In conferences rooms around the country or on digital platforms, people are meeting to discuss what needs to get done next year in order to be successful in the midst of this on-going global pandemic and volatile economy. Creative ideas are being presented and explored. People are seeking solutions at the service level and at the systems levels. Words like efficiency, effectiveness and resilience are being used by many around the table or on your flat screen. All involved hope to come up with a strategy that embraces complexity and delivers results.
When I visit with senior leaders before such meetings, I often remind them of two important truths. First, as Edward De Bono wrote many years ago, “You can’t dig a hole in a new place by digging the same hole deeper.” Or put another way, “what got you here won’t get you there.” There are times to preserve the core of a company and there are times to stimulate progress. They key is to understand the difference between what is essential within the company and what is expendable. The challenge is that most leaders think systems and structure are essential and that culture is expendable. They forget that the success of most companies’ business strategy is relationship centric rather than product or system centric.
Second, I remind these same leaders of Packard’s Law, namely “no company can consistently grow revenues faster than its ability to get enough of the right people to implement that growth with excellence.” While on one hand, this seems like common sense, I have learned after many decades of doing this work that at times common sense is not so common.
In a time period of continued instability, we need to focus on hiring and retaining the right people at all levels of the company. We then need to clearly state what is excellence and how we as a company expect this to happen at the operational level and at the strategic level. Daily action and on-going strategic choices need to reflect a deep level of clarity about excellence.
For me, excellence in action happens when we have the capacity to do disciplined problem solving which first starts with the ability to define a problem, namely technical, adaptive or crisis. Second, excellence in action requires exceptional teamwork and collaboration, namely the ability of two or more teams of people to function well over time and with complexity. And finally, excellence in action is based on the ability of the company to actively engage in continuous improvement. This is mission critical to success because customer needs are constantly changing. And we need to meet their needs even in the midst of a global pandemic and economic uncertainty.
This week, I encourage you to explore new ideas about how to move forward. I also encourage you to remember that new ideas are fragile. If we are to be successful over the next 2-3 years, we must build the infrastructure to support these new ideas. This is where a shared, mission driven culture and having the right people on your team are going to be critical to your success. Complexity is the new normal, and disciplined people are the key to unlocking potential and capacity.
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