Instead of tacking on what is likely to be a disastrous and potentially personally destructive program that breeds fear in an already dysfunctional workplace environment, make it simpler and teach and expect accountability from yourself and others.
Yahoo—a name left over from the boom and bust period of the dot.com world—has somehow managed to limp along in a world where many struggle to understand its value proposition. According to a recent article in Forbes, the exodus of talent and the frustration found in much of the remaining workforce has much to do with the lack of clarity around strategy and direction.
If you’ve ever dealt with a complex medical issue, you understand how difficult it sometimes is to identify the real problem. Yet, pinpointing this problem is essential to developing the best possible treatment regimen. It can be a matter of life or death. The same holds true in business, where it’s essential to put time and efforts into developing an effective diagnosis of your firm’s situation:
Imagine a world of work where your colleagues worked tirelessly to complete the hard work that keeps everything moving. They voluntarily stay late and even deprive themselves of sleep to ensure the work is done. Along the way, they collaborate at a moment’s notice to fend off enemies and slay the dragons that arise from unexpected locations, and they’re always working on their own skills development. Sound like fiction to you? Rather than fictional, perhaps it’s virtual—as in gaming. Yes, video gaming.
“Not miscalculation, bad strategy is the active avoidance of the hard work of crafting a good strategy.” Richard Rumelt—Good Strategy/Bad Strategy Consider: “Our strategy is to be more profitable than our competitors.” “Our strategy is to grow from 10,000 to 100,000...
Most businesses and most management teams flail and fail when it comes to the work of strategy. In today’s world, where the long-cycle strategy process has been replaced by short-bursts of experimentation and iteration, it’s essential to reduce the fail and flail by attacking the root causes of so much dysfunction with this work. Here are 7-Steps to to help the senior team get it right:
Just about everyone I’ve encountered recently—or so it seems—has an ax or two to grind with their boss. Have you ever stopped to consider whether it’s you and not your manager? Just in case it hasn’t occurred to you, perhaps a bit of mirror gazing is in order. If you see yourself on this list of, “The Boss’s Top Ten Challenging People,” it might be time for you to make some adjustments. Of course, first, you have to see yourself.
Strategy processes mostly disappoint. That’s too bad, because there are few things more essential to an organization’s success and security than getting strategy right. Here are (at least) 17 ways your strategy process will break bad:
The topic of transformation is a challenging one for all management teams. It’s not surprising that few muster the collective courage necessary to transform their organizations even in the face of sustained headwinds or looming crisis.
Every week I offer ideas to encourage you to stretch and grow with my ideas for Do/Experiment/Explore. For this week, I offer ideas on strengthening team performance, leveraging your operations meetings to promote managerial skills development and learning to mess with your competitors just enough to keep them off balance. Use them in great professional health!
