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How Did We Get Here? by Paul Butler

08/12/2013 5:30 PM | Deleted user

How Did We Get Here?

There’s a song by a great band from the 80’s (Talking Heads) with the lyric – “how did we get here?” When we work with teams on strategic planning, we often ask that exact same question: “well, how did you get here?”

Someone once said that “vision without action is hallucination” and there’s much truth in that. In business school, the vast majority of leaders learn how to create strategies but few people learn how to execute. Setting a strategy isn’t the problem; executing the strategy is the problem.

So why do most strategies fail?

It’s because most strategic plans begin and end with the numbers (the measurements) and pay lip-service to how the numbers are going to be achieved, by whom, and what the role of leadership is in achieving the numbers.

Effective strategic plans not only identify the vision (what we refer to as the desired state) but also the customer behavior needed to help make their desired state a reality.

For example, LA Fitness’s desired state is to increase membership dollars and the customer behavior they require is positive attrition – meaning, new members greater than lost members – simple, yes?

An excellent strategy will identify the key drivers to obtain the required customer behavior. Using LA Fitness again as an example, they realized that some people were canceling their memberships as they were unsatisfied with the children’s nursery facilities and services at the gym! Surprising eh? So they went to work on impacting the key driver to get the customer behavior required to achieve their desired state.

LA Fitness came to realize they needed to recruit people who actually wanted to work in the children’s nursery facilities.

A good gardener will tell you that you need the right environment for your garden to grow. In strategic planning, these are the conditions. Good people can perform as great people in the right conditions which include pay, bonus, information sharing, comfortable office space, areas for collaboration, effective meetings, etc.; all of these are conditions that help the garden to grow. An effective strategic plan includes time to review the conditions in which the organization expects its people to thrive and contribute their best efforts.

Mediocre management can still make a mess in a good garden and so it’s imperative that management look at their actions as leaders. Are they consistently demonstrating that they are trustworthy leaders? People follow leaders they trust and trust is the commodity in which leaders deal.

Now we can start looking at measurements. Notice it comes last. Why? Well, most organizations have it upside-down. The numbers are really just the fruit that comes from having the roots well planted (desired state, customer behavior, key drivers, people behavior, conditions, and leader actions).  Consider the following:

  • How does the organization measure success?
  • Are these the right measures?
  • How does the organization know if its customers are satisfied or not?
  • How about the employees?
  • How does the organization know how engaged its employees are in their partnership with the organization?
  • Are there any contradictory measures? For example, in the hotel industry, controllers measure how quickly a room can be cleaned, whereas the customer is interested in how clean the room actually is. This is a contradicting measure.

How about your team? As you begin to think towards the next financial year, is it worth investing a day to sit down with your team and chart the course and develop a strategic plan? It could be the best investment you make this year.

ABOUT NEWLEAF TRAINING & DEVELOPMENT (newleaf-ca.com)
We deliver seminars, keynotes, and coaching to help people and organizations better manage themselves, lead others, and build business financial intelligence.  Newleaf Training and Development offers a seminar to assist with strategic planning called Charting the Course.

ATD-Los Angeles Chapter
9852 W. Katella Ave. #187
Anaheim, CA 92804
office@atdla.org
562-908-3020
Chapter Code: CH8028

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