Management Excellence Book Series Podcast: Strategic Speed
Filed under: Fresh Voices, Leadership, Leading Change, Management Education, Management Excellence Book Series, Management Innovation, Organizational Transformation, Performance, Strategy, Talent Management
Every year, a number of the large consulting firms publish surveys outlining the issues that keep global corporate leaders awake at night. Inevitably, the topic turns to strategy and more specifically to the headaches and challenges of executing strategy.
For those of us that have labored in the corporate world for a couple of decades, it comes as no surprise that translating ideas into programs and projects and then executing these programs accurately and quickly to seize market opportunities is darned difficult.
It also turns out that we’re not so good at it for a lot of reasons, most of which have to do with people.
It is this critical issue of improving strategy execution (speed and quality) by focusing on the people & leadership issues that bedevil so many programs, that the authors of: Strategic Speed-Mobilize People, Accelerate Execution, take on in this interesting, and research and helpful tool-filled new book. This is a practical, interesting and immediately useful book for anyone engaged in the work of creating and driving strategy and execution.
I had the good fortune to connect recently with Jocelyn Davis, one of the co-authors (along with Henry Frechette, Jr., and Edwin Boswell) of Strategic Speed, for an interview, where we discussed the high failure rate of strategies, the meaning of “strategic speed,” and a number of other issues important to anyone interested in improving strategy execution. Jocelyn’s insights into the book and the world of strategy and leadership were fascinating.
Enjoy the interview.
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-In case you missed it, check out my recent interview with Bob Sutton on his new book, Good Boss, Bad Boss.
-Note from Art: the authors supplied my review copy of Strategic Speed.
Management Excellence Book Series Kicks Off Featuring Good Boss, Bad Boss
Filed under: Career, Fresh Voices, Leadership, Leadership Skills, Life and Business, Management Education, Management Excellence Book Series, Middle Management, Professional Growth, Surviving Lousy Leaders, Talent Management, Values, Your Professional Development "To Do" List
For as long as I can remember, books have played a major role in my life.
I still recall the day my Mom took me to the Hild Library in Chicago for my first library card. And I remember distinctly the scene a few months later, when she engaged in a vigorous discussion with the library staff on my need for an Adult card. I had consumed everything worth consuming in the Children’s section and needed to move on. Mom prevailed, and the rest for me is reading history.
This preoccupation with reading continued through my summers as a child, including one memorable, slow, hot season reading the World Book from A to Z. While it wasn’t Britannica, it was what we had in our apartment in Chicago. And yes, I read more than the cool transparent overlays. I read the complete text. Every entry. It was a little like work, but I was on a mission. As a result, I have a remarkable store of trivial knowledge on everything that happened in the world up until 1973. Beyond that, I’m a bit fuzzy.
Fast forward a few decades, and books are still a major part of my life. I’ve authored one, I’m working on another and I consume content in history, business and science in an unquenchable thirst to learn more. Given this preoccupation with the written word, it’s fitting and about time that I extend my love of books and regard for the hard work of authors to a feature here on the blog. Thus, welcome to the first post and first interview for the Management Excellence Book Series.
About the Management Excellence Book Series:
First, I’m not a book critic, I’m a book lover. You’ll never find a negative review here, because, if I don’t like the book, I won’t write about it or interview the author. It is my intent to offer a resource with this series that extracts and shares insights and introduces you to new or time-tested great ideas.
I intend on using a mix of audio interviews (podcasts) and posts with transcribed interviews to share ideas and learn more from management book authors that have labored long and hard to help us learn and grow. My mission is to search for the pearls of wisdom, the fresh ideas or the classic ideas that help us all make a difference.
While my audio interview skills are clearly in need of practice, there’s no reason not to start. We are living in a period of time rich with the flow of information and ideas, and I’m excited to help all of us gain just a little bit more insight and context from great management thinkers for use in our professional and personal lives.
I look forward to sharing with you via the interviews. Enjoy!
Art Interviews Bob Sutton About Good Boss, Bad Boss
Art Petty Interviews Bob Sutton on Good Boss, Bad Boss [33:49m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
Art Petty Interviews Bob Sutton on Good Boss, Bad Boss [33:49m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | DownloadGood Boss, Bad Boss by Robert I. Sutton, Ph.D.
Just about everyone is familiar with Bob’s prior work, The No A**Hole Rule! Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One that Isn’t. That great read talked about what many of us have been thinking, and even made the “A” word acceptable business meeting and cocktail party discussion fodder (in the context of the book, of course!).
Bob is back with a tremendous new book, Good Boss, Bad Boss-How to Be the Best and Learn from the Worst, available for pre-order from major booksellers now, with a scheduled publication date of September 7th.
His emphasis in his latest work is on describing the good habits of great bosses, and once again, Bob is saying what many of us are thinking or, living through in our working lives. In this era of the seemingly “disposable worker,” and after a decade of corporate scandals and a great number of bosses doing the “perp walk,” Bob focuses squarely on what the best bosses do day-in and day-out. He contrasts the great habits of good bosses with the equivalent lousy habits and approaches of bad bosses, providing anecdotes and vignettes that we can relate to or anguish over. We all know a few of the bad bosses. Let’s hope that our good boss experiences outweigh those others.
I had the great fortune to connect with Bob recently on a phone call/interview, and our scheduled 10-15 minutes turned into 30 minutes of fascinating insights about the book, and about Bob’s work as a professor and consultant. He was a delight to interview and I sincerely believe that you will find his insights and anecdotes as fascinating as I did. Enjoy the interview and enjoy the book!
And finally, this section from the preface of his book sets the tone well:
“The best bosses don’t ride into town, save the day with a bold move or two, declare victory, and then rest on their laurels. There is no final victory. The main reward for success is usually that you get to keep doing a damn hard (but often satisfying) job for a while longer. Despite the horseshit spewed out by too many management gurus, there are no magic bullets, instant cures or easy shortcuts to becoming a great boss. Anyone who tells you otherwise is a liar. The best bosses succeed because they keep chipping away at a huge pile of dull, interesting, fun, rewarding, trivial, frustrating, and often ridiculous chores. …Devoting relentless attention to doing one good thing after another-however small-is the only path I know to becoming and remaining a great boss.“
Nine chapters of pure boss gold! Thanks, Bob!
Note from Art: Bob supplied me with a pre-release copy of his book for this interview.
Friday Shorts from Management Excellence
Filed under: Fresh Voices, Leadership, Leadership Skills, Making Decisions, Management Education, Middle Management, Organizational Transformation, Performance, Professional Growth, Talent Management, Your Professional Development "To Do" List
Resources, Great Reads and Sound Bites for Your Summer Weekends
Decisions, Decisions
In spite of the unfortunate example/timing of BP as an effective decision-making company, the article, “The Decision Driven Organization,” by Marcia Blenko, Michael Mankins and Paul Rogers, offers up some meaty content on why top leaders should focus more on the issues and processes of decision-making and leave their reorg plans at home.
The article includes reference to a Bain study citing a high correlation between decision-making effectiveness and financial results, and the content and survey tools on decision effectiveness are worth the price of this issue of Harvard Business Review.
The authors help you focus on the issues surrounding decision quality, speed of decisions, yield and effort, and you will quickly find yourself wanting to gauge your own firm’s/team’s decision-making culture.
While positioned as a cautionary tale against reorganizing without considering the impact on decision-making, there is value in this article for everyone as they strive to improve their decision-making effectiveness.
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A Blogger and a Blog Post Worth Reading
Great, thoughtful blogger that’s become a “must read” for me. Enjoy Tanveer Naseer’s excellent post “What Twitter Can Teach Leaders About Effective Communication.”
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Leadership Tips (Tip of the Day) from Building Better Leaders
In case you missed them!
The Words and Decisions of Questionable Leaders
Hug an Internal Customer Today
Help Your Team Pass the Walk in the Door Test
Develop Your Talent Scouting Skills
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Enjoy your weekends! Back Monday with a fresh cup of Leadership Caffeine!
Want Growth? You Might Try Slowing Down to Speed Up
Filed under: Fresh Voices, Leadership, Making Decisions, Management Education, Performance, Project Management, Strategy
Jocelyn R. Davis and Tom Atkinson offer some compelling thoughts on strategy in their article, “Need Speed? Slow Down,” in the May, 2010 Harvard Business Review. They describe the concept of strategic speed as one of reducing the time it takes to create value. While “reducing time” might sound like speeding up, their research results suggest the opposite.
In their research of 343 companies, the two found that, “the companies that embraced initiatives and chose to go, go, go to try and gain an edge ended up with lower sales and operating profits than those that paused at key moments to make sure they were on the right track. What’s more, the firms that “slowed down to speed up” improved their top and bottom lines, averaging 40% higher sales and 52% higher operating profits over a three year period.”
Anecdotally, just a few days ago, I chatted with a valued colleague dealing with the problems of growth at his market-leading firm, and he described a culture that was laser focused on very few initiatives and committed to moving slowly and deliberately to ensure quality. This firm intuitively gets the notion of strategic speed.
The Simplicity and Practicality of Strategic Speed for Your Business:
I love the concept as the authors express it. The notion of reducing the time that it takes to create value screams of jettisoning the undisciplined pursuit of more (Collins, How the Mighty Fall) and rails against exhortations from executives to do more, faster. It implies deliberately deciding what you will not do and carefully constructing your teams and processes to execute, learn, innovate and execute some more.
Many firms struggle with the “We’ve never met a project we didn’t like,” syndrome, saying yes to every opportunity that swims by, hoping that one or a few will hit it big. Others navigate the world shifting their business strategy to rationalize the next investment, acquisition or strategic partnership that once in place will change the game for the better. Employees look on and wonder and then go about their work with little context for what truly will create value and how to make decisions that will help the firm move faster towards value creation.
Moving at the pace of strategic speed as I envision it, allows an organization to arm its people with context, including a crystal clear understanding of customers and their vexing challenges. The right pace allows everyone to focus on creating great customer experiences and on improving systems, services and offerings that continue to meaningfully serve and differentiate.
The Bottom Line for Now:
There are no silver bullets in business, but there are some approaches that work better than others. If you’re looking for more from your business, you may want to consider slowing down, looking around and then choosing your next steps carefully. And plan on stopping a lot along the way.
Enjoy the slow ride to value creation!
Your Search for Leadership Wisdom Starts and Ends at the Carnival!
Filed under: Career, Current Affairs, Fresh Voices, Leadership, Leadership Carnivals, Leadership Skills, Leading Change, Life and Business, Management Education, Performance, Professional Growth
One of the best leadership public services you will find is Dan McCarthy’s hard work to produce the monthly Leadership Development Carnivals.
Dan scours the world far and wide for compelling content designed to inspire, energize and challenge you to step up your leadership game. He leaves no stone unturned looking for those nuggets of wisdom and then he carefully crafts them into a post guaranteed not to disappoint. OK, actually, he does a heck of a job inviting people to submit their favorite posts, and I’m sure he turns over at least a few stones, but the result is as advertised! Point your browser to Dan’s Great Leadership site for this month’s Carnival and remember to drop your favorite blogger a comment or two as you explore the material!
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