Monday, October 31, 2022

The Leader-As-Steward

Stewardship and progress are not two different things. They are interconnected. Each needs the other. And stewardship is always the key to sustainable growth and progress.

The dictionary defines stewardship as "the careful and responsible management of something entrusted to one's care.” Author Peter Block defines stewardship as “to hold in trust the well-being of some larger entity” and “to hold something of value in trust.”


Remembering Collins and Porras’s concept called “preserve the core/stimulate progress,” our goal as leaders is to build and maintain a preservable “core.” To do this, we have to understand stewardship better.


Stewardship takes place when we, as leaders, recognize that the power of stewardship is granted from the follower, not the leader. The work force defines whether or not someone is a leader. The “power” to make change work comes from those we “lead.” The “power” of stewardship, i.e. the ability to preserve the core, comes from those we “lead,” too. In short, how we lead influences how we make progress and how we preserve the core.


Furthermore, our ability to steward is based on the authenticity and integrity of our humanity. Leadership is about being a good person, not just a good leader. It is based on the recognition of our shared vulnerabilities, rather than just our strengths. As I have noted before, integrity based role modeling is the first conversation and speaking with integrity is the second conversation


Next, what is true about stewardship is known to each of us. We all have the ability to hold something of value in trust. We forget that others have the knowledge and the answers within themselves as much as we do. Our goal is to help them find the knowledge and the answers, not just be the source of all the knowledge and all the answers. As Max De Pree wrote many years ago in his book, Leadership is an Art (Dell Publishing, 1990), “the art of leadership requires us to think about the leader-as-steward in terms of relationships, of assets and legacy, of momentum and effectiveness, of civility and values.”


This week, be the steward your people and your organization needs you to be. Build the relationships that will yield a strong and viable core.


Geery Howe, M.A. Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257

Wednesday, October 26, 2022

Letter To A Change Agent - part # 2

Create And Maintain Pockets Of Excellence Within Change


When people call me about wanting to make changes happen within their organization, the word “excellence” often comes up in the conversation. In particular, these leaders and change agents want to achieve a new level of excellence. They want to be the best at what they do. 


During such visits by phone or in-person, I routinely share two insights about the idea of excellence that others have not thought about in advance of making changes take place. The first insight revolves around the following quote by Robert Quinn: “Excellence is a form of deviance. If you perform beyond the norms, you disrupt all the existing control systems. Those systems will then alter and begin to work to routinize your efforts. That is, the systems will adjust to try to make you normal.” 


What many leaders do not understand is that when an individual, team or department achieves a new level of performance, i.e. what is often termed as excellence, they are going to run into conflict with the normal operating systems or SOP within the company. We must remember that most systems are designed to achieve a series of regular outcomes and to control a variety of variables. Furthermore, when a new level of excellence is achieved, those involved have more likely changed the inputs to the system, changed the actual system, or focused on new or different outcomes. And as a result of these actions, they have moved to a new level of performance. 


However, systems, and at times the creators or owners of these systems, will react to this “disruptive” outcome. They will define this level of excellence as a source of disequilibrium or even chaos. They will want to restore order and protect the system, and ultimately themselves, from the pain and work of adapting to a new level of excellence. In short, the system will make it difficult to sustain a new level of excellence and try to make the new outcome a “one and done” in order to return to “normal.”


The second insight about excellence comes Robert Sutton and Huggy Rao in their book, Scaling Up Excellence: Getting To More Without Settling For Less (Crown Business, 2014). As they write, “To spread excellence, you need to have some excellence to spread.” While this may seem like a Captain Obvious statement, referencing again the work of Tom Peters, you will be surprised by how many leaders and change agents do not grasp the magnitude of this insight. 


First, most organizations do not have a pocket of excellence to build upon or any examples of excellence at the operational levels to build upon. They, instead, seem to believe that excellence will just overtake the entire organization like a virus upon the introduction of a new strategic plan. They also assume that all involved will instantly change their behaviors and their mindset about current ways of working in order to embrace the “new” idea of excellence. They also forget that most people, who are working each and every day within the business, more likely believe they are doing good work, if not excellent work. Therefore, to be told we are seeking a “new level of excellence” is framed up as a criticism of their current level of work by those who are doing the actual day to day work. 


Second, when it comes to the idea of spreading excellence, people want to see the new model actually work before they commit to the in-depth work of changing their daily routines and embracing a new way of working. Time and time again as a consultant, I have sat in meetings where a new level of excellence has been achieved by a particular group, and listened to the dialogue between these people and others who need to move in that direction. Rather than the leaders and change agents leading the process, the front line supervisors and their staff step up and explain what they did and how they did it. They respond to the questions and give accurate, realistic and specific answers. There is no corporate fluff and fancy words, just honest answers to complex questions. 


It all reminds me of a saying I heard years ago when working with nursing leadership within hospitals who were seeking better and more holistic patient care. As they told me, “a native talks to a native differently than they talk to a tourist.” For example, a newly diagnosed patient with cancer will share different things with another cancer patient rather than with their doctor or nurse. This is the reason why doctors and nurses strongly advocate for people in a health crisis to become part of a support group. Here, they will meet other “natives” and learn more about the whole journey, not just the specifics related to their treatment plan. 


In summary, I get why leaders and change agents want to create a new level of excellence within their organization. This can be generated by external factors and internal realizations about the need of their organization to adapt to the changing trends within the market place. Still, before they embark on a journey to a new level of excellence, all involved should pause and reflect on whether or not there is “some excellence to spread,” and whether or not the systems within the company will support this spreading or alter and begin to routinize these efforts in order to make things “normal” again. 


Celebrate Planned Short term Wins


As leaders and change agents begin to comprehend the role of excellence within organizational change, they often move into the development and execution of SMART goals. The first thing we need to understand is that the word goal means so many different things to so many different people. There is rarely consensus on the meaning of this term. And when there is no common language, as I pointed out earlier, we end up swirling the Tower of Babel, wondering why we are not achieving great outcomes. 


Second, when I have gotten called in as a consultant to figure out why change is not working, it always comes down to the SMART goal not being very smart. They tend to be binary in nature, i.e. as in done vs. not done. They also do not generate a series of planned, short term wins. 


John Kotter, in his seminal work, Leading Change (Harvard Business School Press, 1996) notes that short-term wins create credibility for long term efforts. As he explains, “A good short-term win has at least three characteristics: It’s visible; large numbers of people can see for themselves whether the result is real or just hype; It’s unambiguous; there can be little argument over the call; It’s clearly related to the change effort.”


As he continues in his book, The Heart of Change: Real-Life Stories of How People Change Their Organizations (Harvard Business School Press, 2002), when we produce sufficient short term wins, sufficiently fast, we “energize the change helpers, enlighten the pessimists, defuse the cynics, and build momentum for the effort.” One critical element to doing this is for the planned short term wins to come early and fast plus be as “visible as possible to as many people as possible” and “penetrate emotional defenses by being unambiguous.” Furthermore, when these planned short term wins are meaningful to others, they “speak to powerful players whose support you need and do not have yet.”


Recognizing Kotter’s expertise in this area, I want to add three things from my own experience as it pertains to this subject.  First, for someone to be successful in creating and executing a goal that generates a series of planned short term wins, those involved need to understand why this is the goal and what difference achieving it will make. This is not very common in the process of creating goals. 


Second, ownership of the goal is very important. This is equally rare because ownership only happens if there is a safe space for ownership to take place. We, as leaders and change agents, forget that achieving a goal requires us to step outside our comfort zone. And the first thing we often feel is uncomfortable and incompetent when we are outside our comfort zone. Now, that is a loosing combination of feelings! Therefore, we must create safe space during the goal creation process in order for ownership to be developed. 


Finally, we need to think of the whole goal setting and execution process as a four stage process rather than just a two stage process. Those four stages are the following: preparing to set a goal, setting a goal, executing a goal, and evaluating a goal.  When we generate planned short term wins during the execution stage and later evaluate them as they pertain to the overall strategic plan for change, we strengthen the ownership of the changes and the capacity to create future changes as the market continues to evolve. In short, creating planned short term wins and then celebrating them is mission-critical to short and long term change. 


Build On Strengths


“If you want to turn talent into performance,” explains Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman in their groundbreaking book called First, Break All The Rules: What The World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently. (Simon & Schuster, 1999), “you have to position each person so that you are paying her to do what she is naturally wired to do. You have to cast her in the right role.” This begins when leaders and managers choose to not eradicate people's uniqueness. Instead, they build on it. As they further explain, “People don’t change that much. Don’t waste time trying to put in what was left out. Try to draw out what was left in. That is hard enough.”


Margaret Wheatley in her book, Turning To One Another: simple conversations to restore hope to the future (Berret-Koehler, 2001) understands this point about building on strengths, but adds an important insight. As she writes, “But I alone can’t ask to be seen fully for who I am and my unique value. If I want you to acknowledge my gifts, I have to be curious about yours. I have a responsibility to look for and honor yours. We create enough space for our own self-expression only by inviting in everybody else’s uniqueness.”


She further expands our understanding of building on strengths when she notes, “Whenever we get past categories, and stereotypes, when we greet each other as interesting individuals, we are always surprised by who we are. I’m sure you’ve had the experience of stereotyping someone because of their appearance, and then being surprised when they didn’t fit that judgement…. Bernie Glassman, co-founder of the Zen Peacemaker Order, says the only thing we have in common is our differences. When we understand that, he says, we discover our oneness.”


For leaders and managers to be successful during organizational change, we need to teach and coach others on how to avoid eradicating uniqueness in their people and teams plus help them to see the best in people. This will begin when we no longer accept stereotypes and instead focus on the unique value each and every person brings to work, and to society as a whole. 


With this foundation of building on strengths, trust will build in and among the people involved in change as well as with those in management and leadership positions. And this is a major step to making the desired changes sustainable over time. 


Translate Vision Into Reality


"People underestimate their capacity for change,” writes John Porter. “There is never a right time to do a difficult thing. A leader's job is to help people have vision of their potential.” And the most challenging element of helping people to have vision of their potential is to translate that vision into a picture which they can carry with them each and every day. 


This work of translating vision into reality may sound simple, but it is not easy. It takes discipline and focus. It is based on the brilliant insight that William Bridges wrote many years ago: “The picture in people’s head is the reality they live in…” And our job as leaders and change agents is to paint a better and  more complete picture. Rather than talking about “here is the work you need to do,” we need to paint the picture of “here are the outcomes of the work you are doing the work.” Again, the picture inside people’s head matters.


Being a leader and a change agent is a complex journey in the world of organizational change. When you start with yourself and do your own homework, plus build common language with others, you create the capacity for a new beginning. When you understand that co-creation yields co-ownership and later co-evolution, then you can sell the problems and as a result create and maintain pockets of excellence within the larger change cycle. Finally, when you celebrate planned short term wins and remind all leaders and managers to build on the strengths and uniqueness of all involved, then you have created to potential to be successful in the short and the long term. 


As an old Irish proverb states, “A good beginning is half the work.” With thoughtful and careful preparation, organizational change is possible, and you as a leader and change agent can be successful. Start by creating a good beginning and be mindful as the journey unfolds before you. 


© Geery Howe 2022


Geery Howe, M.A. Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257

Tuesday, October 25, 2022

Letter To A Change Agent - part # 1

Introduction


He called me early in the morning and asked if I would be willing to sit down with his organization’s change team as they mapped out what they were tasked to do by senior management. As he explained over the phone, his team was to initiate change in four major divisions of the company and to institute all new systems related to customer service and project management across the entire company. 


Furthermore, this level of change was going to impact all departments within the entire company and all teams within each department. So far, the change team had figured out that there would be an extensive number of projects happening at the exact same time, and that the whole thing all had to be accomplished in less than 24 months. 


“So, do you think you can help us?”, he inquired. 


My initial thought was “this is going to be too much change, happening at a pace that does not work.”


After a moment of reflection, I responded. “First, I believe you are trying to move at the speed of software rather than at the speed of people. Second, there is a difference between clock based change and organizational based change. In the former, every thing works smoothly because the hands of the clock keep going around the same circle hour after hour. In the later, people do not work through change quickly. Within organizational time, there are always endings and new beginnings happening at the same moment. There are changes and transitions that need to be managed carefully. All of this will come with a normal amount of confusion, resistance, and denial. Before we get started, I have some specific recommendations for you and the team.”


And so, we began a conversation about where to begin this level of complicated and complex work. 


Start With Yourself


In the beginning of organizational change, the first person who has to change is us. As Peter Block wrote, “If there is no transformation inside of each of us, all the structural change in the world will have no impact on our institution.” Charles Fishman builds on this idea when he wrote, “You can’t change the company without changing yourself.” While this may seem elementary on one level, it is deep and profound when we grasp that most people and most organizations have a natural resistance to change. Most of them want to preserve status quo rather than engage with the messy and complex work of change. If we are going to be successful change agents, then we need to confront this tendency within us, and figure out what to do. 


First, we must explore the following quote by Kevin Cashman: “If you want to become a better leader, you first have to become a better person.” So many times, people working on change initiatives do not try and improve their own skill base as part of the work. They do not choose to learn more about themselves and their own defaults. As Margaret Wheatley wrote long ago, “When presented with an unknown, we default to a known.” With this in mind, we must create a personal development plan as part of the work of leading change rather just an organizational change plan. 


Second, Richard Farson notes that “Most often what gets organizations into trouble are faulty leadership styles, poor internal relationships, and managerial blind spots. The delusional hope of a troubled organization is that it will be saved without having to make changes in these highly personal areas.” To help in the work of becoming a better person and thus a better leader, and in order to make the critical changes in the “highly personal areas,” effective change agents seek out allies and confidants who can be a mirror as the process moves along. The best change agents need a mirror by which they can evaluate their own behaviors and their own mindset. This individual or individuals can help them understand the impact of their faulty leadership styles, poor relationships, and managerial blindspots. It is through self-examination and re-evaluation that we understand the importance of letting go of our old ways of working in order to embrace new ways of working, engaging with new systems, and new people and teams. 


As William Bridges noted so many years ago, “every beginning starts with an ending.” If we seek change and new beginnings, then we must be open to ending our old ways of working. Furthermore, we need to role model this so others know we are committed to do the work, not just talking about it. 


And the first thing we must role model is being a person who conducts themself with the utmost integrity. Effective change agents know that their actions and their words matter. Therefore, they embody the highest standards of personal and professional behavior. They also expect others to do likewise.


Second, effective change agents proactively choose to make personal connections with all the people they meet. They do this by finding common ground with each individual or team, even if there are vast generational differences present. In particular, they do this by listening carefully and with undivided attention. They recognize that this is crucial to leading people through challenging times and challenging situations. In short, the best change agents know that integrity based behavior always precedes the spoken word or the strategic plan. Integrity always precedes understanding, clarity, and commitment.


When we start with ourselves, and when we find people who will mentor and coach us along the way, plus when we consciously role model integrity based behaviors, we will build a solid foundation for all that will follow. 


Build Common Language


The next step to being an effective change agent is to create common language and a cohesive team. The combination of these two will empower the entire change process. 


People often ask me why I focus so much on creating common language when there is so much work to get done when initiating complex organizational change. The answer to their question is not one many people like. When I have gotten called in as a consultant to figure why change is not working, one of the first problems I routinely encounter is that people are using the same words but defining them in completely different ways. 


For example, the following words are regularly used in the world of change: strategy, goal, objective and project. Without a common definition and a shared understanding of what these words mean, many groups leading change de-evolve into turf battles, and silo based behaviors. They do not cooperate well and do coordinate the multiple initiatives that are being pursued. 


Another common problem is the actual word, change.  For some leaders, this word implies innovation and doing things profoundly different than current standard operating processes. For other leaders, this word means to do things better and to improve what is currently being done. While it may seem like I am being picky over such small things, I have learned from experience that when the group leading change does not have a common language and understanding, then their capacity to plan and to execute their plan struggles and, over time, even fails due to miscommunication problems. 


And these miscommunications can generate a high degree of problems at the team level, too. As we all know, a team of people who are leading organizational change will encounter normal and challenging periods of conflict around ideas and speed at which change must take place. They also will encounter the normal challenges around decision-making and execution of those decisions. And even more so, they will encounter the normal problems around holding each other accountable for delivering the parts of the agreed to plans that they are responsible for over time. All of these problems happen, even to the best of teams. 


However, the best teams build trust at the one to one level, and the team level, and they do this through common language and common understanding about why change needs to take place and how it should take place. They do not solely base their actions on the use of authority, power, or influence as much as integrity, respect, and extremely thoughtful listening. The best change agents I have ever met over the course of multiple decades understand one simple and very powerful idea: Great leaders do not create followers; they create partners and colleagues. And common language and its impact on teamwork are highly influential in creating partners and colleagues, particularly when change is complex and complicated. 


Co-Creation Leads To Co-Evolution


A long time ago,  James Belasco and Ralph Stayer in their book, Flight of the Buffalo: Soaring to Excellence, Learning to Let Employees Lead (Time Warner, 1994) wrote: “The primary purpose of strategic planning is not to strategically plan for the future, although that's an important purpose of the exercise. It is primarily to develop the strategic management mind-set in each and every individual in the organization. The purpose of the process is not only to produce a plan. It is to produce a plan that will be owned and understood by the people who have to execute it.” 


As Tom Peters used to say, “This is a blinding flash of the obvious.” However, many leaders fail to grasp the significance of this short paragraph and the key concepts within it. Most leaders and their teams focus on planning the work of organizational change and then working the plan. They completely miss the key concept that the plan and the subsequent work needs to be “owned and understood by the people who have to execute it.”  


I believe many people miss this key point, because most leaders do not want to put in the time and effort to define and then create the aforementioned “strategic management mind-set in each and every individual in the organization.” It just takes too much time and energy. Most leaders and change agents feel pressed to make something happen now. 


Nevertheless, not having this degree of clarity and subsequent ownership generates problems over time, because what will happen is that those involved in making the desired changes happen will approach the entire process as a one-and-done. They will make one change happen and then they will return to status quo or normal SOP. They will, in essence, declare that “the war is over and now we can all go home.” In short, they will abandon the effort of finishing the plan in order to reduce the amount stress and normal chaos that comes with making complex organizational change happen. 


However, great leaders grasp the aforementioned concept and recognize that by inviting people into the planing process, they are in essence co-creating the plan rather than just creating a plan. Furthermore, they understand that as a plan is being executed, it will need to evolve over time due to the normal, unforeseen variables and situations that surface as change unfolds. Rather than presenting a rigid set of instructions or tactics which must be executed no matter what, thus creating the potential for organizational vulnerability or decline, effective leaders must support the co-evolution of the plan as it is executed. In essence, we must own the plan and evolve the plan as we execute the plan. This is where having common language, a cohesive team, and a strategic management mindset become extremely important and powerful. They are the keys to short and long term success. 


Sell The Problems


“Nothing stops an organization faster than people who believe that the way they worked yesterday is the best way to work tomorrow,” writes Jon Madonna, retired Chairman of KPMG International. “To succeed, not only do your people have to change the way they act, they’ve got to change the way they think about the past.” As Dee Hock, founder/CEO emeritus of Visa International, notes: "The problem is never how to get new innovative thoughts into your mind, but how to get the old ones out.”


When seeking to be an effective change agent and leader, the more we focus on the future means the more we have to deal with the past. Every day in organizations across this country, status quo dominates how people think and how they work. It is their conscious choice, or unconscious default to every situation. Rather than embrace change, most employees believe that business as usual is working and delivering acceptable results. 


Understanding this natural tendency to maintain status quo, the best leaders and change agents have the ability to sell the problems related to maintaining status quo. They are gifted in pointing out how doing something new, better or different is less dangerous than maintaining business as usual.  When they sell the problems related to maintaining status quo, they often point out external market factors that are changing the business whether we like it or not. But, at the exact same time, they also are able to define how internal systems, structure, and culture may not be able to support the changing needs and expectations of the customers. By painting a holistic picture, both inside and outside the organization, people, over time, become convinced that business-as-usual to totally unacceptable, if not dangerous to the company as a whole. Then, and only then are they willing to focus on ending one way of work and beginning a new way of working. 


© Geery Howe 2022


Geery Howe, M.A. Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257

Monday, October 24, 2022

Our Portal To Meaning-Making And Connections

Sometimes in life and in leadership, we navigate the present challenges with a map. Other days, there is no map. Instead, we have to follow our gut. We have to trust the lessons we have learned from when we naviaged the path to this point. 


Recently, when helping people and companies to navigate these complex and complicated times, I am reminded of Packard’s Law: No company can consistently grow revenues faster than its ability to get enough of the right people to implement that growth with excellence. For me, the key words are: “to get enough of the right people.” As we continue to witness, this is a challenge. 


Still, I believe we know how to deal with this problem. We have to keep the employees we have. Retention is the key to solving the problem. 


Kevin Cashman in his book, Leadership From The Inside Out: Becoming a Leader for Life (Berrett-Koehler, 2008), shared the findings of the Saratoga Institute research on poor interpersonal skills. They interviewed 19,700 exiting employees and their bosses and discovered the following:


- 85% of bosses said that former employees left for more compensation and opportunity


- 80% of the exiting employees said they left because of poor relationship, poor development and poor coaching from the boss.


I recognize that this research was published fourteen years ago, but I believe it is still applicable. People are leaving for many reasons, but I strongly suspect they are leaving because of poor relationships with their supervisor and their teams. And for us as leaders, we can do something about this. As the late Stephen Covey pointed out, this all falls within our circle of influence.


The first place to start is to remember the Law of Growth, namely what you feed, grows. When this phrase first entered my life, I focused on the word “grows.” It seemed to be the right choice at the time. But after many decades of living with this phrase, I now believe we need to focus on the word “feed.” In particular, we need to focus more on feeding people clarity, meaning and purpose. 


Given current events, we need to return to Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall’s writing. As they wrote in their book, Nine Lies About Work: A Freethinking Leader’s Guide to the Real World (Harvard Business Review Press, 2019), “people need attention,” and when you give it to them “in a safe and nonjudgemental environment, we will come and stay and play and work.” As they continue, “Positive attention… is thirty times more powerful than negative attention in creating high performance on a team…. If you want your people to learn more, pay attention to what’s working for them right now, and then build on that…. get into the conscious habit of looking for what’s going well for each of your team members.”


For me, this validates the idea of starting meetings with a discussion of what is going right. For me, this also connects to the book, The One Minute Manager by Ken Blandchard and Spencer Johnson from 1982, where they write about one minute goals, one minute praising, and one minute re-directs.


As Buckingham and Goodall note, “… tell the person what you experienced when that moment of excellence caught your attention, your instantaneous reaction to what worked. By getting him to think about specific things that are going right, you are deliberately altering his brain chemistry so that he can be open to new solutions and new ways of thinking and acting.” 


With this perspective, the challenge here is to have the language to tell others what I experienced at their moment of excellence. I do not think we have this language. As Brene’ Brown, wrote in her book,, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience (Random House, 2021), “Fifteen years ago, when we first introduced a curriculum based on my shame resilience research, we asked participants in the training workshops to list all of the emotions that they could recognize and name as they were experiencing them. Over the course of five years, we collected these surveys from more than seven thousand people. The average number of emotions named across the surveys was three. The emotions were happy, sad, and angry.”


I was stunned when I read this the first time. I also was embarrassed, and blown away by the implications to the world of leadership and excellence. As she continued, “Language is our portal to meaning-making, connection, healing, learning and self-awareness…. Language show us that naming an experience doesn’t give the experience more power, it gives us the power of understanding and meaning.” For me, I have come to realize that our language as leaders gives us the capacity to make connections. And we need more emotional literacy as leaders, not just intellectual literacy. 


This week, ponder the above insights, and invest the time to expand your emotional literacy and to deepen your connections with your people. The portal to meaning-making and connections is right before us. Now is the time to walk through and do the work.


Geery Howe, M.A. Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257

Monday, October 17, 2022

Words Make Worlds

When we grasp the importance of a healthy and viable strategic nexus, we have to explore why so many leaders, teams and companies are struggling right now. While the economic head winds are profound, we have to remember that they have been bad before, e.g. think 2008 or certain times in the late 90’s. As the old Haitian proverb goes, “After mountains are more mountains.” And before us right now are lots and lots of mountains.


So, why are we struggling?


First, we are not unpacking the meaning and purpose found within the nexus. Recognizing that “words make worlds,” referencing the writing of Krista Tippett, people have to understand what the words mean within the nexus and then people have to understand what behaviors go with the words to make them real. This is a critical step. Ideas need to become behavioral and we are desperately under-communicating about all of this.


Second, because we are not unpacking the meaning and purpose within the nexus, we are experiencing connection deficits and knowledge deficits at the same time. Using a medical example of these two terms, a connection deficit is when we can see the symptoms and to a degree can describe the problem. But we are not able to connect the problem to the knowledge we already have about how to solve the problem. Often, this happens because we are siloing up the knowledge and separating it from the problem/symptoms. Therefore, there is a connection deficit. A knowledge deficit, on the other hand, takes place when a person is missing critical knowledge, i.e. no understanding of the problem, and thus are unable to solve the problem.


As this relates to the strategic nexus, a connection deficit happens when people are not making the connections about the relationship between core ideology and progress/strategy. Thus, the “tyranny of the or” still reigns supreme, referencing Collins and Porras language. A knowledge deficit happens when people don’t know what is core to their company, and thus, they do not know what is essential vs. non-essential. Therefore, they are not preserving the core. 


At the same time, they also do not know the strategy or strategic intent of the company. Thus, they are not making progress or supporting on-going mutations or variations of the strategy to happen. To build on this, when the nexus is connected to a specific individual and has not been institutionalized into the very fabric of the company, then the company will struggle. 


Currently, there are two major problems before companies right now, namely The Great Resignation and The Great Renegotiation by those who are staying. One big problem within The Great Resignation is the loss of talent and knowledge. While this is a huge loss and does have a significant impact, what I am seeing is the loss of the social networks within the company. 


I talked about this concept of social networks at the Spring ’21 Roundtable. A social network helps you manage current internal operational responsibilities. When it is healthy and taken care of on a regular basis this operational, social network gives you connective advantage, namely the ability to marshal information, support and other resources from other people in your network. These interdependencies within your operational social network give you the capacity to balance maintaining the core and creating progress.


Within The Great Resignation, we are loosing people, but we are also loosing the internal social networks which help us to get information, support and resources to solve problems. Therefore, we need to proactively engage in building more and healthier social networks. We need more people connected to more people rather than a singular individual who may or may not leave.


As Jim Collins and Morton Hansen wrote in their book, Great By Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck - Why Some Thrive Despite Them All (HarperCollins, 2011), “... it’s what you do before the storm comes that most determines how well you’ll do when the storm comes. Those who fail to plan and prepare for instability, disruption, and chaos in advance tend to suffer more when their environments shift from stability to turbulence.” And we all know, there is more instability, disruption and chaos on the horizon. There are mountains after these mountains. So, now is the time to be prepared. 


Geery Howe, M.A. Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257

Monday, October 10, 2022

Leaders and the Strategic Nexus

With the three core concepts from the book, Built To Last, that I have explored with you in mind during the last two weeks, and after working with clients on strategic planning for many years, I realized one day that I needed a simple way to explain what Collins and Porras were communicating. So, I created the term, the strategic nexus.


From experience, I know that naming something changes that something. I named it because the concept was complicated. And I knew people were not going to invest the time in understanding the depth and nuances involved. I also knew that with a name they would be able to utilize the “idea,” and gain perspective and understanding.


The term, strategic nexus, comes from the Latin word, nectere, to bind. At the core of a successful company, there is a core ideology, i.e the vision, mission, and core values, and there is a strategic plan with goals and metrics. This is the heart beat of the company. One part of the nexus pushes the company to make progress while the other part reminds us about what should not change in the midst of change. 


Over time, this new term became very important to many leaders as they explained to others the choices and decisions the company was making. However, I need to point out that the amount of time and energy needed to create clarity about the nexus within a company is an order of magnitude greater than the time and energy it takes to create and maintain the nexus. Working with a healthy and viable nexus is mission critical to the success of the company and to the people in leadership position.


One of the big insights I learned is that in order for people to fully understand the nexus, they have to feel connected to it. The word, connect, has an interesting definition. It is the sum of two things, namely “to establish a relationship” and “to create an understanding.” This is two fundamentally different actions, i.e. building a relationship and building clarity.


What we want as leaders is for people to feel connected to the core ideology, namely the core values and the purpose. We also want them to feel connected to the strategy, strategic intent and/or the strategic direction of the company. We even want them to feel connected to the operational goals, operational priorities and the definition of operational excellence. The precursor to this level of connection is understand the “why”, not just the “what” behind all of these things.


And yet, experience has taught me that in order for this to happen, I first have to feel connected to my supervisor and my team. Remember: people bond with people before they bond with ideas and plans. From my vantage point, what we have to understand as leaders is that clarity, connection, and communication create commitment. It is all interconnected. 


In summary, a healthy nexus centers the organization around purpose and progress more than egos or personalities. It is the guidance system for successful companies over time.


This week, build better relationships and focus on creating more clarity about your organization’s strategic nexus. This level of work will pay significant dividends in 2023 - 2025.


Geery Howe, M.A. Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257

Monday, October 3, 2022

Two Keys To Building A Visionary Company

Last week, I wrote about embracing the “Genius of the And,” a concept from the book, Built To Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies (HarperBusiness, 1994), which was written by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras. This week, I want to explore two more key concepts to building a visionary company from the same book, namely finding your organization’s purpose and building your core ideology plus the notion of “preserve the core/stimulate progress.”


In the first concept, Collins and Porras wrote, “A key step in building a visionary company is to articulate a core ideology.” As they explain, “Core ideology = Core Values + Core Purpose.” Within this framework, they define core values and purpose in the following manner:


“Core Values = the organization’s essential and enduring tenets - a small set of general guiding principles; not to be confused with specific cultural or operating practices; not to be compromised for financial gain or short term expediency.”


“Purpose = The organization’s fundamental reasons for existence beyond just making money - a perpetual guiding star on the horizon; not to be confused with specific goals or business strategies.”


For many leaders, this makes sense and they do not dig any further into the original research. However, the best leaders comprehend one small, but important point that Collins and Porras discovered. As they wrote, “In short, we did not find any specific ideological content essential to being a visionary company. Our research indicates that the authenticity of the ideology and the extent to which a company attains consistent alignment with the ideology counts more than the content of the ideology.”


Years later, Patrick Lencioni would write in The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business (Jossey-Bass, 2012)that when building and maintaining a cohesive leadership team, it “requires an intentional decision on the part of its members…. teamwork is not a virtue. It is a choice - and a strategic one… A leadership team is a small group of people who are collectively responsible for achieving a common objective for their organization.” The precursor for this choice is that all the members of the leadership team agree on the “core ideology” and focus on maintaining consistent alignment with it. To me, this is a defining difference between good leadership teams and great ones. And I have seen this make a difference over the course of 36 years of doing this work.


The second concept that Collins and Porras wrote about is called “Preserve The Core/Stimulate Progress.” Recognizing that core ideology is essential, organizations must still change if they are to meet the challenges of a changing world. There must be an inherent drive for progress within the company that does not require an external reason or justification. Note: This is not an inherent drive for “change.”


For me, one important insight within the research is that a company must be willing to change everything if needed, except the core beliefs and values. For it is the core ideology that provides continuity and stability while the drive for progress urges continual change, or as I like to frame it up, continual improvement. As they wrote: “The interplay between core and progress is one of the most important findings from our work. In the spirit of the “Genius of the AND,” a visionary company does not seek mere balance between core and progress; it seeks to be both highly ideological and highly progressive at the same time, all the time. Indeed, core ideology and the drive for progress exist together in a company like yin and yang of the Chinese dualistic philosophy; each element enables, complements, and reinforces the other.”


They continue on this line of thought when they wrote: “The core ideology enables progress by providing a base of continuity around which a visionary company can evolve, experiment, and change. By being clear about what is core (and relatively fixed), a company can more easily seek variation and movement in all that is not core.”


Finally, they explain, “The drive for progress enables the core ideology, for without continual change and forward movement, the company - the carrier of the core - will fall behind in an ever-changing world and cease to be strong, or perhaps even to exist…. Although the core ideology and the drive for progress usually trace their roots to specific individuals, a highly visionary company institutionalizes them - weaving them into the very fabric of the organization.”


For me, the phrase, “The core ideology enables progress” is a powerful statement. But I believe that many companies have not focused enough on their “core.” I think for many it has not seemed important or “latest and greatest” given what ever book is on the NYT best-seller list. Furthermore, this management by best-seller trend creates strategic blindness to the relationship between core and progress. The outcome of this choice over time has been very difficult and painful to watch. Those who struggled before the pandemic struggled more in the pandemic. Those who had an institutionalized core before the pandemic still struggled, but they their struggles were not as disruptive as those who did not have a core ideology woven “into the fabric of the organization.”


This week, take this information and share it with your team. Rediscover your core and take better care of it during the next 3-5 years.


Geery Howe, M.A. Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257