem
Defensive – clinging to own ideas and not listening
with politicking occurring before, during and after the meeting.

2. Lack of Integration

3. Lack of Commitment and Motivation

4. Problem of Self-Reinforcement – filtering gets ingrained into regular meetings.

In fact, in one case study a group was observed over six meetings. In meeting 1, there were 24 Proposals (PR’s) to 20 Building (BU’s) but by meeting 6, Proposals were up to 39 with no Building!

It illustrated for us why there are so many Filter meetings in commercial life and so few meetings with High Building Behaviors. Such meetings which are high on Building and low on Proposing deal with Initiating very differently. The Key is that several people contributed to the final idea by Building on one another’s proposal – so an idea was AMPLIFIED – Thus we use the term Amplifier Meeting

I think I would rather be in that sort of meeting, what did participants say differently from those in the Filter Meetings?

Well, the impact on participants is very different.

1. There’s a sense of excitement. In Filter meeting the range of possibilities is known before the meeting and the outcome if often predictable. Whereas in an Amplifier Meeting outcome are frequently unexpected and ideas are developed dynamically.

2. There is increased commitment to action. “It’s our idea!”

3. There is increased quality as ideas are more full bodied and thought through as they harness all the group’s resources.

How did they judge quality of ideas?

There was a panel of independent judge’s assessed the commercial viability of ideas. They found that in Amplifier Groups there were over twice as many high quality ideas as in the Filter Group.

Of course Amplifier meeting do take more time and a lack of structure

How do you get out of the Filter Rut and get an Amplifier Meeting going?

Well, what I do, which seems to work most of the time:

1. Choose an issue where nobody has fixed preconceptions

2. Give no advanced warning or agenda of the issue

3. Stop the Meeting after the first proposal

4. Encourage Building

5. Dealing with Criticism

6. Not moving on too soon

How do you know when you have a Filter vs. Amplifier Meeting?

It turns out that comes down to ratios of Proposing to Building Behaviors. When you find there are two proposals for each Build(2:1+ PR:BU) it identifies an Amplifier Meeting. Whereas when Proposals to Building Ratio is (4+:1 PR:BU) you have a Filter Meeting

In their research how frequently do the different meetings occur?

Out of 312 meetings observed:

78% Filter
4% Amplifier
18% Neither one or the other

Overall, we questioned the need for more Amplifier meetings. At a perceptual level, post meeting questionnaires revealed that:

Filter meetings were perceived as:

Efficient
Competitive
Organized

Amplifier Meetings were perceived as:

Creative
Exciting
Participative
Useful
Committed to meeting outcome
Better Quality of Decisions

So, How do you decide when to have a Filter or Amplifier Meeting?

Filter is on

A Filter Meeting is needed when you:

1. Need to reduce the many choices for action available

2. Have to work to tight time constraints

3. Do not need individual commitment for successful implementation

An Amplifier Meeting is needed when you:

1. Need to create solutions where no predetermined alternatives exist

2. Need individual Commitment for success

3. Need high quality solutions

Great, but how can this help me?

_________________________________________________________________________
For Help in Getting Your People on the Same Page
Nick Anderson, The Crispian Advantage

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Leadership Skills Series: 1. Developing Profitable Ideas in Meetings

Posted on August 23, 2010 by agincourtarcher

Getting People on the Same Page

During the last 6 months I have been coaching different professionals in how to reduce project costs and delays. This got me thinking about the last few blogs. The theme has been Aligning People for Change – coping with the economic turbulence we live in today. So, I got to thinking about practical tools that most leaders can use to “Talk Their Talk”. When there is a lot of uncertainty and turbulence leaders need to “up their game” by communicating better and more effectively.

This is the start of a series on developing leaders behavioral Skills. It is based on my 11 years with Huthwaite Research Group where we used research based models to develop groups and leaders effective communication skills including:

Developing effective solutions
Negotiating
Selling
Facilitating

In this Blog, I want to start with a core leadership skill – Developing Commercially Viable Ideas in Meetings

What type of research was involved to develop these models?

All these models and subsequent research projects are based on a large scale research project in the late 60’s

(Warr, P. B., Bird, M. and Rackham, N., The Evaluation of Management Training, Gower, 1970, Rackham, N. and Morgan, T., Behaviour Analysis in Training, McGraw-Hill, 1977. Rackham, N. et al., Developing Interactive Skills, Wellens, 1971.) to develop a truly descriptive and useful system for classifying

behavior. This long and tedious process considered many potential categories. The researchers finally concluded that a practical list of categories could be produced if the selected behaviors met 5 basics criteria. They were:

1. Measured accurately

2. Easy to understand

3. Distinct from other categories

4. Change how often it is used

5. Related to effective performance

What sort of things did they come up with?

Initiating

Initiating behaviors are proposals or suggestions to the group that call for action. After all, a discussion has got to start somewhere. New proposals and an addition to a proposal are both examples of initiating. There are two initiating behaviors: Proposing and Building.

Proposing brings forth a new suggestion, proposal, or course of action (e.g. “I suggest that we organize the project into five modules.”.

Building takes the form of a proposal, but actually extends or further develops a proposal made by another person (e.g. “…and your plan would be even better if we added a scroll bar at the edge of the window.”)

Since initial proposals are often not the final solution, building is effective in producing an alternative or revised plan.

Reacting

The Blame Game

Reacting behaviors involve the affirmation of or objection to a person, his/her opinions, or an issue. There are three reacting behaviors: Supporting, Disagreeing, and Defending/Attacking.

Supporting is a behavior that makes a conscious and direct declaration of agreement with or supports for another person, or his/her concepts and opinions (e.g. “I like Sandra’s idea best “or “This sounds good”). Generally, this behavior builds cohesion and momentum.

Disagreeing is the direct objection to another person’s opinions or ideas. Disagreeing is an issue-oriented behavior (e.g. “Your third point is counter to regulation 10.3.3…” or “What you’re suggesting just won’t work as the impeller will overheat“). This behavior is normal in a discussion and needed to use the full resources of the group to get to an effective idea.

.Defending/Attacking entails attacking a person directly or by acting defensively. This behavior is people-oriented, and involves value judgments and emotional overtones (i.e. “That’s stupid!” or “Don’t blame me; it’s not my fault. It’s John’s responsibility.”). Defending and Attacking will only bring unhappiness and plenty of tension to the group. There are better ways of handling a discussion. If you are being verbally attacked, try not to play into the instigator’s hands by shouting back. Instead try to speak rationally and direct the discussion to the issue at hand rather than playing the “Blame Game”.

Clarifying

Clarifying behaviors attempt to clarify an individual’s or group’s understanding of the issues. Exchanging information and summarizing are involved in clarification. There are four behaviors;

Testing Understanding,
Summarizing,
Seeking Information,
Giving Information.

Testing Understanding seeks to establish whether or not an earlier contribution has been understood by the individual. It differs from seeking information in that it is an attempt to ensure agreement or consensus of some kind, and refers to a prior question or issue (i.e. “Can I take it that we all now agree on our tasks assignments for this week?”). This behavior is similar to Summarizing, but takes the form of a question.

Summarizing restates the content of previous discussions or events in a compact form. This behavior can be useful to ensure that the entire group is up to date with events that have transpired (e.g. “So far we have agreed that John will finish module A, while Maria and I begin module B.”). This will insure that you and the rest of the group have a clear understanding…

Seeking Information seeks facts, opinions, or clarification from another person pertaining to a proposal (i.e. “Can anyone tell me which page this is on?” and “What test routine will you use?”). This behavior ensures that you are up to date with the topic of discussion. If you have questions, ask them as soon as possible (i.e. don’t leave questions until the night before the project is due).

Giving Information offers facts, opinions or clarification to a proposal (e.g. “The new system is easier to operate.” and “I’m worried about missing the deadline.”). Feedback is always appreciated even if it is not always positive.

Process Behaviors

Process behaviors entail the obstruction of or opening up of the discussion process to group members. Bringing In and Shutting Out are the two behaviors that constitute Process Behaviors.

Bringing In invites views or opinions from a member of the group who is not actively participating in the discussion (i.e. “Lee, what is your opinion on the layout of the User’s Manual?”). This behavior may introduce some refreshing new ideas from a shy or reserved team member.

Shutting Out excludes another person or reduces their opportunity to contribute. Interruption is the most common form of shutting out (e.g. “David, what do you think?” Eric replies: “I think…” — Eric has interrupted David and shut him out of the conversation). This behavior may seem harmless, but if it occurs too much it can be felt as disrespectful and can deny others the opportunity to contribute to the discussion.

How was this research used to in finding better ways to run meetings?

It turns out effective meetings showed that all three main behavior groups were present in a balanced way. They found that once a group became locked into using one or two of these major classes the results they produced were impaired. Here are some Case Studies

Meeting Case Studies

Here are some groups and their meetings that were either high or low in Initiating, Reacting or Clarifying?

High on Initiating

Too many ideas and ideas to handle
Lack of attention to detail – “up in the clouds” feeling

Group Case – Research team in Chemical Industry

Problem – On surface seemed very creative, innumerable ideas. Management asked for reducing severe dust problems in one of their plants. First meeting came up with 14 viable methods. As this was urgent they reported – Production Director said “OK,which one?” After 5 subsequent meetings they had not reached a decision and generated 6 new ideas!!!

High on Reacting

Becomes emotional
Misunderstandings become more frequent
People take sides – entrenched

Group Case: Shop Stewards in Manufacturing

Problem – Coping with changes in the economic climate. Management started taking a more consultative approach by letting people in advance of potential change. Previously they reacted to Management proposals e.g. wages, benefits etc. They couldn’t get out their traditional mold. They left Initiating to management and were low in clarifying which led to more misunderstandings and became more emotional.

High on Clarifying

Very time consuming
Obsession with minor details
Feels like “swimming in syrup”

Group Case – British Civil Servants

Problem – They became bogged down in the meaning of the meaning. Consequently, 90% behavior was clarifying. Their Initiating Behaviors was

so low that they became stuck in minor detail. This was

Booged Down

compounded by low levels of reacting behavior so no one knew who supported or disagreed with other group members.

That’s the high side of the problem, what happens when you get groups that are low on these three areas?

Low on Initiating

Backward looking
Lack of enthusiasm
Undue attention to detailed analysis

Group Case: Production Control Committee in the Engineering Industry.

Problem: Representatives from Production, QC, Maintenance, Industrial Engineering and Production Planning had jobs which overlapped so that when problems came up there were disputes as to who was blame.

“We seem to be very good at dissecting situations and finding who is to blame. Perhaps we should be spending some time finding ways to prevent things occurring in the first place”

Low on Reacting

Tendency for Repetition
People withhold important information
Awkward and forced

Group Case: Systems Analysts presenting proposals to a group of staff members

Problem: The Systems Analysts came up with lots of proposals for change i.e. High Initiating. As a result Staff became nervous about these proposals and heightened by their use of technical jargon. So they were high in Clarifying and did not make any commitments. The Analysts Reacting already low levels dropped and gave more detail i.e. they were classic Low Reactors so the confusion continued. This is typical of specialists meeting decision makers and most know the discomfort of presenting to decision makers

Low Clarifying

Meeting becomes disorganized
Hasty decisions are made
People cannot agree afterwards on what has been decided

Group: New York Advertising Agency

Problem: This active & dynamic group responded to a client brief with everyone talking at once. There were loads of ideas, plenty of excitement and enthusiasm i.e. extremely high Initiating Behaviors. Also, they were high in Reacting Behaviors with a chorus of approval or disapproval and consequently very low Clarifying Behaviors. So confusion reigned. At the end they were asked to write what had been agreed. There were no two versions that were the same. Later further research showed people leaving a meeting could have an average of 5 misunderstandings per person.

What can we learn from these case studies in terms of where we are in this recession?

Leaders know that meetings are inherently expensive and today there isn’t time to tolerate the sort of problems illustrated. Leaders need to hold themselves accountable to managing meetings so that;

1. Initiating, Reacting and Clarifying Behaviors must be present and balanced if meetings are to be successful.

2. They are alert to the impact of High or Low Reacting seriously impairs productivity

3. They recognize that different meetings have very different needs, so what works for problem diagnosis will not work for evaluating a production plan

4. Some Meetings need to be high on one of the three – although you need to be cautious of High Clarifying. Leaders have to question if a meeting is the most productive use of meeting where there is High – Information Exchange

In the rest of the series we will cover specific skills that help leaders achieve these goals

Great, but how can this help me?

_________________________________________________________________________
For Help in Getting Your People on the Same Page
Nick Anderson, The Crispian Advantage

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Leadership Challenges in Turbulent Times

Posted on August 21, 2010 by agincourtarcher

Leadership Turbulence

It’s a statement of the obvious ….. We live in turbulent times… I got to thinking what are the challenges of leadership in the times we are living in. Some years ago I noted this quote:

“Business is now so complex and difficult, the survival of the firm is so hazardous, in an environment increasingly unpredictable, competitive and fraught with danger, that their continued existence depends on the day-to-day mobilization of everyone’s intelligence” (Konosuke Matushita, founder of Matsushita Electric)

It struck a chord…to mobilize everyone’s intelligence… for regular readers you will recognize a theme in our work at PDS…releasing and focusing people is still a crucial ingredient to survival and sustained sucess

So, my focus this month is the Leadership Challenges in Turbulent Times

What’s the core to these challenges that leaders face….it’s Bravery…

Bravery is the capacity to perform properly even when scared half to death.
(Omar N Bradley)

The first step “walk and talk – – – the same talk” constantly. Alignment between attitude, philosophy and actions is key! Such consistency is hard to find, particularly since producing a payoff in change is often more about emotion and intuition than it is about analysis and logic. Where’s the bravery you ask? Try making emotional and intuitive decisions which may or may not be born out by analysis and logic!

Yet I like, Peter Senge’s viewpoint:

“high levels of mastery….leaders cannot afford to choose between reason and intuition, any more than they would choose to walk on one leg and see with one eye”

It’s that outward calm of seeing a swan glide across the water, yet below the water line…furious paddling..

It’s about not losing your head while those around you are running around like chickens with their heads cut off…..what are we going to d!….what are we going to do!

Yet there are automotive dependent manufacturers in West Michigan that are wondering how to “keep it shiny side up!”

So in this fog of war, where do leaders look to survival?

If you look at successful companies, they have varied strategies, structures and systems. However, their leaders do have something in common. They share surprisingly consistent philosophies.

So, let’s put this into perspective. Successful leaders recognize that an organization’s purpose is more important than short-term outcomes. Why? Outcomes change – their purpose does not! Their focus is on how they can create committed members of a purposeful organization. Putting purpose above outcomes, allowing new improved outcomes to take precedence and promoting different things to be done takes bravery.

Why is bravery so important?

It takes bravery for leaders and executives to address seven critical challenges. Without question, addressing them is about not acquiescing to “legacy tendencies” but about incorporating “what now works” into the development of “tomorrow’s legacies”! Bravery is about doing “different things,” not about making excuses as to why you can’t do different things.

Getting above the white noise of excuses is not for the faint hearted….getting up with clamor of resistances and fear

Where do we start with these challenges? Is there a sequence or are they inter-related?

They are interelated but a logical place to start is:

1. Embedding Purpose

Is your purpose Ill-defined or Conceptual Clear, well articulated & translated?

Essential Questions:

How will you gain widespread organizational support for your purpose?
How will you ensure new activities, actions and behaviors invigorate your purpose?
How will you ensure your expectations are aligned with what people assume is expected of them?

2: Removing Distractions

Are your distractions unidentified or well identified and managed?

Essential Questions:

How will you convince people to dismiss actions, operations and processes which stimulate doing old things?
How can you eliminate duplicate processes and reports that slow the organization down?
Who will oversee the distraction-elimination process; and, what authority will they have?

I can see how that would help but does this really get over the fog of war that we face today?

Not unless you integrate it with the next challenge…

3: Aligning Organizational Expectations

Are you expectations unstated or defused or well focused & aligned?

Over and over again, employees say, “I wish someone had told me exactly what was expected.” Have you ever considered that others’ assumptions of “what is expected” might be counter productive to your purpose or outcomes? Are people doing what you expect or what they think you expect?

Essential Questions:

What are the key components that reveal your organization’s direction and success?
How will you translate these words into actions, competencies and behaviors that can be managed?
How will you measure the degree of alignment with your purpose, and what evidence of alignment are you looking for?

Doesn’t this demand more from a leader than just stating the facts?

Yes. It’s about lt’s making clearer emotional connections. It’s alarming how one individual can undermine a change simply by being out of touch with intuition and empathy. One of the most overlooked yet common ways leaders fail, albeit unintentionally, is not to express appropriately, candidly and consistently what we feel as well as what we think. This is known as unintentionally ambiguous behavior. It gives mixed messages and next to aggressive behavior, ambiguous behavior can cause the most tension between leaders and others. (Adapted from Robert Cooper’s book, Executive EQ).

What is the context for well focused & aligned exepectations?

4 Creating Differentiation

How vulnerable are you to being seen as “same-o,same-o” or clearly differentiated from your competition?

If you feel like you’re the same in the marketplace, odds are that’s how the customer sees you. As a leader, you are responsible for creating a climate of differentiation.

Essential Questions:

How will you ensure that customer contact people and others connect with one another to develop differentiable approaches?
How will you measure the degree and profitability of differentiation?
How will you leverage differentiation to lead your market place?

I can see how these first four create a platform for success…but how do leaders get this to stick and not just be another “flash in the pan”

5: Coaching

How would you describe the coaching process in your organization…Isolated or Cascaded

Essential Questions:

What will you do as a leader to establish your coaching cascade?
What is the right intensity and frequency of coaching needed under present competitive conditions?
How will you know that coaching is effective?

6: Replicating Success

How reliant are you on using Lagging Indicators as opposed to Leading Indicators?

Essential Questions:

What will your real best practices look like?
How will you tie best practices to behaviors which can be evidenced and replicated without alienating the productive “lone rangers?”
How will you use your “language of leaders” to make managing easier and more measurable?

7: Rewarding Change

To waht extent does your reward system reflect what worked in the past rather then being liagned with your current direction?

If the recognition and reward systems of your company run on the “legacies of past success” it will only encourage doing things differently, not “doing different things!” To change, you need to consistently reward the new behaviors, not the “reward legacies” of the past.

It’s like traning people to use the longbow,used in the Middle Ages as a weapon of war.A trained army archer could shoot upwards of ten to twelve arrows in one minute, making him the world’s first “machine gun” in some ways. Today how ever, the fastest rate of fire a 36 barrell Prototype mini gun, and can shoot 1,000,000 rounds per minute

Essential Questions:

What proportion of people’s compensation should be tied to adopting the new behaviors?
How will you measure and reward those who support your purpose?
How will you “raise the bar” so that over time people demonstrate excellence in the new behaviors?

Where do you go from here?

Create a cascade of conversation and coaching that gets above the “white noise” of legacy…..that’s doing different things!

Align the expectations of the organization. Bravery is found in exposing misalignments and distractions for immediate correction.

Tip of the Blog

Look at your team/colleagues…whose up for a fight

“He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam’d,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbors,
And say ‘To-morrow is Saint Crispian.’
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say ‘These wounds I had on Crispian’s day.’
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he’ll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words”

(St. Crispen’s Day Speech William Shakespeare, 1599)

Great, but how can this help me?

This is probably the first thing on your mind after reading this Blog.
How about asking us? The first call is free! Just email me to set it up.
Don’t wait, get The Crispian Advantage working for you!. If our conversation leaves you needing more, we offer at a reasonable fee telephone and video coaching improve bottom line results.
If that still doesn’t do it, we’ll work with you on a solution.

Name

Email

Industry

Feedback

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For Help in Getting Your People on the Same Page
Nick Anderson, The Crispian Advantage

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© Copyright All Rights Reserved, The Crispian Advantage and Walk the Talk – A Blog for Agile Minds, [2010-2012]. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Nick Anderson, The Crispian Advantage and Walk the Talk – A Blog for Agile Minds with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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Quality Sales Managers Matters

Posted on July 19, 2010 by agincourtarcher

The focus of this blog is the first of two on Improving Sales Effectiveness. The first is the Quality of Sales Managers Matters. It is based on findings from the Conference Executive Board, PDS Groups and Huthwaite Research Group studies on sales management and coaching. All three agree on 5 Main Factors: (Listen to the Radio Show)

#1 High-performing sales manager’s impact reps engagement and financial performance. Reps reporting to great managers report high job satisfaction with four times more revenue than those working for poor managers.

#2 Coaching Is King—The manager activity most linked with sales rep success is coaching. However, their coaching ability to coach individual sales reps is the weakest.

#3 Who they coach is selective— Coaching low or star performers does not statistically improve performance. Core performers, the 60% center of the performance Bell Curve make significant improvements with coaching.

#4 Bottom-Line Impacts—Effective coaching hits the bottom line. Core sales reps receiving great coaching reach on average 102% of goal in contrast to sales people reporting poor coaching who achieve only 83% of goal. Good coaching can improve core performance by 19%. This is lower than with PDS’s and Huthwaite’s sales productivity projects (18%-30% sales increases)

#5 Great Coaching Is a Learned Skill—Quantitative analysis shows that five elements account for 77% of coaching effectiveness. Armed with this information, we can develop great coaches by focusing them on specific activities such as emphasizing the importance of targeting the best opportunities and spending at least three, but no more than five, hours coaching each rep per month.

What difficulties do firms face in getting Sales Managers coaching to impact results?

Continue reading →

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Removing the Barriers to Sales Effectiveness

Posted on July 1, 2010 by agincourtarcher

Cogs of Effectiveness

The really effective sales organization has a number of characteristics, for example:

Skills and strategies suited to their market outstanding products or services
In-depth understanding of how these products can solve customer problems
Appropriate rewards and performance measures
Sales support system which actually helps to sell, not just administer
An ability and willingness to learn

Full effectiveness, however, can be achieved only if everyone:

Has a clear and shared vision of where the company is heading
Understands the strategy for getting there and their part in the process
Is rewarded for playing their part
Focuses obsessively on the customer

Some barriers to effectiveness are obvious – if the products are poor then no amount of sales skill can compensate sufficiently to build success. Many barriers are more subtle, and can sap the strength of the company over a long period without being tackled. Such problems usually fall under one the following three headings:

Misalignment
Inflexibility
Internal Focus

Misalignment

Feels like a bad back

There are many ways in which Misalignment is introduced into organization structures and processes; at best they generate unhelpful tensions and frustrations, at worst they lead to departmental rifts and sabotage. Common examples are:

Poor alignment of individuals’ expectations, departments and the company as a whole

E.g. the sales force seeks job interest by selling bespoke solutions, while the company is trying to standardize its offerings

Incentives for interdependent departments or people are not congruent

E.g. Sales force targeted on increased volume, administration targeted on decreased costs performance management process runs counter to company strategy

Sales management sets 30 day revenue targets, while company exhorts the salespeople to develop major accounts for the long-term

Salespeople are expected to cross-sell for other Divisions or countries, but are not rewarded for so doing

Sales management is “do as I say, not as I do”

E.g. Managers use a hard ‘push’ style, while advocating a ‘pull’ or consultative style with their people

Doing what we’ve always done what is going to be needed due to changing technology, markets and competition

E.g. When a monopoly supplier meets competition for the first time so the products no longer ‘sell themselves’

When new products address a different market – for example, printer sales force find themselves selling systems not peripherals

Gaps between stated values and actual values

E.g. “Our customers are our greatest asset ” while salespeople refer to them as “Buyers are liars”

“Our employees are our greatest asset”, while managers show little concern and even less investment

Inflexibility

Many markets are now more turbulent and unpredictable than ever before, and success comes only to those who are ‘quick on their feet’. Unfortunately many players suffer from at least one of the following:

Their sales organization structure and roles don’t match those of the customer

E.g. they offer multipoint direct contact with sales, service, technical support, while the customer wants single point contact

Geographical location of functions and authority doesn’t match the customer’s

Their organization is inherently unresponsive to change

E.g. in rapidly evolving markets, companies operating a traditional hierarchical and functional structure find it hard to compete with those successfully using a cross-functional team approach

• Their people are resistant to change

E.g. Salespeople who have been adequately successful for years have become “order takers”, and the entertaining approach to account development

Managers who find it hard to let go of their traditional, power-oriented style and allow staff the space and authority to really contribute

Technical people who are unwilling to take on the sales role and don’t believe in the new technology

Internal focus

True customer focus involves a lot more than ‘customer service training’; it means that no aspect of the organization should be free from an all-pervading concern with delivering what the customer wants, and a bit more. It means taking your cue from the customer in areas which traditionally have been internally focused, for example:

Company and/ or departmental structure

E.g. Split on arbitrary product/technical grounds, so that several sellers approach the same individual

Performance measures

E.g. Call rates, scrap rates, production volumes, instead of response times, satisfaction ratings, service call-outs

Perception of what is being sold

E.g. In terms of a product rather than the results of using it – a security system rather than peace of mind, a training course rather than increased sales effectiveness

Conclusion

There is no one best sales organization structure, incentive scheme, or strategic approach. If there were, we would not see the huge diversity which exists in the real world, and change would anyway render it obsolete.

The effective organization is never complacent, and audits itself rigorously and constantly, seeking out and remedying any instances of inconsistency, inflexibility and internal focus. It also never fools itself into believing that change=progress;. change follows cycles of learning of what works and what doesn’t, not from a fear of stagnation.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
For Help in Getting Your People on the Same Page
Contact: Nick Anderson, Senior Partner, PDS Group LTD
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Managing Alignment Challenges (Part 3 of 3) – Improving Performance

Posted on May 25, 2010 by agincourtarcher

Introduction

During many consulting engagements we identified that organizational misalignment as a major factor in organizations and individuals were not achieving goals

Today I want to cover the second in a three part series on Managing Alignment Challenges to improve the odds of bringing successful change to the listeners’ organizations.

Last month we covered, Managing Conflict and Relationship Tension. This month I will cover…

2. Managing Complexity and then next month

3. Improving Performance

What are the signs of problems with Performance Improvement?

Here are some familiar problem statements we here from our clients about this third area of Alignment Challenges

We could be better at identifying problems and their solutions before they actually occur. We are too reactive and this slows us down
The way we allocate resources and feedback on their performance compounds problems in managing progress
People get so absorbed in what they are doing that Key Stakeholders are not actively involved. This has led to tension between them and the project team
We are reactive and respond too quickly to changes to understand the implications and impacts on other elements and groups
We don’t reuse what has been done before – “Reinventing the Wheel” is costly and takes time
Measuring the impact of what we do is too subjective and lessens our ability to stay within budget.
Cost overruns and missed milestones are too common and compounded by finger pointing.

What are the criteria for successful performance
Improvement?

Build on existing language.If there’s no common language, you are confused and competitively blind. But, you need to start where you are!

Change is hard, real change is real hard.Companies routinely initiate change but never seem to “really” change. We focus on avoiding those common “change traps”

Change is not about making time, it’s about releasing time.Executives must “create” time for change by reducing the distractions to getting work done.

Coaching cascades reinforce change.Managers must coach and be coached.

Create an accountability environment. Support, compensation, and other directional systems must be integrated.

Do “different” things! Don’t just do “things” differently.Think “out-of-the-box” and do different things rather than trying to get a little better at what you’re currently doing.

“Everyone needs to walk the same talk.” Receiving inconsistent voices from various sources causes people to “do what they’ve always done”.

Measure the “hows” not just the “whats” of success.Move management’s focus away from what was achieved to how you can win – measure leading indicators, not just lagging indicators.

No one sales process is the “right” one.The “right” sales process is the one to which people are committed.

Paint the train – revenue and competency grow together.Too often such training is disconnected from “real jobs.” Revenue and competency growth are dynamic concurrent processes not static sequential ones.

Sales and marketing people learn when they realize their collective ignorance risks losing a specific deal.It’s not what you know, but what you don’t know that creates competitive vulnerability.

Speed, intensity and momentum are critical.Move with “speed” to swim above cultural inertia. Move with “intensity” by focusing on a few new things. Build “momentum” by promoting early successes.

White Noise can’t be ignored. The background “hum” of distracting cultural legacies- “white noise”- drags change and must be overcome FIRST.

For more go to PDS Groups web site

The Heart of Performance Improvement – Effective Delegation

At the heart of Performance Improvement lies in Manager’s being required to delegate responsibilities for those people who have been identified for promotion

A Working Definition

Enabling others to do a job for you while ensuring that:

They know what you want
They have the authority to achieve it
They know how to do it.

By communicating clearly:

The nature of the task
The extent of their discretion
The sources of relevant information and knowledge.

Each task delegated should have enough complexity to stretch – but only a little by including:

Agreeing criteria and standards by which the outcome will be judged.

Agreeing first how often and when information is needed to monitor progress

Avoiding making decisions for the delegate when they are capable
Not making a decision unless provided with clear alternatives, their pros and cons, and the individual’s recommendation.

Not judging the outcome by what you would do, but rather by its fitness for purpose.
Delegating the task and its ownership so that it can be changed or upgraded, if needed.

To get to the state where effective delegation can flourish needs people to be aligned.

What is alignment?

Clear Expectations

– Validating & agreeing statements about what two people expect of each other

– Agreeing measureable deliverables that will evidence fulfillment of each expectation.

Mutual Accountability

– Accepting responsibility & authority for agreed upon expectations between two people, for tasks performed & results achieved

– Accepting positive or negative consequences of that performance.

Real Alignment

Performance Improvement ranges from the formal to informal yet for any effort to stick, managers and leaders have to constantly reinforce the need for effective delegation which inherently involves coaching. The basis for this condition is that when expectations relating to effective performance are made explicit, it is the responsibility of the originator, usually the Receiver’s Manager, to gain agreement to the expectation and the Receiver giving the evidence they are going to provide to meet the expectation. This is a very effective way of reaching mutual understanding so that the rating of performance and coaching is objective.

Great, but how can this help me?

_________________________________________________________________________
For Help in Getting Your People on the Same Page
Nick Anderson, The Crispian Advantage

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Managing Alignment Challenges (Part 2 of 3) – Managing Complexity

Posted on April 19, 2010 by agincourtarcher

Managing

Complexity

Introduction

During many consulting engagements we identified that organizational misalignment as a major factor in organizations and individuals were not achieving goals

This changed our focus to ground other work by aligning people’s expectations first before designing learning, coaching etc. Over the last 10years, the PDS team developed their expertise and alignment practice with AlEx™ by serving companies in Canada and the US.

(Listen to the Radio show)

Over the years we have learnt that anticipating and managing misalignment goes to the root of building successful change whether it’s a family business transitioning between generations, construction projects with many different companies involved or implementing electronic patient records.

Today I want to cover the second in a three part series on Managing Alignment Challenges to improve the odds of bringing successful change to the listeners’ organizations.

Last month we covered, Managing Conflict and Relationship Tension. This month I will cover…

2. Managing Complexity and then next month

3. Improving Performance

The Strongest Shape in Construction and in Managing Change

I chose the second as the need for change can seem deceptively clear yet being comfortable with complexity is something people want to avoid. Somehow “complexity” has become associated with ineffectiveness, something to be avoided.

Why is this so important as we climb out of this recession?

It’s a good question. Over the last 15 years the odds of making a successful change in North America haven’t changed appreciably. Two thirds of change initiatives fail, including family businesses trying to pass on their company to the next generation. Just consider this, in a KPMG (2002) survey of 134 public companies.

56% per cent of Companies wrote off at least one IT project in the last year,
Average cost of US$12.5M, while the highest loss was placed at US$210 million.
US$1.7 billion for this group alone.
67% said their Program management was “in need of improvement or immature“
44% rated project performance against any established measures.

In other words unless we must become better students of not only what to change but how to change the climb out your referred to will be longer and more painful.

In an earlier program on to hire or rehire people as companies recover prompts me to ask: How are the employees affected by such failures?

Jaundiced….Post recession employees reveal they expect far more than the status quo, which could have significant implications on company bottom lines, employee morale and turnover. In Q3 2009 Glassdoor.com conducted their Employment Confidence Survey of 1,195 employees conducted by Harris Interactive®.

57% expect a raise, bonus and/or promotion
35% expect hiring freeze to be lifted and/or more employees to be hired in
their department
24% expect health benefits and perks that were previously reduced to be restored
19% expect to look for a new job

These factors don’t sound like change isn’t getting any simpler. How do you see it affecting leaders managing change and this increasing complexity?

Martha Maznevski and her colleagues at IMD put it like this.

“Complexity” is today often considered the latest business buzzword – it reflects a current common reality but not a lasting one. Executives say, “Yes, complexity is the real leadership challenge that I face. How can I focus on my area when everything else is connected? How can I be held accountable when everything is interdependent? How can I sort this out?

It’s overwhelming.” Good questions with few answers. We think “complexity” is much more than a buzzword, but a reality that is here to stay.”

How leaders react to this inevitability is curious. Many see their world as complex so their organization should be complex. But, the key is to focus on what to simplify. Central to this is your purpose and values; core processes and decentralization; early awareness systems; and leadership. Once these are clear and consistent, managers in different areas of the company can respond to complexity according to their own needs and realities. Here are some examples of complexity issues leaders face..

“Our management structure and style gets in the way when dealing with complex and changing business environments.”

This is often not so much one of structure but style. The key lies in effective delegation. Delegating task and responsibility, i.e. enabling others to do a job for you while ensuring that:

They know what you want
They have the authority to achieve it
They know how to do it.

By communicating clearly:

The nature of the task
The extent of their discretion
The sources of relevant information and knowledge.

Each task delegated should have enough complexity to stretch – but only a little by including:

Agreeing criteria and standards by which the outcome will be judged.
Agreeing first how often and when information is needed to monitor progress
Avoiding making decisions for the delegate when they are capable
Not making a decision unless provided with clear alternatives, their pros and cons, and the individual’s recommendation.
Not judging the outcome by what you would do, but rather by its fitness for purpose.

Delegating the task and its ownership so that it can be changed or upgraded, if needed.

So, you are managing complexity at the coal face rather trying to do everything back in the office on the surface.

How do you then get an organization’s purpose across to people?

Second point is Creating Momentum for change by leaders modeling what it means to be, say, the Customer’s Choice. Including:

Defining what value you want to give customers
Challenging the status quo
Probing and testing teams’ understanding of the change in hand
Aligning people’s expectations and actions with corporate goals and “The Vision”
Persevering when “the going gets tough”
Making decisive, courageous and consistent decisions
Motivating others to reach higher goals
Encouraging others to effectively manage risk
Communicating verbally up, down and across the organization – not just e-mail or presentations
Most importantly soliciting feedback on actions taken

What other ways should leaders be mindful of in getting decisions taken earlier and at lower levels in their companies?

After delegation and momentum it has to be teamwork where the weight of complexity can be shared. Specifically, building and growing teams that delivers customer and stakeholder value by:

Identifying key stakeholders to lead partnering activities, e.g. suppliers, subcontractors, branch offices
Sharing common strategies and building solutions with customers and other functions within the spirit of “we are all in this together”
Focusing team effort on delivering value for both customers and other stakeholders
Making and delivering on commitments
Supporting and implementing team decisions
Resolving conflicting positions inside the team
Engaging others to improve solutions and decisions.
Developing external alliances to develop new and innovative solutions

It sounds like you are encouraging leaders to develop trust in their people to do the right thing, but to many that is going to seem risky especially if they have tried before and they have had to take back control

It’s an astute point. It’s down to leaders actively cultivating a climate to anticipate mistakes through praise for prompt action in dealing with the errors and avoiding risk. The last thing to do is to “reward the inactive and hang the innocents” – The Blame Game.

It’s crucial that Risk Managing and Planning are yoked together, back to an earlier program when I mentioned Clauswitz and Contingency Theory. This includes:

Scheduling, anticipating and alerting to avoid risk situations.
Reviewing plans from a risk perspective
Praising people for coming up with solutions
Ensuring every plan is reviewed from both the risks to subcontractors, suppliers (“respected friends”) as well as Customer’s perspective.
Developing options and contingencies with costed options at each project milestone
Engaging all appropriate stakeholders in a timely manner to get multiple perspectives on how the schedule is developed
Creating rapid feedback to alert when a task is delayed or accelerated

How would you sum up managing complexity?

Effective Delegation, Building Momentum, Developing Teams and linking Planning to Risk Management lie at the heart of navigating complex situations, but above all Leadership cannot be repetitive, but should be predictable. Permanent communication is therefore the leadership survival tool in complex organizations, but much more in terms of “storytelling”, interpreting context and meaning, and investing in relationships than in transferring dry facts or ultimatums.

Tip of the month

If you want to follow these three programs you will find an article “Eternal Triangle” in the resources section at pdsgrp.net/resources where you will see a summary of what I have covered today.

Here’s my tip.

Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.
T. S. Eliot

Great, but how can this help me?

This is probably the first thing on your mind after reading this Blog.
How about asking us? The first call is free! Just email me to set it up.
Don’t wait, get The Crispian Advantage working for you!. If our conversation leaves you needing more,
we offer at a reasonable fee telephone and video coaching improve bottom line results.
If that still doesn’t do it, we’ll work with you on a solution.

Name

Email

Industry

Feedback

Δ

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
For Help in Getting Your People on the Same Page
Nick Anderson, The Crispian Advantage

E-mail I Web I Linkedin

© Copyright All Rights Reserved, The Crispian Advantage and Walk the Talk – A Blog for Agile Minds, [2010-2012]. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Nick Anderson, The Crispian Advantage and Walk the Talk – A Blog for Agile Minds with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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Managing Alignment Challenges (Part 1 of 3) – Managing Conflict

Posted on March 18, 2010 by agincourtarcher

Walk the Talk – Radio for Agile Minds – Managing Alignment Projects

Introduction

During many consulting engagements we identified that organizational misalignment as a major factor in organizations and individuals were not achieving goals

This changed our focus to ground other work by aligning people’s expectations first, before designing learning, coaching etc. Over the last 10years, the PDS team developed expertise and an alignment practice with AlEx™, by serving companies in Canada and the US.

Consequently this approach has helped clients add millions in sales, bring construction projects in on time, and successfully transition family-owned businesses.

This month, I want to build on last month’s theme. Regular readers will remember I was talking about how many change projects were planned in response to the economy yet almost half of the respondents indicate that a significant number of change projects failed to meet their stated goals.

We have learned that anticipating and managing misalignment goes to the root of building successful change. And so my theme this month Managing Alignment Challenges so that you can increase the odds that the change you’re planning will achieve its desired results.

Today, I want to focus on people alignment but recognize that alignment of resources with strategy, for example, are other important components of successful change. It’s a big subject. But one thing is for sure – Change has to be personal before it can be organizational…

In your experience what are the main points for listeners to consider in improving the odds of making a change work?

For this blog I will focus on one of three key areas:

Managing Conflict and Relationship Tension

Subsequent programs and blogs I will cover…..

2. Managing Complexity

3. Improving Performance

The first is essential to recognize that there will be conflict and you have to manage it. Too often it’s the 800lb Gorilla in the room.

I chose the second as the need for change can seem deceptively clear yet being comfortable with complexity is something people want to avoid

Thirdly, if you are not actively focused on improving performance…why are you changing?

The last point seems obvious…why else would people want to change…?

For Example, if you are in China many changes get caught up with ensuring the leaders don’t “lose face”. In Corporate America, newly appointed leaders want to put their “stamp” on their tenure….there’s a primal nature to new leaders that we often cloak in business school speak, like “we needed a change of direction to improve the businesses performance….blah, blah, blah” And, of course, then there are the two ugly sisters – Greed and Ego.

The point about improving performance is that leaders start out pontificating about this subject yet get caught up in the first two and lose sight of Change’s central purpose.

So, you have the Eternal Change Triangle. If you go into a change with these things in mind you have the strongest structure on which to base change. If you don’t see or manage these three you will be flying a jet without any sense of direction. It’s why we use the metaphor of “The Performance Flight Deck”

Why do you think people don’t recognize the first two’s importance?

In my experience, especially in this economy, too many leaders can get caught up in expediency – a compulsion “to do something” NOW!

Back to an earlier blog, this call to action that is so prevalent in our culture. Though, the strangest thing I am about to say seems to contradict myself:

Despite the ubiquity of business planning education in entrepreneurship, there is little evidence that planning leads to success (Honig)

(You are going to have to unpack that one for me…and the listeners…LOL)

On the one hand, Mark Hurst on his Blog quotes Calvin Coolidge,

Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.

The trouble with the Coolidge’s take on success is, as Mark points out, that persistence is only effective if there’s a clear goal.Like the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland, a sort of feline Clausewitz. Alice asks which way she should go, and the Cheshire Cat answers:

“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.

“I don’t much care where,” said Alice.

“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.

For me that means, You have to stop and take time to find the direction. You can’t run while you’re reading the map. Too many leadersfocus on the end goal and not enough time on:

How are we going to get people to not only accept change but also be committed to changing?
How are we going to manage this change and keep making money?
How are we going to manage SNAFU’s (define)?

To summarize

“The general who wins a battle makes many calculations in his temple ere the battle is fought. The general who loses a battle makes but few calculations beforehand. Thus do many calculations lead to victory, and few calculations to defeat: how much more no calculation at all! It is by attention to this point that I can foresee who is likely to win or lose.”
-Sun Tzu, the Art of War

Let’s turn to this month’s theme, what are some of the benefits in managing conflict?

Our work in aligning people on construction projects with Turner Construction, strongly suggests that there 8 benefits

Helps develop a healthy attitude to managing rather than hiding conflict.
- Helps objectify disagreements and prevents things getting personal
Reduces the distracting and destructive products from poorly handled conflict situations.
- Defend Attack Spirals have destructive long lasting effects that last year
Helps harness diverse views and experience in the project team for the good of the overall project and Owner.
- The power of accepting the “Half Baked” is an inclusive stance not poorly thought out
Helps handle change as change progresses and manages the constant flow of information between key players…e.g. Owners, consultants and contractors.
- Plays to an earlier program, Clauswitz on not being caught up in sequential thinking – Change is not start with A, then B, then C
- Change is A learn and choose B or C or both knowing that B & C need to be accomplished
- Too many leaders have a touching reliance that they have complete knowledge
Addresses the tensions in managing the change dynamics as during the change life cycle

If you’re leading such a change, what are the typical examples of change dynamics?

Very often leaders have a false sense of control, and if for example they commission consultants or create teams things take on a life of their own

Another dynamic is my sixth point…

6. Recognizes that as work precedes the relative bargaining strengths of the parties are constantly adjusting. Standard approaches to planned change do not take this into account.

In more formal changes, like in construction we find that we need to help teams

7. Overcome the inflexibility inherent in standard contracts. For example, one contract assumes that the design is complete at the time of bidding and that the contractor employs most of the resources that will be required for the project. The fact is, design is rarely 100 % complete at the time of bidding and contractors subcontract most of the work.

Most importantly, aligning people as we do…

8. Develops Project Teams while recognizing their different rules of engagement. AlEx™ recognizes and helps facilitate different project needs and rules of engagement, like:

Changing Owner demands
Rapid learning
Generating and maintaining effective interaction between team members so that they can exchange views and debate the consequences of their decisions in an open and honest forum.
Changing circumstances over the project’s lifecycle.
Shifting relationship tensions between the major members of the project team.
Building trust for when things do not go as planned.

How would you sum up managing conflict…?

Conflict in life is a natural as breathing. What we have lost sight of especially with the backdrop of what’s happening in Washington is how do you respect another party’s opposing stance and achieve successful change…I heard a item on the radio about the Life Raft Debate where the students vote which professor they would choose to take the last place on their life raft…they chose the devil’s advocate….because all the others tried to entertain rather then debate

Tip of the month

If you want to follow these three programs you will find an article “Eternal Triangle” in the resources section at pdsgrp.net/resources where you will see a summary of what I have covered today.

Here’s my tip.

If you are planning a change or are in the middle of one…..how many times last week did you not confront your demons and openly say:

“The Emperor has no clothes……”

It’s OK to confront the issues not the person if you don’t unaddressed conflict will fester like road kill.

Then, stand back and look at your own organization – and ask “What traps are we falling into?”

http://pdsgrp.net/Media/audio/6294_031510.mp3

Great, but how can this help me?

This is probably the first thing on your mind after reading this Blog. How about asking us? The first call is free! Just email me to set it up. Don’t wait, get The Crispian Advantage working for you!. If our conversation leaves you needing more, we offer at a reasonable fee telephone and video coaching improve bottom line results. If that still doesn’t do it, we’ll work with you on a solution.

_________________________________________________________________________
For Help in Getting Your People on the Same Page
Nick Anderson, The Crispian Advantage

E-mail I Web I Linkedin

Rate this:

Getting Committed People on the Same Page – Disturb First, Enable Second?

Posted on March 11, 2010 by agincourtarcher

Last month I looked at why so many changes initiatives fail. One thing that struck me after the program was the inability to gain others commitment lies at the heart of so many failures. This is often due to the lack of interest paid by those leading change for those who have to make the change.

Previously, one stat sticks out from our work in aligning companies for change is that over 70% of leaders expectations are not known or realized by those affected by a change. Their people are not on the same page!!

Now, add to that apparently unrelated data…

An estimated 247 billion emails are sent each day

“The number of worldwide email users is projected to increase from over 1.4 billion in 2009 to almost 1.9 billion by 2013. In 2009, 74% of all email accounts will belong to consumers, and 24% to corporate users.
Worldwide email traffic will total 247 billion messages per day in 2009. By 2013, this figure will almost double to 507 billion messages per day.
In 2009, about 81% of all email traffic is spam Source: Press release from The Radicati Group, 6th May 2009 Quoted by Digital Stats.com

Stats vary but most people seem to say each person gets 5000 ads per day.

Now here’s my point in both your personal life and at work how much time do you have to spend listening to somebody drone on about:

The latest, greatest, best, more, more…Their solutions for you….

How often, in your personal and work lives, do you have to spend listening to somebody drone on about the latest, greatest, best, more, more…their solutions for you….

So, How do you typically react? Why should it matter to Change Management?

It reminds me of a cartoon of a family sitting at a meal table (rare enough of itself) with heads bowed and the son texts mom to pass the fries! This would be funny if I had not enforced a “no device” rule at our family meals – me included!! So, my reflections as to why we get resistant to change are these:.

Firstly, People overall forget what it’s like to be in somebody else’s head, like the research I referenced two months ago. “There’s not enough time…they cry”

Second, instantaneous communication reduces people’s patience from more deliberate consideration – we drift into the white noise, the buzz of attention deficit….but Are we challenged to really think?

Third, access to the internet has produced the most mature and knowledgeable change audience in history.

Why should this matter?

In terms of influencing people to even consider buying into your change process, be careful you are not:

Doing what you’ve always done… not getting what you want …

Whether you are influencing people in your own organization or trying to sell your service or product you will need to be more skilled at understanding where people are in their heads about change than ever before.

Change in West Michigan has come in many forms….change leaders ignore at them at their per. For example, Gilder’s vision of the future of “Cathedrals of bandwidth” will affect how people see work and how they see change. trends of exponential growth in technology and application will continue as far as we can see into the future.

The Technology Horse has looong bolted and the “Control Door” is hanging off its hinges……

So let’s stand back and see if we can start being practical. As the snow melts, I am reminded of when it snows. Each snowflake has a similar structure, yet is infinitely complex, and as each falls leads to complex behavior. If each person is a snowflake we must treat them as similar yet unique. (This is Fractal Theory..if you’re interested.

When managing change I find it’s helpful to look at how people change in a rigorous yet flexible way. It can be used to locate where individuals, groups and you are in terms of seeing the world, state similarly. This snowflake or fractal is based on a series of questions which follow a sequence – often shown as a ‘U”. The “U” is one of the most fundamental concepts in the psychology of learning and change. Readerers may remember in the last program that we consistently think we are better than we actually are – in psychology it’s called “self serving bias”. For Example: 94% of men rate themselves in the top half of male athletic ability

Change Management’s Foundation

So, I am going to make a claim that I have never done before:

If you use the following six questions in your life, it will change your perspective of others and most importantly yourself:

Now let’s use this “U” Map to can locate yourself and those you are trying to bring to your point of view and be committed to the change

1. What is the problem?

Do you have one and others don’t?

2. How is it a problem?

Do they see the same linkage as you? Structure, recurrence, competitively weak?

3. What are the consequences?

Can they see the ramifications that you do?

Now, let’s pause and ask: If you’re at 3. and those you want to influence can’t answer 1 – What is likely to happen?

If they are OK, but are they disturbed to the degree they are willing to consider changing? If yes, we are at the bottom of the U at the Change Pivot when momentum or change energy starts to be

Now, let’s look at how people are enabled?:

1. Why solve this problem?

a. Do they see this change as a priority

b. Or, Do they think we should do something differently?

2. How to solve the problem?

a. Are your technical people see a solution in the same frame from those in other functions

3. What will be solved?

a. Does cost of the present outweigh the cost of change?

So, Let’s say you are at 3. and I am at 6. Giving you an ROI ?….

What is your likely reaction?

Resistance; which I have created!

So, now you have the U – Ask yourself how many times has a sales person “Crossed the U” with you? Ask yourself, How many times have we as change agents “Crossed the U”? with the leadership team? Only to find we left the group “not getting it!” “not on the same page” Yet it was us that left them behind

Great, but how can this help me?

_________________________________________________________________________
For Help in Getting Your People on the Same Page
Nick Anderson, The Crispian Advantage

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Family Business Transition – Focus on Things You Can Control

Posted on March 9, 2010 by agincourtarcher

Listen to this Radio Show

I was reminded of the topics we covered two years ago through a number of conversations with Financial Planners. Two things stuck out in terms of their frustrations, especially with business owners.1. Clients don’t want to reveal all their assets the planner2. Clients will “dither” on the end game. Some listeners will be thinking, rather skeptically, about the self interest motivating such frustration. But, for a minute, most financial planners are well motivated and they can’t build a book of business by not doing two things really well:1. Know their clients really well2. Act in their best interests

Other related conversations with businesses owners about when and how to transition:

A fast expanding food broking business which is rapidly expanding and the founder is59yo and his son is 32yo have no transition plan
A printing company where the 52yo owner was returning to work after a major illnessand his 28yo son ran the business very well in his absence. The owner wants to retireat 60 yet thinks it is too early to plan his transition
A environmental remediation company’s owner got caught by the recession and had topull back control from his inexperienced management team.

So, Nick, what is your theme this week?

“May you live in interesting times” Old Chinese curse. Readers don’t want another recital
of the recession litany. Yet, there is opportunity in any downturn.Yes, conditions are unpleasant with loads of “turbling” BUT….

“If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you; If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; . . . If you can meet with triumph and disaster AND treat those two impostors just the same . . Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it.” (Kipling)

My message is for business owners in this blog is –

Don’t waste time worrying about things you can’t change – Direct things to things you can control: this choices on how are you going to move forward.

That’s easier said than done, in this economic climate

Oh, I am not talking about easy but I am talking about the need to be proactive…
Since the recession started, for Baby-Boomer business owners face the same dynamics of their condition.1. 78m Boomers of whose wealth is held in 12m privately owned businesses2. 70% will change hands in 10-15years3. Trillions of dollars will transferNow think of the business owner with 180,000 hours, say, invested in their business;
What are they thinking?

Will I be able to work less in next five years?
Consider leaving the business?
How do I get out?
I don’t know what the business is worth?
What is the best time to sell?

Surely, though, most owners are in survival mode and need to protect their business these days

Why not combine the two?Expand strategy to accomplish both – the reality is they are not mentally exclusive.
In fact, there are real problems if you don’t keep them integrated.Remember the quote “keeping your head”
This is not the time to abandon business planning.It takes at least 2-3years to successfully implement in NORMAL Times. You can argue now
is the right time to put in place tactics that will increase business value when the recession ends.

OK. So what can business owners do now?

Well, the business cycle is alive and well, there’s still timing when you business is at its optimal value.

If you don’t think ahead: you will be in the herd!
9 out of 10 owners who don’t get anywhere close to what they expected or want for their business, delay in making a decision and for mature businesses “dithering” erodes the transaction value.

The fact is that less than 40% of businesses successfully transition their business…. Yet,
84% say the need the proceeds to finance their retirement.

There’s been no change to owners lack of urgency:

58% don’t have any plan
33% informal
Only 9% have a formal written plan

Ummm, what’s the connection between 1 in 10 get what they want and 1 in 10 have a formal plan.

When are owners thinking of exiting their businesses?

28 % within 5 years, 52% plan on exiting within next 10 years.
Like retirement and personal planning, transition planning works best the longer the timeline to plan and
implement = optimal value.

With such compelling stats for just how much is on the line, what’s holding people back?

There are the three fears of transition:

Fear of Loss Wealth
Fear of Loss of Control
Fear of Conflict

What are the main reasons for not having a succession plan?

It’s a bit like Letterman’s Top Eight Reasons (Excuses) for not getting the right return on 180,000 hours of:

“Blood, Sweat, Toil and Tears! (Churchill)

Top 8

8. Too scary

7. Thoughts of the end

6. Family/Employee conflict

5. Don’t want to think of leaving

4. Can’t get adequate advice

3. Too complex

2. No Time

No. 1 – No time to plan!

In this recession why has transition planning become even more important?

Good question,There will be more market competition – fewer buyers than sellersWith downward pressure on business values a premium will be placed on well run businesses that stand out
from the pack and can differentiate themselves in the market placePlanners – IO Non-Planners – O Which team do you want to be on?

How does the Family put a brake on transition planning?

Well. Many owners consider passing their business on to their children,It’s one of the most challenging
decisions a parent-owner faces.Impartiality is critical in addressing these emotional family issues and the effects on the business

What are the main reasons for no or little planning?

Sadly, many family-owned businesses are shut down because the Family didn’t handle the succession issue: Why?

Parents stays on too long
Parent steps down too soon before successors are trained or sufficiently experienced in the leadership roles
Fail to face the realities that many children don’t want to be involved with the business or at very least shouldn’t be forced into working together

The reality is that the odds are not stacked in their favor:

30% – 2nd Generation survival

12% – 3rd Generation survival

3% – 4th Generation survival

My Blog Tip

Ask Yourself:What comes first? The Transaction?OR The Management of the Transition?OR The Strategy for the TransitionDon’t put the Cart before the Horse.Talk to your trusted advisor – CPA, Lawyer etc. and ask”Who do we need to create and implement the plan?

Great, but how can this help me?

_________________________________________________________________________
For Help in Getting Your People on the Same Page
Nick Anderson, The Crispian Advantage

E-mail I Web I Linkedin

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Aligning Expectations in Construction Projects

Posted on February 23, 2010 by agincourtarcher

Your Line of Sight to Successful Projects

Aligning Expectations in Construction Projects

Getting & Keeping People on the Same Page

Clarifying and improving performance contracts between critical relationships, such as:

Architects and their Design Engineers
General Contractors and their Sub-Contractors
Managers and Subordinates
Leadership Teams
Cross-functional groups

Groups have successfully used AlEx™ to:

Improve competitiveness
Deliver more customer-focused solutions
Deliver a building on-time, on-budget and no legal

issues

Accelerate and build partnerships
Integrate new Architects
Streamline Change Order & RFI Processes

Potential Benefits of the Eternal Triangle: Owner, Architectural Design Team & General Contractor

The Goal: a perfect building with proper design, highest quality, constructed on time and last but not least, built within budget.

Introduction

What follows are three areas where AlEx™ can potentially help the “Eternal Triangle” of tension and mistrust that pervades many construction project relationships

1. Managing Conflict and Relationship Tension

2. Managing Complexity

3. Improving Building Performance

1. Managing Conflict – Benefits of AlEx™

Helps develop a healthy attitude to managing rather than hiding conflict.
Reduces the distracting and destructive products from poorly handled conflict situations.
Helps harness diverse views and experience in the project team for the good of the overall project and Owner.
Helps handle change as the project progresses and manages the constant flow of information between Owners, consultants and contractors.
5. Addresses the tensions in managing the dynamic and transient nature of the project life cycle process.
Recognizes that as work precedes the relative bargaining strengths of the parties are constantly adjusting. Standard approaches to contracting simply do not take this into account.
Overcomes, the inflexibility inherent in standard building contracts. For example, one contract assumes that the design is complete at the time of bidding and that the contractor employs most of the resources that will be required for the project. The fact is, design is rarely 100 % complete at the time of bidding and contractors subcontract most of the work.
Develops Project Teams while recognizing their different rules of engagement. AlEx™ recognizes and helps facilitate different project needs and rules of engagement, like:

Changing Owner demands
Rapid learning
Generating and maintaining effective interaction between team members so that they can exchange views and debate the consequences of their decisions in an open and honest forum.
Changing circumstances over the project’s life cycle.
Shifting relationship tensions between the major members of the project team.
Building trust for when things do not go as planned.

2. Managing Complexity – Benefits of AlEx™

1. Designs in flexibility in management structure and style that is essential in dealing with complex and changing business environments.

2. Deals with the reality that construction contracts are based upon industry-wide standards that often are hastily modified and executed during a hurried design and bidding process. AlEx™ picks up where the contracting process stops. Every project needs a legal contract and a guide to monument – AlEx™ is the formative process to get the contracting parties into alignment.

3. AlEx™ helps harness conflict that causes the distress and low productivity associated with escalating conflict. AlEx™ helps to develop open, skillful discussion that is needed to turn differences into synergistic gains rather than squabbling losses.

4. The use of AlEx™ helps project teams build Partnering, a process of building up long term business relationships that reduce the adversarial nature of construction. The expectations approach helps shift the emphasis from a contractual focus to a results orientated management focus.

5. AlEx™ takes the heat out of how to convert business deals into good contracts which produce lasting positive relationships.

6. Helps develop the close working relationships needed between all designers and contractors in order to produce an integrated building in which all building services, structural and building elements are fully planned, systematically organized and combined, and brought to fruition as required by an Owner. It really produces teams that actually communicate effectively with each other.

7. Helps develop the processes needed to cope with the growing complexity of design and Owner needs, e.g. as hospital buildings grow in size and complexity, building services also tend to be more sophisticated and difficult to manage from design to certificate of occupancy.

8. Helps develop coordination to ensure that services and other building elements are properly planned, managed and coordinated.

9. Develops protocols for coordinating multi-head Owner, changes of design, conditions of engagement of designers and contractors, division of design responsibilities, allocation of risks, early incorporation of specialty contractors/consultants, forms of contract and quality of design and construction management. AlEx™ can also have a positive effect on coordination of building services within the General Contractors office.

10. Examines ways in which Owners and various designers, contractors and equipment suppliers can work together as a team in line with the projects procurement path or strategy (The whole process of creation, communication, response and integration in the context of the project can be defined as procurement).

11. Helps develop Procurement Strategies by guiding decisions early in the project influencing risk allocation, design strategy and consultant/contractor hiring. This ensures that throughout the project the following are all consistent with the selected procurement route:

Roles and relationships
Project management approach,
Communication channels
Information systems,
Forms of contracts, and
Overall management of the project organization

3. Improving Building Performance – Potential Benefits of AlEx™

1. Identification of problems and their solutions before they actually occur. This is a proactive approach toward building solutions to performance issues.

2. Improved space utilization and feedback on building performance.

3. Improved attitude of building owner through active involvement in the evaluation process.

4. Understanding of the performance implications of changes dictated by budget cuts and scope changes, add-ons, contract extensions, and government intervention.

5. Built-in capability for facility adaptation to organizational change and growth over time, including

Recycling of facilities into new uses
Significant cost savings in the building process and throughout the building life cycle.
Accountability for building performance by design professionals and owners.
Long-term improvements in building performance:
Improved measurement of building performance through quantification.

Exposing and Expelling Pre-Conceived Notions

Project Owners believe Contractors to be _____________.

Architects believe Contractors to be _________________.
Contractors believe Architects to be _________________.
Contractors believe Owners to be ___________________.

Great, but how can this help me?

This is probably the first thing on your mind after reading this Blog. How about asking us? The first call is free! Just email me to set it up. Don’t wait, get The Crispian Advantage working for you!. If our conversation leaves you needing more, we offer at a reasonable fee telephone and video coaching on change, alignment, and personal and executive performance that improve the bottom line. If that still doesn’t do it, we’ll work with you on a solution.

In a time of turbulence and change, it is more true than ever that knowledge is power”
John Fitzgerald Kennedy quotes (American 35th US President (1961-63), 1917–1963)