Bring the “Lost Tribes” Home

There are four pillars to a successful organization, namely people, structure, systems and culture. They are supported by a strong foundation of mission, vision and core values.  

Most leaders like talking about people, systems, and culture. They also like talking about the alignment between these elements and the mission, vision and core values.

Few leaders like to talk about structure. Who reports to whom is not a hot topic. But, given all I have heard and seen this winter moving toward spring, it is time we think deeply about structure.

First, does your structure match your strategic intent? We work hard on clarifying our strategy through in-depth planning. Then we make the mistake of assuming that our current structure is the right structure to execute this strategy. 

Recently, I have discovered that the problems many organizations are having related to executing their strategy and integrating it into their day to day operations is not a culture or systems problem, but a structural problem. The wrong people and the wrong teams are reporting to the wrong person. We forget some days that there is a time and place to reorganize in order for the strategic intent and goals of the organization to be successfully executed.

Second, we have to ask another and more difficult question, namely do we have the right people in the right places within our organizational chart? When the structure is right, I have also seen that sometimes the problem is a classic “right person in the wrong seat on the bus”, using an old Jim Collins phrase. I also have discovered that we sometimes have the “wrong person in the right seat of the bus.” Both of these are connected. The result of either of these problems is that some teams and departments start to feel like they are the “lost tribes of Israel wandering in the dessert for 40 years.” 

I had never heard this phrase before until a CEO I had worked with for many years pointed out this problem. As he said to me that day, “We need to bring the lost tribes home.” And he was 100% correct. 

Effective integration of quality, empowerment and principle-centered leadership requires us as leaders to not let any people, teams or departments to feel like they are lost tribes wandering in the desert.

This week, sit down and reflect on whether or not your organization’s structure is in full alignment with your current strategy and on-going strategic intent. Second, check to make sure you have the right leaders in the right spots within the chart. And finally, make sure there are no lost tribes within your organization. This is not easy work, but is the important work that leaders need to do.

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

What Is The Connection Between Excellence, Culture And Strategy? - Part #2

It is time we talk about strategy again. I like how Ken Blanchard and Michael O’Connor wrote in their book, Managing By Values (Berrett-Koehler, 1997) that leaders must think like CEOs. For them, these initials stand for the following groups: customers, employees, owners/stockholders (in the non-non-profit world, think funders) and other stakeholders. When we hold this more global perspective, we remember that strategy is not a singular thing but really the sum of the following three concepts:

- it is an extensively premeditated, carefully built, long term plan designed to achieve a particular goal.

- it needs to be adaptable by nature due to unforeseen variables rather than presenting a rigid set of instructions or tactics which has the potential to create organizational vulnerability.

- it serves an important function in promoting ongoing evolutionary success.

In short, strategy is an adaptable and evolutionary plan.

Now as we grasp this perspective, we also must understand the difference between the following two concepts:

- individual competencies refer to a specific person’s knowledge and skills required to fulfill specific role requirements.  

- organizational capabilities are collective abilities of the firm required to execute the business strategy.  

We need to hold this perspective because if we want to build and execute an organization’s strategy then sometimes we work at the competency level and other times we work at the capabilities level. Occasionally, we work at both at the same time. Recently, I have noticed that we need to improve the individual competencies level of this work, not just the organizational capabilities.

Furthermore, there are two two stages and two unique choices within the world of strategy. At the strategy formation or planning level, the determination of strategic intent, including such aspects as an organization’s mission, vision, and goals is very important. Sometimes, this planning work is highly planned, i.e. well defined and determined through a preset and well-structured process. Other times, the planning is more emergent, i.e. unfolding and evolving through a dynamic and less structured process especially during complex times. Aaron Olson and B. Keith Simerson. in their book, Leading With Strategic Thinking: Four Ways Effective Leaders Gain Insight, Drive Change, and Get Results (Wiley, 2015) note this depth of clarity about these elements makes a big different in the quality of the plan and within the culture of the organization.

However, as I think about these important choices, I remember what John Doerr wrote in his book, Measure What Matters: How Google, Bono, and Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKRs (Portfolio, 2018). As they explain, “Ideas are easy. Execution is everything.” And I agree 100%!

In summary, strategy only matters if it leads to purposeful action. So the big question this week is the following: Does your organization’s culture support purposeful action that allows the strategy to move from the paper document into key behaviors at all levels of the organization?

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

What is the connection between organizational history, culture and meaningful work within successful organizations? - part #2

Recently, a long term client and I were reviewing their latest strategic plan. She had asked me to give her feedback about the current strategic plan and where problems will happen in the execution. Having done this for the last 4 strategic  plans, it was an interesting process. During the time we were together, we discussed lessons learned from many years of working together. The result of which was that I am more convinced than ever that we must start to teach and share organizational history. 

There are days we get so busy that we forget that by understanding history we understand what got us to this point. Teaching others about the past big picture and how that resulted in past strategic plans helps all involved understand that strategy is evolutionary. When we share our memories about that history, i.e. oral history, this builds clarity and ownership for our current choices.

I have spent many hours over the course of my career sharing meals, cups of hot beverages and occasionally an adult beverage, discussing the past, the present and the future. I have listened to people’s journeys with the organization, and I have shared my own journey with the company. When people feel safe enough to share their story, the outcome of this depth of sharing is that we build bonds and we recognize that history is real rather than some distant past. 

What great leaders understand is the following written by James Kerr is his delightful book, Legacy: What The All Blacks Can Teach Us About The Business Of Life, Constable, 2013: “Leaders are storytellers. All great organizations are born from a compelling story. This central organizing thought helps people understand what they stand for and why.” This combination of understanding history and sharing oral history makes the work more meaningful. 

While reading The Christian Science Monitor Weekly last fall (I read a diverse collection of resources and find the essays in this weekly new magazine interesting), one section talked about how Millennials “put such a premium on pursing careers that hold meaning for them.” Nothing new here on one level.  

The same essay also reported that according to Gallup only 33 percent of US workers feel truly “engaged” while on the job. “That’s up modestly from 26 percent in 2000 and 28 percent in 2009. Some 16 percent of workers are disengaged or unhappy in their jobs, while fully half of the workforce is in a neutral zone, committed to essentially just showing up.” Another poll, by payroll firm ADP, finds that nearly two-thirds of US workers are actively or passively looking for other jobs.” Also no surprise on one level.

For leaders in key position the big question is the following: How do we respond to this news? Along with sharing our history which gives us perspective, I think we need to create new and more empowering stories. One problem we are experiencing right now is that we are letting others define our story. It is time we define our own story and write or renew the empowering parts of it.

As I teach in the From Vision to Action Leadership Training, successful leaders are architects of meaning. As Joel Kurtzman in his excellent book Common Purpose: How Great Leaders Get Organizations to Achieve The Extraordinary, (Jossey-Bass 2010) points out: “Strategic leaders are people within organizations who plot the course... Strategic leaders generally can think far into the future...The best of these people understand where the future is going and how to get there.

The role of operational leaders is quite different from those of strategic leaders. Operational leaders make certain the trains run on time, the manufacturing processes are adequate, the logistics systems work, the technicians are well trained, and the the trucks are where they are supposed to be.... like strategic leaders, operational leaders are vital to an organization’s success.”

Leaders who are architects of meaning routinely confront paradoxes and wrestle with deep questions of identity and direction. They are comfortable asking the following questions:

- Who are we? 

- What do we believe or stand for?

- Where are we going?

- How are we going to get there?

Then, they seek shared answers to these questions on the strategic and operational levels. They remind all involved that each day we are building our legacy by what we are doing. The best leaders understand that we are constantly preparing the organization to be handed over to those who will follow us, hoping they will it do it even better.

The outcome of sharing past history and sharing our stories plus answering the above important questions is coherence, i.e. the quality of becoming integrated. And given all that is happening in the world right now, coherence is something we all need. This week, share your history and lessons learned with others. It will restore perspective and build connections in very important ways.

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

Delegation is Not Dumping

When things get crazy busy in the trough of chaos, some leaders just dump and run. They race into a meeting, late from their last meeting, and listen for a few minutes before deciding what to do. Then, they speak quickly and dump all of the work onto those in the meeting before running off to their next meeting. It’s a classic dump and run form of leadership. It’s not even command and control which, for the most part outside a strict military hierarchy, is mostly control and command. No, this form of leadership is mostly listen, freak out, react, dump, and run. It never works even if you’ve been doing it for eons.

First, dumping work onto people is not delegation. It’s just plan disrespectful to those who receive it, and who more likely are already busy themselves. Second, it reflects internal chaos rather than just external chaos. Third, it never builds ownership and quality outcomes. It’s just plain sloppy leadership.

When you meet excellent leaders who work for very good companies, they recognize that delegation is the transferring of clarity, focus and the authority to complete a task or project in a timely and accurate manner. They start by building ownership and clarity. This happens before the act of delegation takes place. When an excellent leader builds a day to day work environment where people are respected, trusted and treated with dignity, this same leader also role models these characteristics. Then effective delegation is a successful by product of their initial work.

Next, when an exceptional leader does delegate, they first make sure people understand the problem they are trying to solve and understand the decision architecture around the problem, i.e. who can and who can not be involved and how to make the important decisions related to the issues that are being delegated.

Finally, exceptional leaders recognize that the day to day experiences of employees impact not just the day to day life of the company, but also impacts the company’s ability to execute it’s strategy. I keep reminding leaders at this time period that the ways they lead and delegate in 2018 have a direct impact on what kind of company they will be in 2023, a mere five years away from this winter.

This week, do not choose to dump and run. Coach everyone within your circle of influence to not do it either. When we no longer tolerate poor delegation, we are making a long term commitment to doing the right things for the right reasons.

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

The Three Definitions of Strategy

After the morning strategic update by the CEO, I was sitting at a table over lunch with a mix of senior executives and middle managers when she turned to me in between bites and asked the following question: “So, how do I think strategically on a daily basis?”

It was a good question. I responded by saying: “It all depends on how you define the word “strategy.”

When I teach the From Vision to Action Leadership Training, I continually point out to all involved that the word strategy is a big word. Often used and rarely understood, most executive choose only one definition of it and instantly cause themselves and others many problems.

So, let’s dive into the first definition. Strategy is an extensively premeditated, carefully built, long term plan designed to achieve a particular goal. People like this definition because it is precise, focused and will generate an outcome. At the end of the day, we can say “we did it” and have a party.

However, the best leaders know that there is more to strategy. Every strategic commitment has a decay rate. This is the recognition that from the time it took to create the initial ideas for the plan to the moment the strategic plan is ready for sharing, all of our best thinking and analysis goes into the document. But, once the document is printed, everyone wants to “get it done.”  What they miss in their understanding of strategy is that it has to be adaptable by nature due to unforeseen variables not considered during the planning stage rather than a rigid set of instructions or tactics. Without the recognition of the strategic decay rate, strategy has the potential to create organizational vulnerability.

The third definition of strategy recognizes that to create strategy can be as simple as one to three people sitting around a table writing stuff down. “So, what do you want to get done during the next 1-3 years?” asks one person to another. “Here is my list,” says the first to the second. And the third person is madly writing it all down on a flip chart or typing it up. In the end, strategy is created, but not owned and understood by those who have to execute the plan.  What most leaders fail to recognize is that successful strategy serves an important function in promoting ongoing evolutionary success. Strategy is not a one time affair but an on-going and in-depth process of creating clarity, ownership, and focus over time.  

In short, strategy is a an extensively premeditated, carefully built, long term plan designed to achieve a particular goal. But for successful leaders, it is much more than a document created on an annual basis. It is a commitment to thinking deeply and more holistically. And this is what separates the great strategy from the good strategy.

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

How Successful Companies Institutionalize Culture

When you visit successful companies or work within one, they all have a special feel to them. It is unique and very noticeable. One element that makes this take place, from my perspective, is that successful companies institutionalize their culture without bureaucratizing it.

Struggling companies always have a system of administration marked by bureaucracy and red tape. They lack flexibility and initiative due to excessive adherence to regulations. This is particularly visible in the behavior of those in management and leadership positions, and how they interact with key systems.

Patrick Lencioni in his delightful book, The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business, Jossey-Bass, 2012, writes “Human systems are tools for reinforcement of clarity. They give an organization a structure for tying its operations, culture, and management together, even when leaders aren’t around to remind people.” Lencioni notes that this level of clarity takes place when leaders engage in the following activities:

- creating collective focus and clarity through out the organization

- cascading clarity 

- reinforcing clarity through human systems, i.e. performance management

- developing cultural consistency

As to performance management, he explains it this way: “Essentially performance management is the series of activities that ensures that managers provide employees with clarity about what is expected of them, as well as regular feedback about whether or not they are adequately meeting those expectations.”

From my vantage point as a consultant and executive coach, I observe that successful companies practice what they preach. They also constantly reinforce it on a day-to-day basis. For them, the brand promise is a set of core behaviors rather than just words. While we all recognize that the culture is the strategy in successful companies, the key is to not let the dark side of bureaucracy to slip in and take over, thus neutralizing the strategic advantage of a clear and focused culture.

In short, successful companies stay focused on their strategic nexus, the union of their mission, vision and values plus their strategic plan. This depth of clarity and attention allows them to handle the normal internal and external challenges that surface in any business day without having to resort to developing a bureaucracy that tramples creativity, commitment and effectiveness. 

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

The Leadership Mistakes We Keep Making - Part #1

I have been thinking about a retreat I did recently. When the senior team gathered, we explored three key questions. The first one was “How do we grow the number of people who use our services given the current economy?” Those gathered felt they needed a better tag line. I pointed out how their current strategic plan had encountered entropy, the degradation of motion to non-motion. I also explained that they were not structured for growth, just the maintenance of day to day operations.

The second question was “Where do we want to end up?” While this is an interesting question, I explained to them that a better one given the first questions was the following: “What is our definition of success?” What intrigued me was that none of the senior people around the table had a common definition or understanding of success. By now the CEO was bewildered.

The third question was “How do we start changing our culture to not resist change?” Before I let us dive into this subject, I asked those gathered “What was their culture?” and “What should not change about it when they grow?” As they explored these interesting questions, not one of the senior team referenced their mission statement. I thought the CEO was going to have a stroke, because in the pre-meeting to the retreat he told me that the current mission was very important to his team and his company.

There are four mistakes leaders keep making when wanting to initiate change. First, many leaders forget that communicating a vision is not teaching people new behaviors. When communicating a vision, we need to review Marcus Buckingham’s insights in his book, The One Thing You Need to Know ... About Great Managing, Great Leading, and Sustained Individual Success, Free Press, 2005. As he wrote, “To excel as a leader .... You must become adept at calling upon those needs we all share. Our common needs include the need for security, for community, for authority, and for respect, but for you, the leader, the most powerful universal need is our need for clarity.  To transform our fear of the unknown into confidence in the future, you must discipline yourself to describe our joint future vividly and precisely. As your skill at this grows, so will our confidence in you.” The key when communicating a vision is to recognize that we must communicate it in a manner that creates clarity, buy-in and understanding. We can not be speaking as though we are only transferring information.

Second, many leaders forget that strategy and short term wins are two very different things. First, strategy is an extensively premeditated, carefully built, long term plan designed to achieve a particular goal. Next, strategy needs to be adaptable by nature due to unforeseen variables rather than presenting a rigid set of instructions or tactics which has the potential to create organizational vulnerability. Finally, the best strategy serves an important function in promoting ongoing evolutionary success.

On the other hand, planned short term wins, not win, are designed to energize change agents, enlighten the pessimists, defuse the cynics, under mine self-serving resistors, and build momentum. The key is to recognize that short term wins must come early and fast. They are visible and meaningful, penetrating emotional defenses by being unambiguous. They also speak to powerful players whose support you need and do not have. 

While we develop strategy over time and through robust in-depth dialogue, we also must always create short term wins. We do this through careful planning. John Kotter, author of Leading Change, notes that effective short term wins take place between 6-18 months after change has been initiated and meets the above criteria. Kotter’s research also points out that companies “that experience significant short term wins by 14 - 26 months after the change initiative begins are much more likely to complete the transformation.”  

The other key to creating short term wins is the presence of better management. As we know, generating short term wins takes great effort. The problem in achieving them often falls into two categories, either “insufficient management expertise” or “lack of commitment by managers.” Both of these can be improved through in-depth training and effective and regular coaching.

Remember: Communicating a vision is not teaching new behaviors and that strategy and short term wins need to be connected. 

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

Surviving a Trough of Chaos in the midst of a Sideways Cyclone - part #1

During the Spring 2015 From Vision to Action Executive Roundtable before a wonderful group of leaders from four different states, I noted that more and more companies and organizations are feeling like they are caught in a trough of chaos in the midst of a sideways cyclone. 

The trough of chaos is a normal stage of organizational development where a group of people move outside their comfort zone to achieve a greater level of performance.

The sideways cyclone, a term coined by students of mine in the From Vision to Action Leadership Training, happens when multiple changes cycles are being initiated at the same time, overwhelming daily operations.

The late William Bridges in his book, Managing Transitions: Making the Most of Change, (Da Capo Press, 2003), reminds us that during such times people need four things, namely a clear sense of purpose for the changes that are taking place, a picture of what we are striving towards, a plan of how to get there, and someone to articulate what is my part and how it fits into the picture and the plan.

For us here today, let’s focus on the picture first. When you are feeling like you are caught in a trough of chaos in the midst of a sideways cyclone, what does operational excellence and strategic clarity look like? A big part of working through this combined challenge is to create a strategic mindset. This means that all involved understand the context for change, the overall strategy leading the organization, and the definition of operational excellence.

Right now, not enough leaders are painting this picture and creating this depth of clarity. In particular, we are under-communicating context, and under-communicating the strategy. But, from my vantage point, we are significantly under-communicating right now what is operational excellence.

It is time people recognize that the understanding of what is operational excellence is directly connected to the cash generating part of the business. People need to understand that operational excellence happens when problem-solving, teamwork and leadership result in on-going improvements in day to day activities. Until there is a recognition of the need for continuous improvement at the day to day level, we will constantly be caught in a trough of chaos in the midst of a sideways cyclone.

This week talk with all of your team leaders about what is the picture and the mindset of operational excellence. It is time we move forward together, and get past feeling overwhelmed.

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

Communicate Purpose Daily

We were sitting in a small conference room when I asked the senior team what their core message related to the strategic plan was for the coming quarter. The first person gave me her to do list, and second person talked for four minutes but her message was lost in the color commentary. The next person talked about other peoples’ messages, and one person could not come up with a message. The last person stated that his message was “get it done.” I listened and thought to myself that the results of these messages will be confusion and complacency.

The world of leadership is complex and the problems we face are complex. However, the solutions do not have to be complex. The more complex the solution, then the more complex it is to communicate them.

James Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner in their book, A Leader’s Legacy. Jossey-Bass, 2006, remind us that “The purpose of leaders is to mobilize others to serve a purpose.” As they note, purpose is passed on through the stories we share with others.

I know today that companies all over the globe want to achieve buy-in. They want to capture peoples’ attention and to create urgency, not fear. Then, with people paying attention, these same companies want to win over the minds and the hearts of those who work at that company.

But, it all begins with a clear message.  So, what is your message this quarter? And how does it connect with the core purpose or mission of your organization plus the strategic plan?

Finding the answer is the first step in becoming a better leader.

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

Alignment vs. Control

As strategic leaders think and act, they understand something that is critical to their short and long term success, namely the difference between control based leadership and alignment based leadership.

Control based leadership focuses on, for the most part, maintaing status quo. These leaders want to get something done and then get things back to “normal.”  Through fear, intimidation and positional dominance, they can generate forward momentum, but it does not result in people being resilient, adaptable or creative.

On the other hand, alignment based strategic leaders understand that organizational change, people and the future are dynamic. Rather than controlling people, these leaders want all involved to stay true to the mission and the core values of the organization. This is the focus of all they do because they recognize that people will fundamentally support and co-create the future when they have a voice and ownership in the process. Alignment based leadership is a solutions and clarity based approach to all that is going on. 

While I value order and predictability in daily operations, strategic leaders focus on constant alignment within the strategic nexus, i.e. the sum of the mission, vision and core values plus the strategic plan. They know this will create long term commitment to building on new opportunities and being adaptable to change. They recognize that culture and strategy are inter-connected.

This week, talk with your team about the importance of alignment. It has the capacity to generate greater clarity, commitment and connection to what is most important in the work that they do.

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

What is a Strategic Mindset?

In every successful company, there are two operating systems working at the same time. One system is focused on the cash generating part of the business, making sure that day to day systems and people are focused on the delivery of goods and services in a timely, efficient and effective manner. The other system is focused on the on-going development and implementation of strategy, including the creation of strategic clarity and urgency. In particular, it is the second system which will create the strategic mindset by which all will commit to on-going operational and strategic success.

So what is a strategic mindset?

In the beginning, there are three elements to the strategic mindset. First, there is a clear understanding of context or environment in which the company is moving through over time. For example, a leader in the computer industry may need to understand what is happening in the development of new hardware and software but also recognize that more and more people are turning to their cell phones as the primary form of computing instead of their former lap tops. This in combination with the arrival of Cloud based storage for data makes the world of service delivery completely different than in the past. 

Second, a person with a strategic mindset must understand what is the organization’s strategy for the future and why this is the best choice. This means that they have to comprehend that strategy is an extensively premeditated, carefully built, long term plan designed to achieve a particular goal. However, it also has to be adaptable by nature due to unforeseen variables rather than presenting a rigid set of instructions or tactics which has the potential to create organizational vulnerability. Therefore, strategy serves an important function in promoting ongoing evolutionary success of the company.

The third element of a strategic mindset revolves around the concept of operational excellence. Here, I reference the work of Tom Peters who defined excellence as a workplace philosophy where problem solving, teamwork and leadership result in on-going improvements in the organization focused on meeting the current customer needs.

Once someone grasps that there are three elements to a strategic mindset, then one has to remember the “genius of the and,” referencing an old Jim Collins term.  Rather than one element, e.g. context, strategy or operational excellence, being more important than the others, people who have a strategic mindset develop an awareness and understanding of how each of the three elements dynamically interact.  It is context, strategy and operation excellence instead of context, strategy or operational excellence that makes synergy take place.

This week check your own depth of understanding about context, strategy and operational excellence. Then, check on how well others grasp these key concepts.  It will be the start of a new beginning.

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

Strategy As A Living System

In every company, there are two operating systems happening at the same time. One is the day to day or tactical operating system, and the other is the strategic system. Whether we like it or not, both exist. Some days they are highly dysfunctional and other days they work pretty well.

First, these are living systems rather than mechanical models of rigidity with measured inputs and outputs. And thus as living systems, they are dynamic. Nevertheless, we as leaders keep approaching them as linear. Our challenge is to generate a deeper level of commitment in the organization. Therefore, we need to help people comprehend how they work, move, flow and interact with other systems. We need to help them comprehend that the goal of a living system is to support the organization and help all employed there to have better access to the insights of those who work there, plus assist them in changing as needed based on global and local conditions.

Cynthia A. Montgomery, noted in her article, “Putting Leadership Back Into Strategy”, Harvard Business Review, January 2008, there is a missing dimension to this whole process. As she wrote, “Over the past few decades strategy has become a plan that positions a company in its external landscape. That’s not enough. Strategy should also guide the development of the company - its identity and purpose - over time.” Rather than present strategy as a set solution and an unchanging plan that derives from an analytical, left brain exercise, we need to see strategy as a dynamic process, i.e a “process that is adaptive, holistic, and open ended.” When we view strategy as every day, continuos and unending, then we move from a mechanical approach to a living systems approach.

Margaret Wheatley in her book, So Far From Home: lost and found in our brave new world, Berrett-Koehler, 2012, states we start the process of building and working in a living systems approach by clarifying identity, information, and relationships.  First, people need to figure out where they fit into the organization. This comes when they are clear about what they are responsible for, i.e. outcomes, what is expected of them and what are the goals that they are trying to complete. Second, there needs to be a process for the on-going development of shared meaning and understanding. From my perspective routine strategic level dialogues and reviews makes a big difference.  Third, relationship building, which is the pre-cursor to team building, is implemented. This comes in the form of routine coaching, routine trust building amongst team members, and routine informal time to visit about all of life.

This week I challenge you to look at your organization from a living systems approach. It has the potential to change your whole perspective.

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

The Prerequisites For Organizational Clarity - part #2

One of the biggest challenges this spring is to understand your role as a leader and as a manager when it comes to creating clarity. First, we need to recognize that role clarity helps in creating message clarity. The more we know what is expected of us and where we fit into the organization the better we are at communicating and creating clarity. And as I have pointed out recently in this blog, your message will have to deal with our fears and our needs. 

One key element about a successful message to the organization is that it has an image we can envision or a phrase that we can utilize in multiple settings. The best messages have both. For example Danny Meyer’s wonderful phrase, “constant gentle pressure” and his image of “putting the salt shaker back in the center of the table” is a classic example of a great message and a great image. But it would not work if the people utilizing it did not know their role in the organization.

Next, we as leaders need to define what clarity means to us.  Here are three quick questions to help you think about this subject:

- Does clarity mean that employees only do what you tell them to do?

- Does clarity mean that employees need to live up to your expectations?

- Does clarity mean we all collaborate together based on a common understanding about the purpose and strategy of the company?

While we may not like the questions, we need to reflect on our answers because too many times as a consultant and an executive coach, I have listened to people talk to me about creating organizational clarity and I have realized that all they really want is for people to do what they tell them to do. This barely ever works, and when it does, it does not work very well for very long.

So after writing about the prerequisites for creating organizational clarity, here is a summary of the four key prerequisites for creating organizational clarity:

- A leadership team who role models candor and strategic level trust, and who recognizes that having organizational clarity is a competitive advantage.

- A performance management system and a talent management philosophy and system based on accountability and results as well as the values and behaviors behind those results.

- An explicit definition and articulation of organizational core values or principles, and strategy.

- An investment in continuous learning and improvement to build and continuously update the capacity within the organization to be more effective and in sync with the changing world.

Creating organizational clarity is not a one time show. It needs to happen each and every day. And leaders and managers at all levels of the organization must role model it and focus on it. When this happens, clarity has the potential to be a very powerful flywheel for innovation and effective service delivery.

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

Some of the Major Problems in Creating Organizational Clarity

Currently the greatest external challenge to most companies is the high degree of strategic ambiguity. More and more organizations are doing a PESTEL analysis, i.e. the study of political, economic, social, technological, environmental, legal trends, and finding too many variables and uncertainties within the service delivery environment. Furthermore, these same companies are finding a lack of strategic clarity within the organization and a lack of strategic flexibility in systems and people also within the company. In short, many companies have discovered that they lack clear systems for managing or creating strategic adaptability. Overwhelmed by the complexity, they also are not proactively creating a system for building and maintaining an adaptive strategy.

From my vantage point, the underlying causes for organizations not being able to build and maintain an adaptive strategy starts first at the senior team level.  More and more of these teams are becoming dysfunctional. Rather than acting like teams, they often default to being senior leader work groups. Built around status and ego with a dash of artificial harmony, these so called teams avoid accountability and show little commitment for holistic strategic success. Furthermore, most are afraid of conflict and only talk about commitment, but show little behaviors related to it.

Second, most of these same organizations and their leaders are showing the hubris born of success, a problem first identified in Jim Collin’s book, How The Mighty Fall and Why Some Companies Never Give In, HarperCollins, 2009. As he writes, “Great enterprises can become insulated by success; accumulated momentum can carry an enterprise forward, for a while, even if leaders make poor decisions or lose discipline. Stage 1 kicks in when people become arrogant, regarding success virtually as an entitlement, and they loose sight of the true underlying factors that created success in the first place.” By neglecting their primary flywheel for success, these leaders allow “what” to replace “why”, not realizing that when the rhetoric of success replaces an understanding of why, there will be a decline in the learning orientation of successful people and the entire company.

Third, these same leaders also lack a clear understanding of the relationship between culture and strategy, resulting in a lack of “institutionalizing” a clear definition of their culture and not leveraging their organizational core values to their competitive advantage. The result is that the company and in particular the senior team tolerate people in management and leadership positions whose behavior is out of alignment with the stated culture, core values and strategy.

While the above is taking place at the senior team and cultural levels, the next challenge for many leaders and their companies is how to successfully capitalize on expansion and growth opportunities. Most think of it as an effort problem when the vast number of problems actually fall into the area of strategic infrastructure to support expansion and growth opportunities. 

As we all know, new innovations compete for company resources, i.e. time, talent, and management attention, with the cash generating projects during any fiscal year. When all of the company’s budget, reporting and management processes are focused on the current fiscal year, they also define the compensation and incentives systems and thus focus everyone on accountability to the current fiscal year’s goals. If people do look ahead during the current fiscal year, they look to R&D and their long range strategic options by reviewing research, data and trends. The result is that any new innovations fall into a Bermuda Triangle where they are considered to a degree strategic but not yet fully implementable because the resources of time, talent and management attention are not fully given to them. In this no man’s land, the “new projects” here fail to be embraced because they can not deliver like the current fiscal year goals and systems. And because they can not show a fast ROI like current fiscal year products and services, they also are then hampered by lack of full operational support. Therefore, the new innovations become “demo bait” for selling more of the current fiscal year projects and services. 

Finally, there is one other problem that is causing many organizations to struggle at this time period. They do not understand the real challenge of talent management and performance management. They consider them to be something different but do not recognize that they are also interconnected. For example, many leaders do not recognize that talent management and development is about preparing an individual for future positions within the company, i.e. building bench strength, while performance management is about managing their current performance as it relates to agreed upon annual goals and 90 day plans. 

Given the aggregate of the aforementioned issues, many organizations need a clear strategic infrastructure which helps them to adapt strategically, manage talent and performance, and prepare for and implement strategic innovation. The sum of the above problems are hampering many organizations who are seeking a better future.

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

The Dynamic Nature of Strategy and Culture

Jason Jennings in his wonderful book, Less is More: How Great Companies Use Productivity as a Competitive Tool in Business, Penguin Putnam, 2002, writes that “In productive companies, the culture is the strategy.... Unlike other companies, productive companies know the difference between tactics and strategy. The difference is the foundation that allows them to stay focused and build remarkable companies. They have institutionalized their strategy.” 

From my work with leaders and managers from across the country, I have learned that the best companies institutionalize their strategy, in part, by institutionalizing their culture. This begins when they institutionalize organizational clarity.

To do this, great leaders and managers understand that organizational culture is an integrated pattern of shared knowledge, beliefs and behaviors translated into a collective commitment toward shared values, goals, and practices/systems. The key is building a “shared” understanding of how we do business.

Edgar Schein, a former professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, who has made a notable mark on the field of organizational development in many areas, including career development, group process consultation, and organizational culture, wrote that culture is “a pattern of shared basic assumptions invented, discovered, or developed by a given group as it learns to cope with its problems of external adaptation and internal integration." Furthermore, he explains that this culture “has worked well enough to be considered valid and therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think and feel in relation to those problems."

Charles W. L. Hill, and Gareth R. Jones in their book, Strategic Management, Houghton Mifflin 2001, point out that culture is "the specific collection of values and norms that are shared by people and groups in an organization and that control the way they interact with each other and with stakeholders outside the organization." 

As all of us know, every organization has a set of systems and sub-systems, i.e. structures, cultures, and defaults. Ronald Heifetz, 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, explain that every organizational culture is the sum of it’s folklore, namely the stories people frequently tell that indicate what is most important, rituals, group norms, and meeting protocols.

The simple and defining difference between good and great leaders from my perspective is that the best consciously define, build and reinforce a shared culture on a daily basis. This is what separates them from the mediocre leaders and companies.  

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

How Successful Companies Work - part #1

I grew up in a world of casseroles. With both my parents working, it was common to have a casserole appear on the table at dinner time. I saw them regularly at church suppers, and once on a family vacation we even stopped and went to a church supper just because there were going to be casseroles and home-made pie.

My question to all of you this morning is the following: “What hot dish is your company bringing to the table?” Inspired by an article by Cynthia A. Montgomery called “Putting Leadership Back into Strategy,” Harvard Business Review, January 2008, I think it is time we ask a series of excellent questions from the article to make us think about how successful companies work:

- What kind of company do you want to be?

- What would the world be like without your organization?

- If your company were shuttered, to whom would it matter and why?

- Which of your customers would miss you and why?

- How long would it take for another firm to step into that void?

As she writes, “Purpose is at the heart of strategy. It should give direction to every part of the firm - from the corporate office to the loading dock - and define the nature of the work that must be done.”

When I reflect on all the different successful organizations I have worked with over many decades, I have come to the conclusion that successful companies have a “living” strategy. This happens because it is a purpose driven strategy. It  is more than a plan; it is a way of life for the organization. Their living strategy defines who they are and what they want to become.

Successful companies create this living strategy by consciously engaging in the following activities: 

- strategic reflection, analysis and review

- strategic decision-making and delegation

- in-depth communication and definition which means communicating context, core philosophy and direction

- proactive listening and dialogue

- coaching and talent development

- implementing routine strategic dialogues which become the platform for real time strategic planning

When it comes to strategic dialogues, successful companies create them by developing a level of intimacy to the process, i.e. the time feels personal and direct rather corporate and impersonal. They also make sure these strategic dialogues are an interactive sharing rather than a time to be talked at. Next, these interactions are inclusive by relinquishing control over content and involving others, and they are intentional because strategy emerges better when there is a cross-organizational conversation.  

Everyone brings a hot dish to the market place. Those who are successful know how to make one that employees are proud to share and customers will enjoy eating. 

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

Fast Food vs. Slow Food

When one travels as much as I have over the years and one has grown a huge garden full of fresh veggies every summer (except for this summer given the drought in the midwest), there comes a point in one’s life journey where the quality of the food really does matter.  I have eaten more than my fair share of rubber conference chicken covered in a bland white sauce with old dried herbs sprinkled across it, sitting next to glazed carrots, a sprig of parsley and a pile of mashed potatoes with a large pad of butter on top. Old hard breads in a basket and a glass of iced tea with lemon round out the standard conference food.

Next, when I am on the road or in an airport hurrying to my next flight, I pass an ever growing array of fast food places, promising me wholesome and healthy food. But as I step away from the counter with my bag in hand and look at what I got that took just moments to deliver to me, I am always disappointed. The pictures outside and inside the place look good. The actual product looks and tastes like it had walked all the way from Texas to the midwest, and then was pummeled into something called “food.” With fast food, fast living and even faster technology, I have become more and more disappointed with the decline in quality. 

Yet, at the same time, I am very intrigued in the rise of the slow food movement and the tremendous amount of interest in food and cooking. Founded by Carlo Petrini in 1986, slow food is an international movement that strives to preserve traditional and regional cuisine and products plus encourage the farming of plants, seeds and livestock of a specific ecosystem.  With a focus on sustainable foods and the promotion of local small businesses, slow food believes that “everyone has the right to good, clean and fair food.”

What intrigues me the most is the value of the word “slow.”  In a world dedicated to living at the speed of software, I think it is time for many executives to realize that the creation and development of strategy and then an aligned organizational culture is a slow process, requiring considerable listening, thoughtful communication and deliberate patience. Rather than being accomplished quickly, strategic alignment and integration is the work of the gardener rather than the computer technician.  Speed and economy of scale may be helpful with many things but in the business of developing clarity and healthy work relationships, slow and thoughtful always beats fast and efficient.

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