The Dog Days and the Top Dog

Here’s a quick read you’ll like.  It’s perfect for what frequently are called “the dog days of summer.” Makes it a good time to talk about another dog: the “top dog,” and his or her role in driving successful Strategy Execution.

It’s an interesting post with good suggestions, yet, at core, based on a common (and major) misconception.  The author implies that CEOs (the “Top Dogs” referenced earlier) have the option of "relegating" (strange choice of word. Does he mean delegating?) strategy execution.  Not true - at least, not if the CEO wants to succeed.

How Smart Leaders Translate Strategy into Execution

http://bit.ly/MAThZU

One can use others to support the execution process.  The CEO must own and lead.

I’d be happy to talk through why CEO’s (or whoever the Top Dog is in the organization executing the strategy) have to own Strategy Execution, should you like. It’s one of the core principles at RedZone.

Enjoy your “dog days.”  Stay cool.  Let’s speak soon.

The Danger of Good Ideas

Every once in a while, I'm brought up short and reminded of key strategy execution and change management "basics."  Yesterday was such a day. I led a large meeting with much presentation and some discussion.  In general, the mood was good and post-meeting comments were positive.

Then I got "the email."  This is the note (not addressed directly to me but sent to a senior associate) that questioned much of what we were doing. The note was respectful, thoughtful, and included many positive comments and sincere suggestions.  In short, it was the most dangerous kind of message.

Thoughtful messages with good suggestions are hard to simply reject. They require a response. In fact, many of the ideas require careful consideration.   That's where the danger creeps in.

It is most difficult to differentiate between a good suggestion in support of the vision of an initiative and a good suggestion that leads the effort astray. The differences are subtle.  In these cases, one must revert to the vision clarity documents created at the beginning of the initiative (you did create them, didn't you?) and "draw the straight line" from where you are today to the end goals.  If the suggestion is fully aligned with the goal, it may well be worth pursuing. If it is not - it must be rejected.

You must also decide what to do with the person who presented the good idea. Is this someone who truly believes and agrees with the direction and goals of the initiative and just looking for a different way to get there?  That person is a "keeper."  Or is this a person who, at core, really thinks that the direction is "okay," but could be better if it were tweaked just a little bit? That person is a danger and must be addressed very directly. 

This is very, very typical in strategy execution. There are several common metaphors. The reason the metaphors are so common is because the situation they describe happen so frequently:  "It's like herding cats" or "If this person isn't on the bus, she needs to be off (or under) it."  These metaphors describe the challenges of keeping people aligned and focused on the stated goals.  

There's another concept that Steve Jobs wrote about and I believe completely: You need the strength of conviction to say "no" over and over again.  It's not the bad ideas that hurt you – they're easy to reject.  It's the good ideas that can kill you – modify your scope, change your focus, get you off course.  It's also called "death by a thousand cuts."  No one small adjustment kills – but a thousand little ones do.

Our job in strategy execution and change management is to say "thanks, but no" - and keep moving in the direction we've defined.

The Oyster, the Grain of Sand, and the Pearl

It’s funny how a metaphor suddenly appears and yet is so obvious you wonder what took you so long to see it.

Over the last month, I’ve taken to joking that the name of my consulting firm should be changed to Oyster Consulting, because “We’re the grain of sand that irritates the hell out of everyone, but when we’re done, you’ve got a pearl.”

It’s amazing how true that is. 

Significant strategic change is never easy.  People resist, no matter how clear it is that the change is needed and it’s the right thing to do.  People are more comfortable with the Status Quo.

And because of that, change won’t happen without getting people out of their comfort zone. It is only then that people will be willing to move in the new direction.  Thus, the need for that grain of sand.  That grain of sand is so irritating, it makes people uncomfortable – uncomfortable enough to change.

Being the grain of sand from within an organization is career threatening.  Once the process is done, people won’t remember the benefit you delivered – they’ll just remember that you were really irritating.  That’s why bringing in the grain of sand from outside can be so valuable.  That outside grain can help irritate people, make change happen, and then leave. All that’s left behind is that beautiful pearl.

Taking A Sharp Curve

You see it all the time. Companies that are great at running their business suddenly have something big go wrong.  The examples are endless:  System implementation failures, new product introductions gone wrong, an acquisition integration botched, an expansion plan scuttled.  But why? 

Consider….

Companies spend most of their time racing down a straight line. They hire managers that are excellent at keeping things going in the right direction, making adjustments along the way.  They’ll even pick up speed, keeping their eye on the ball, working hard at accomplishing their goals. They’re good at it. 

But every so often, a company has to take a curve.  Sometimes by choice, more often pushed by conditions outside its control.  Not a little curve or a slight change, but a major-league, ninety-degree plus curve.   And that’s the problem.

Most companies are really bad at the sharp curves.  They don’t happen often.  They haven’t been built for them.  The management team isn’t skilled at navigating them.   So they struggle.  Eventually most get through the curve, but it takes much longer and costs a lot more than planned.  Sometimes they fail completely. 

Helping companies take the sharp curves.

Successful Strategy Execution uses a structured and disciplined process, strong sponsorship, a thorough understanding of execution risks, and a tool kit of tactics to mitigate those risks.  The right Strategy Execution approach enables companies to realize the goals of their most important initiatives on time and within budget.  

Use a specialist.  It’s all we do.  What looks like a sharp curve to you is our straightaway.  We’ll get you through it fast and efficiently and then leave you to do what you’re really good at – running the company, fast and strong, down a straight line. 

2 Bad Experiences and a Question

Quick hits as we get to the end of a busy and eventful year.

Gogo and Delta: Two terrible customer service experiences in one day

Terrible experience #1:  Gogo is a (potentially) great new service, if you haven't had the chance to try it.  Wifi in flight, allowing access to everything Internet: email, web, company portals.  But this week's experiences really have me wondering.  (Hmm, how do I do share this quickly?).

Try this:  Gogo sells its service.  People who need it, buy it.  Like me.  This month, in conjunction with Google to promote Chrome, Google's browser, Gogo is giving away the service free.  All month.  

Guess what.  That means customers who have paid for the service can't use it.  Limited bandwidth; shortened sessions.  Even worse - so overloaded, you can't even get on line.  Imagine how that makes a paying customer feel.  So, time that I expected to use productively got wasted.  Risked deadlines, delayed communications with important customers.  Great execution, guys (please, don't miss the sarcasm).

Terrible experience #2:  This one borders on unethical and perhaps even illegal.  Late last evening, I got on Delta.com to book a flight New Year's weekend.  I searched on the site and found a $169 r/t fare.  Great!  I enter in my daughter's information (I was already logged in), hit enter, put in payment information (it was quick, as my credit card is stored on the site), hit enter and - Presto! - No, not booked tickets.  A message from Delta that, in the three minutes since I searched and selected the flights, the fare had changed from $169 to $285 per ticket (what!?!?!).  Yep, over $100 increase while I was in the middle of booking and after Delta had shown me that the fare was available.  Of course, I discarded those tickets and started again.  Guess what?  THE SAME THING HAPPENED TWO MORE TIMES!  Found a fare (they kept inching higher and higher), went to book it, and - Whammo!  What a scam.  What terrible customer service!

No, I don't cut them any slack for "limited capacity."  Ticketmaster has figured it out.  Ticketmaster has a clock in the lower corner of the page.  Finish this page in x minutes or lose the seat.  It goes, different times on  each page as the transaction progresses, until the tickets are bought.  Don't tell me Delta couldn't do the same thing and protect the integrity of its searches, its ticket prices, and its reputation.  

No, I'm afraid we are seeing more and more of the companies who think they are too (pick one:) big/smart/innovative/exciting/important to fail.  I wonder what history will say about that.

The Observation...

...has nothing to do with bad customer service, but the recent deal to extend unemployment benefits.  I'm all for protecting and taking care of each other - really.  I'm pretty darn liberal that way.  But, can't we ask people to do something for the money?  So, there aren't jobs in private industry right now.  Aren't there things that people could do to help?  Can't there be programs established so the money doesn't just go for nothing?  Who knows, maybe some people would look a little harder for work if even unemployment benefits came with working hours requirements.  Isn't that what created the WPA?

Way Too Long

Have I been the only one who has dropped the ball lately (on my blog, that is)? Sorry! So, here are a few miscellaneous thoughts.

1. Do you still believe it's a crock that you can influence people in a designed way to change their behavior? Check this out: http://xrl.us/bfs44c.

2. Does performance in the Red Zone really matter? Take a look at the press surrounding yesterday's Atlanta Falcons/Chicago Bears game: http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/recap?gid=20091018001&prov=ap.

3. A very smart person recently said to me: "I can change your behavior so that eventually you will change your mind much quicker and easier than I can change your mind so that you will eventually change your behavior." Think about it....

It's a roller-coaster out there. Hang on.

What if you gave a party....

....and nobody came?

That's what it feels like right now. We're sitting smack dab in the middle of "tough stuff." (I refuse to say "bad economy" or "worst economy in 40 years" or "Dang, what the heck is going to happen next?!?") And during tough stuff like this, every company should be very actively doing things - i.e. making changes! So where is everyone????

I can't believe it's just the holidays. "That's okay, I know it's a crisis and my business is on the cusp of failing - but we've got a Christmas lunch to attend. I'll deal with the business stuff after the first of the year."

C'mon people! Almost every assumption people made about business growth and the economy at the beginning of 2008 have been proven WRONG. And what are you supposed to do when your core assumptions turn out to be wrong? (Remember your lessons from Strategy Execution 101!).

That's right - you need to update your assumptions, assess the new assumptions impact on your goals, reset your goals, and then develop a new plan of attack based on the new goals. And what happens after the new plan is established? That's right - you EXECUTE! You start doing things differently - immediately! "Don't do ANYTHING that is not fully aligned with reaching your goals." Period. (That's also from Strategy Execution 101).

So, with all of our assumptions turned inside out, I would expect this huge buzz of activity, of companies changing direction, taking on new activities, eliminating others. Instead, what do I hear? Layoffs.

Layoffs! People losing jobs. In some cases layoffs are an appropriate and necessary activity, required to align a company to its new goals. But layoffs are NOT the full answer. That's a short-sighted, knee jerk approach.

Instead, companies should be using this market weakness as an opportunity. Since expectations are so low right now, companies should be using this time to invest, change, reposition for the future. And the future will come. The question is simply who will be ready to take advantage of the future the minute it shows its face - and who will just be starting... I'll bet you know who the ultimate winners will be...

Happy Holidays, everyone. May 2009 be a year of health, happiness, and success - in all senses of that word - for you and yours.

Survival of the Fittest

Those of you following the markets - stop!  Those of you concentrating on your business - continue.  One of the core precepts of Strategy Execution is to focus on those things you can impact directly.  I won't say ignore those items you cannot affect, but you certainly shouldn't do anything more than monitor them from a distance.  

I tried to take my own advice this week - No shoemaker's child here!  (Ask me if you don't know that reference....).  I have always talked about two kinds of strategic changes - those a company chooses to undertake, and those forced upon it.  Over the last ten years, most companies have had the luxury of focusing on the former.  Today, almost everyone is dealing with the latter.

If you take a look at the RedZone Consulting web site (www.RedZoneConsulting.com), you'll see some pretty significant changes.   RedZone has always focused on helping companies successfully execute major change.  And we still do.  Historically, most companies we worked with were those that chose to undertake a new direction.  Not now.  Today, I'm seeing that most companies are being forced to change their strategy and operations to reflect an entire new economic reality, one that had not even been considered. 

There are few, if any, companies that today's economy isn't impacting. As a result, every company has one primary focus:  Cash.  With credit tight, customer behavior's unpredictable, business assumptions and projections thrown out the window, the first place every business must focus is survival.  

It's a pretty simple question:  Do we have enough cash?  It's one of the "let's pretend" scenarios that we walk clients through:  Let's pretend you have absolutely zero sales over the next six or twelve months.  How much cash will you burn?  What are the levers that allow you to save (or gain) cash if needed?  This exercise has very little to do with what the business is trying to accomplish, and more with a foundational issue:  If the company has no cash, it cannot survive.  If it doesn't survive, successfully executing its strategy is both impossible and meaningless.

Survival of the fittest today is all about cash.  Do you have the cash to deal with the unexpected twists and turns driven by this new, unpredictable economy?   If you can use discipline, clarity, focus to monitor and maintain your cash position, you'll give your company the opportunity to succeed in the future.  

The Game Plan - and Adjustments for Success

I'm surprised by how much I learn about Strategy Execution by watching football.  (No, that's not just something I tell my wife....).  

Let's start with the key concept that, to successfully execute a strategy, you need both clarity of vision (a clear understanding of what you want to accomplish - more on this topic at a later date) and a plan of how to get there.  Right now, let's focus on the plan. 

For a football team, the week prior to a game is spent understanding the competitive environment - which, in football, means the next opponent.  Coaches and players study film of past games, both your own team's and the oppositions, learning strengths and weaknesses, analyzing past performance in excrutiating detail.  The purpose is not to place blame for past problems, but to learn and improve.  

As this work progresses,  the coaches begin to develop the game plan.  What is the game plan? It's the specific plays - actions, activities, strategies, tactics - that the team intends to use to win the next game, based on their analysis of their opponent.  

Coaches build the game plan by making assumptions about what the opponent is going to do, through careful, in-depth study of what it has done in the past in similar situations and the results of those actions.  The game plan includes those plays that a team is best at executing.  The game plan also includes plays designed specifically to exploit the opponents' weaknesses.   The plan is then broken down, player by player, position by position, so that each person on the team knows exactly what he needs to do in order for the team to execute its game plan successfully.   

If the plan is executed as designed, the team expects success and, in the end, to win the game. Sound familiar?

Here's the key lesson:  The plan, however, is exactly that - it's a plan.   No matter how much time and effort the team spends preparing the plan for Saturday's or Sunday's game, the best are willing to throw the plan away if they get into the game and find out the plan isn't working.  

Sometimes, the plan doesn't work because the opponent doesn't do what was expected.  Sometimes, the designed plays aren't working the way they were designed, either from poor design, lack of execution, or unexpected responses from the opposition.  Whatever the reason, a team can't stick with a game plan that isn't working.  That's a recipe for failure. 

If you're a fan, you know about "half-time adjustments"  - the changes that coaches make to their game plans at half-time, based on the results of the first half of play. My (completely unscientific) observation is that the teams that win the most games, and are the most successful overall, are those teams that do the best job of adjusting their game plan in the midst of the game.   These adjustments can be of any type, but they have one thing in common:  An assumption that the coaches made when preparing the game plan turned out false  - so the game plan has to be adjusted based on new information.

This is where I'm going to stop for today - but only after making this point crystal clear.   A plan is great as a starting point, but success in strategy execution requires much more than a good plan.  It means being willing to adjust the plan in the heat of the battle, to recognize when the plan isn't working, or when key assumptions are no longer true.  It means measuring performance against clear metrics, and changing when performance is not meeting the desired goals.  And it means recognizing that the plan is only a means to an end - the end being winning the game.  

It may have been a great plan, but if it's not working - change it.  The goal is not to stay true to the plan.  The goal is to win the game.