The Joys of the Season
With my sincere thanks for your readership during this past year, I wish you nothing but the best during the holidays and for the new year. I’m taking some time with family and look forward to renewing our pursuit of management and leadership excellence in 2012!
Art’s Weekly Leadership Message: Don’t Be Part of the Problem
It’s all too easy for us to get caught up in the political swirl and self-limiting behaviors that characterize the culture of many of our organizations. It’s a mistake. We have to learn to fight the gravitational pull of malaise and mediocrity that pervades our teams, or we risk being part of the problem.
Overheard:
“But, this is how we’ve always done it.”
My response…tough crap…we’re doing it a new way. The old way no longer applies. (This is a common issue for operational approaches as well as for firms struggling to break-away from a past that offers no future.) Worst reason ever!
-Another common one: “Management has to give us the resources to be successful.”
My response….bull…YOU have to figure out how to secure the resources. You can start by executing and building operational credibility. Your ability to leverage the credibility gained by operating effectively is the admission ticket to pushing strategic investments. Of course, you’ve got to learn to weaponize strategic ideas….to turn them from slides and plans and “marketechture slides” into RGM…real green money. Learn to sell your ideas and always back your ideas with actions and results.
And there’s the ever-popular: “No one else here focuses on that stuff, why should I?” in conjunction with, “I don’t have time.” I actually here these fairly frequently when talking to managers about what they are doing to develop the talent on their teams.
First, let me offer: “Aaargggghhhh!” OK, now that this one is out of the way, I don’t care if you are the lowest ranked supervisor in the lowest level of the organization most likely to resemble what Dante saw during his walk through the inferno, talent development is always your job! Every day.
The Bottom-Line for Now:
When you give up pushing the envelope on approaches, ideas and talent, you earn a gold-plated membership card to the club of, “I’m part of the problem.” That’s one club you don’t want to claim membership in throughout your career.
Find an opportunity everyday to be someone building the future and fighting the gravitational pull of mediocrity and malaise. Now that’s a club to be a proud member of during your journey.
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Want More? Check out Art Petty’s latest book, Leadership Caffeine-Ideas to Energize Your Professional Development. Created for fast-moving and highly motivated professionals and leaders, Leadership Caffeine offers more than 80 short, idea-packed essays for the critical leadership and professional development situations in your life.
Join the many groups and management teams and meeting/conference organizers who have adopted Leadership Caffeine as a discussion and development tool. The collection makes a great gift for the newly promoted leader or for your team during the holidays.
- Single and Kindle copies on Amazon.
- Group and Volume orders, visit Marathon Books for the best service.
About Art Petty:
Art Petty is a Leadership & Career Coach and Strategy Consultant, helping motivated professionals of all levels achieve their potential. In addition to working with highly motivated professionals, Art frequently works with project teams in pursuit of high performance. Contact Art via e-mail to discuss a coaching, workshop or speaking engagement or to inquire about being a guest on The Leadership Caffeine podcast.
December 04 Leadership Development Carnival
Our intrepid Leadership Development Carnival host, Dan McCarthy of Great Leadership fame, has for this month passed the hosting/producing baton to Kevin Eikenberry and Becky Robinson at Kevin’s Learning & Leadership blog. They are adding their own unique twist by dividing up the many submissions into several different mini-Carnival postings during the week.
I encourage you to check out the posts, bookmark or subscribe to Kevin’s blog and make certain to make a return trip through the Carnival Midway this week.
Happy reading and great leading!
-Art
Ten Places Where Management Teams Misstep on Strategy
Filed under: Management Education, Strategy, Uncategorized
Strategy…the discussions…the decisions and of course, the execution, is hard work filled with ample opportunities to misstep. From revisiting and updating the underlying assumptions about your business, markets and competitors, to the vexing issues of deciding what to do and what not to do, it’s no surprise that many management teams avoid this work and focus more on incremental operations planning and improvement. However, for those who are courageous enough to go down this important path and do the heavy lifting, here are my top 10 pitfalls and speed bumps to avoid during your journey.
10 Places Where Management Teams Misstep on Strategy:
1. They Over-Admire the View from Their Window. The Inside-Out View that too many teams rely on is a giant decision-trap waiting to swallow the business. Always strive to cultivate the Outside-In perspective. It’s hard work and takes time and help. And yes, it is priceless.
2. They Equate Action with Progress. Action doesn’t equal vector. Strategy is all about choosing specific vectors and ignoring others. Many management teams cut through the front-end of the work in a rush to action, instead of asking and answering the tough questions about their business.
3. Strategy Vocabulary Babble Boggles and Bewilders. Ask 10 executives how to define strategy, vision and value proposition and watch the fun begin. Ask them what business they are truly in and how they differentiate from competitors and the discussions can go haywire. Work hard to establish common terms and definitions up-front.
4. Warning, Rapid Descent! Discussions Rapidly Descend to the Operational Level. Along with the Rush to Action, it is common for the discussions to dive deeply into operations long before the hard questions have been asked and answered.
5. Teams Experience a Power Shortage. Instead of focusing on how to create power…that is to create new revenue, capture new customers, grow faster than the market and grow profits, the discussions emphasize incrementing off of old power sources. Finding “new power” is critical to every firm and must be the focal point of every strategy process/discussion.
6. They Delegate the Deep Thinking to Consultants. I strongly advise using outside help to guide the process work…to ensure that the teams focus on creating power and fostering an outside-in approach. However, don’t fall into the trap of expecting the consultants to be able to tell you what might be your best next steps. Let them help you find the way forward…and don’t shirk your responsibilities to make the hard calls.
7. Too Many Teams Forget to Involve the Right People in the Process. While those at the top of the pecking order own the final calls, there are many, many people in your organization with insights to share and ideas to proffer. Find a way to engage and solicit input. And since these are the same people who will carry out your new directions, early involvement reduces some of the natural barriers to change. Strategy is a full-contact sport across the organization!
8. They Falsely Expect Sure-Fire Miracles to Emerge. Strategy is nothing more than a series of educated hypotheses backed by intelligent experiments. Instead of expecting the Ah-Ha moment (they happen sometimes, but don’t count on it), look at strategy as a series of experiments designed to build power. Of course, don’t forget to build in the feedback and learning loops or the experiments will go nowhere.
9. They Lack the Leadership to Make Asymetrical Bets. This is Geoffrey Moore’s terminology from Escape Velocity, and I strongly believe he is right. If management is struggling to find new sources of power, the right choices will often be those that are different, radical and perceived as highly risky. It takes true leadership to stare asymmetrical bets in the eye and move forward.
10. It’s Never Just an Event! Strategy is a process, not an event. The annual offsite is fine, as long as the issues and experiments and engagement on strategy and learning is happening all of the time.
The Bottom-Line for Now:
In my experience working with many management teams, it takes incredible fortitude and discipline to steer clear of the Top 10 and keep the process moving. Use the list above in good health. Reference it frequently as a reminder of the pitfalls and traps. And of course, feel free to add your own. Focus on this, and you’ll uncover a number of other traps along the way.
And yes, then there’s number 11…this little problem with Strategy Execution. That however, is a topic for another day.
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JUST RELEASED! Check Out Art’s New Book: Leadership Caffeine-Ideas to Energize Your Professional Development
Want More: Sign up for the new, Leadership Caffeine e-Newsletter. I’ll guard your e-mail address with ferocity, while sharing ideas to energize and inspire.
About Art Petty:
Art Petty is a Leadership & Career Coach and Strategy Consultant, helping motivated professionals of all levels achieve their potential. In addition to working with highly motivated professionals, Art frequently works with project teams in pursuit of high performance. Art’s second book (an edited, annotated collection of the most popular leadership essays), Leadership Caffeine-Ideas to Energize Your Professional Development, was released at the end of September in 2011.
Contact Art via e-mail to discuss a coaching, workshop or speaking engagement.
November, 2011 Leadership Development Carnival
The November Leadership Development Carnival is now live at Great Leadership. Dan McCarthy, the Blogger in Chief at Great Leadership provides a wonderful public service for all of us with his hard work in pulling together and producing these events. Check out this month’s bountiful harvest with 45 different writers selected for inclusion. And remember to thank Dan on your way out!
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Podcast
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Available Now!
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Practical Lessons
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e-book
e-book-Leadership and the Project Manager - Developing the Skills that Fuel High Performance
