One of the first pathways to resilience is to develop an in-depth understanding of what creates and drives business success in your organization. This begins by doing your own homework. From years of coaching many leaders, I have learned that personal clarity should always precede team and organizational clarity. Thus, ask yourself the following two questions.
- how do we make a profit and maintain being mission-driven?
- what is the current definition of success within our company?
Once you have these answers, check to see if the two of them are connected.
Next, review Drucker’s Five Most Important Questions:
1. What is our mission?
2. Who is our customer?
3. What does the customer value?
4. What are our results?
5. What is our plan?
Most of the time, we like to talk about the answers to questions #1, #2 and #5. However, we are not focusing enough on questions #3 and #4. If we are going to understand what the customer values, we must amplify the VOC, i.e. the voice of the customer. This is going to require us to proactively engage with them in a variety of contexts.
In order to understand what the customer values and to amplify their voice, a leader or manager must understand that in every company, there are two operating systems happening at the same time. The first is the daily management operating system. This is focused on day to day business and makes sure “the trains run on time.” It is very hierarchy oriented and is driven by policies, rules and procedures. As an operating system, it lets people do what they know how to do exceptionally well.
On the other hand, the strategic operating system is focused on the design, communication and implementation of strategy. It is designed to capitalize on big opportunities or dodge threats. With this system, one often does the following: innovation, productivity improvement, integration of acquisitions or global operations, any sort of key strategic changes or cultural change. It is focused on profitable growth.
However, the strategic operating system is often stalled by a limited number of change leaders, silo parochialism, rules and procedures, pressures to make quarterly numbers, or complacency combined with insufficient buy-in. This system works best when many people are driving the desired changes. Therefore it is more like a network rather than a management driven hierarchy
The key is to understand where we are amplifying the voice of the customer. At the daily management operating system level, this happens in the areas of changing systems, policies, rules or procedures. At the strategic operating system level, this could happen in product innovation, system innovation or cultural change.
This week reflect on the above questions and then determine if you are amplifying the VOC at the daily management operating system level or the strategic operating system level. If it is both, then be very careful to understand how each system operates and act accordingly.
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