How do effective leaders do goal setting and execution? - part #2

When preparing to set goals, zoom out and remember the following key information. First, engaging in goal setting and goal execution is an exercise in “disciplined optimism”, referencing the work of Oren Harari in his book, The Leadership Secrets of Colin Powell, McGraw-Hill, 2002.

Next, Bill Conaty and Ram Charan in their book, The Talent Masters: Why Smart Leaders Put People Before Numbers, Crown Business, 2010., note that much of the work of goal setting is done through role modeling. As they write, “Leaders establish the code of conduct through their own actions, questions, and openness to differing opinions in the struggle to pin down each leader’s unique blend of traits, skills, judgement, relationships and experience.” Specifically, leaders role model urgency, i.e. a belief that the goal is worth working toward.

Third, successful leaders who help others set goals understand two things:

- “Goals should build on one’s strengths, not one’s weaknesses.” - Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis and Anne McKee. Primal Leadership: Realizing the Power of Emotional Intelligence, Harvard Business School Press, 2002.

- “Clarifying goals involves making sure that people understand two things: first, what they are being asked [to do is within] their area of responsibility - and second, what good performance looks like and the performance standards by which they will be evaluated.” - Ken Blanchard, Ken. Leading At a Higher Level: Blanchard on Leadership and Creating High Performing Organizations, Prentice Hall, 2006.

Fourth, effective leaders ask the following four questions when helping people prepare for goal setting because as Robert Cooper points out in his book, The Other 90%: How to Unlock Your Vast Untapped Potential For Leadership & Life, Crown Business, 2001, we have to overcome “our natural resistance to growth or change:

- What’s the most exceptional thing you've done this week?

- What the most exceptional thing you will do next week?

- What did you do this week that made you the proudest?

- Given the above answers, where did your goals fit in to these outcomes/results?

The above questions create an opportunity for in-depth reflection and understands that exceptional action is often connected to exceptionally well written goals.

Finally, Hermina Ibarra in her very good book,  Act Like A Leader, Think Like A Leader, Harvard Business Review Press, 2015, notes that effective leaders “set learning goals, not just performance based goals.” They understand the link between constant learning and continual improvement.

This week, reflect on all of the above insights and ask yourself if you and your team are ready to do the in-depth work on setting goals that will be understood, owned and executed well. If not, take the time to get better prepared for goal setting.

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

Figure out Ripeness

Once you have been on the balcony, referencing the metaphor from last week’s blog post, then it is time to start figuring out how to create an effective course of action. Ron Heiftz, Alexander Grashow, and Marty Linsky in their book, The Practice of Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics for Changing Your Organization and the World (Harvard Business Press, 2009) recommends we determine the “ripeness” of problem within the organization. As they explain, “an issue is ripe when the urgency to deal with it has become generalized across the system. If only a subgroup or faction cares passionately, but most other groups in the system have other priorities on their mind, then the issue is not yet ripe. Determining ripeness is critical because a strategy of intervention to ripen an issue that is only localized is different from a strategy to deal with a ripe issue that is already generalized.”

Their writing on this subject reminds me of John Kotter’s research in the book Leading Change where he talks about the importance of creating urgency before creating action. The late William Bridges in his book, Managing Transitions also talks about this concept and the importance of selling the problem before implementing the solution. The key is to realize that complacency and status quo are real and will fight back against change or transformation unless there are enough people who understand that doing business as usual is more dangerous than doing business in a whole new way.

Therefore, Heiftz, Grashow and Linsky asks us to answer three questions in order to figure out the depth of ripeness related to change. They are as follows:

- “Is the urgency localized in one subgroup and not yet widespread across the larger system?”

- “Or, on the other hand, are people avoiding the hard work of dealing with the adaptive challenge at hand because the pain of doing so has reach too-high levels of disequilibrium?”

- “Is the prevailing momentum to treat the situation as a technical problem or as an adaptive challenge?”

This week, ponder the above three question and come up with some answers. Your answers will help you determine how to move forward in developing your strategy for the future.

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

How Do Leaders Consolidate Initial Improvements And Continue To Produce More Change? Part #2

Last week, we looked at the personal level of work related to this question. This week, I want to look at the organizational level.

First, leaders start making change happen by increasing the level of urgency rather than panic in the organization. However, after the first short term win, they often resort to solving immediate problems. They undersell the urgency factor and as a result people believe “We’ve won” and thus “We’re done.”

To change this situation, leaders must keep showing people why continued urgency is needed. We need to celebrate the short term wins and connect current successes to past decisions that were based on the proposed strategic direction and current strategic plan. Nevertheless, we need to continue to point out why on-going improvements are needed.

Second, we must have the courage and fortitude to confront embedded bureaucratic and political behaviors. This will not be easy and may require all of us to review the book, Crucial Conversations. We know that by doing this level of work we will encounter situations where opinions will vary, stakes will be high and emotions will run strong and deep. Still, we do not have the luxury of avoiding these challenges. Strategic blindness and context blindness are real.

When engaging in this kind of work remember to follow the late Stephen Covey’s advice: “Seek first to understand, second to be understood.” This involves making it safe to share and always monitoring your own behavior. Some days we get so busy solving problems that we do not realize that our behavior is constantly sending a message. 

Finally, do not forget that resistance is a form of feedback. The goal is to be open to feedback. There may be important information within it that will help you and the organization as a whole.

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

Thinking About The Past; Planning For The Future

The first quarter of 2015 is nearly in the history books and a new round of planning has started. In small and large group meetings, people are coming together to discuss summer goals and how they can position the organization for a strong finish in 2015 and a good beginning in 2016. Goals and objectives are being written and rewritten. People are studying metrics and talking about alignment. Supervision and coaching are kicking into high gear.

As one who is well aware of all this effort, I am continually reminded of the following quote by Jon Madonna, retired Chairman and CEO of KPMG International: “Nothing stops an organization faster than people who believe that the way they worked yesterday is the best way to work tomorrow. 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.” 

Our challenge as leaders is to create a sense of urgency and clarity that maintaining status quo is more dangerous than moving forward to a whole new level of performance. When all involved comprehend that what got us to here, may not get us to the new desired outcome we seek in the future, then there will become a new level of focus and determination.

This week I encourage you to do a better job of selling the problems and clarifying the vision for the future. The combination of the two will create a solid forward momentum.

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

Building an Adaptive Organization - part #3

THEME: Spring 2010 From Vision to Action Roundtable Report

FOCUS: Building an Adaptive Organization - part #3

Monday morning: April 26, 2010

Dear friends,

Building an adaptive organization takes time and attention. It also requires senior leaders to differentiate between urgency, complacency, and false urgency.

As John Kotter wrote in his marvelous book, A Sense of Urgency, Harvard Press, 2008, complacency is a “feeling of contentment or self-satisfaction, especially when coupled with an unawareness of danger or trouble.” It is the product of success or perceived success. Those who are complacent virtually never think they are complacent; they are just content with the status quo. The best way to identify the complacent is by what they do instead of what they say. Kotter also notes that false urgency is almost always the product of failures. It is built on a platform of anxiety and anger.

On the other hand, he explains that a true sense of urgency comes with a “pressing importance.” Those with it want to make real progress every single day. Underlying a true sense of urgency is a set of feelings: a compulsive determination to move, and win, now. Jim Collins in his book, Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap. . . and Others Don't. HarperBusiness, 200, notes that part of building a sense of urgency comes when we “confront the brutal facts” and yet “remain optimistic.”

However, my recent experiences have shown me one simple fact, namely we don’t know what we do not know. This has particularly clear to me because once we have a clear sense of urgency, we must also have a clearly defined mission. Since the Fall 2009 From Vision to Action Executive Roundtable, I have been asking many people what is the mission of their organization. The answers have ranged from “I haven’t a clue” to something that resembles gibberish, i.e. words that have no meaning but are strung together in an unintelligible sequence. Upon reflection, I have found one source of this confusion.

Most current organizational mission statements can trace their roots back to the writings of Tom Peter’s book, In Search of Excellence, or Stephen Covey’s book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Based on the material presented, many people began writing mission statements in the early 90’s. A second wave of mission and core value statements were written in the late 90’s and early part of the turn of the century.

Here is where the current problem gets interesting. When these first mission statements were written, there was a high degree of personal interest, urgency and commitment to what was generated. Those involved were passionate about the result. Now, nearly twenty years later, these mission, vision and core value statements have little passion and/or utilization in the organization because the original people involved are no longer employed, moved on, or retired. In short, the original commitment, passion and urgency has been watered down to such a degree that these core documents are, in many organizations, symbolic but not integrated message.

Still, in the midst of this situation, there are very interesting developments. For example, when working with Systems Unlimited on strategic planning, a non-profit in Iowa City, Iowa that offers personalized services to persons with disabilities within their local communities that help people improve and maintain the quality of their life, we discovered that a dialogue about mission and core values amongst key leaders has not only generated a new draft of a mission statement, but also resulted in all key divisions and departments writing their own mission statements. While at first, this may appear to be nothing more than a time consuming activity, the resulting clarity and focus has increased the level of urgency and yielded tremendous new levels of understanding and focus. As one who has been involved in processes like this for quite some time, it was delightfully refreshing to witness people become energized and engaged like those who created the first drafts back in the early 90’s. It is now something that I have recommended to other clients. Those who have done this report to me that this process is generating similar results.

The other thing I have observed about adaptive organizations recently is that they have the ability to understand how decisions are made. Many years ago, I remember sitting with Chris Ahoy, Associate Vice President for Facilities at Iowa State University, and discussing this very subject. We generated a chart that recognized the importance of integrating a trends analysis, capacity analysis and a strategic nexus review before making a strategic decision. He has further refined this chart in his book, Customer-Driven Operations Management: Aligning Business Processes and Quality Tools to Create Operational Effectiveness In Your Company , McGraw-Hill, 2009. As leaders, we have to recognize that we may personally discount certain factors in the rush to make a fast decision. However, if we are to be effective as a senior executive, then this is not an option.

Finally, adaptive organizations understand and define accountability; they know how it is done. There are days when senior executive forget that accountability is a learned behavior. Recognizing that accountability means having a willingness to accept responsibility or to account for one's actions, we need to remember that accountability in adaptive organizations requires us to balance the desire for “perfect” action with the need for experimentation that results in improved performance.

This week, recognize true urgency, understand mission better, and help more people learn what is accountability.

Have a tremendously successful week,

Geery

Geery Howe, M.A.Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer inLeadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational ChangeMorning Star Associates319 - 643 - 2257