Don't fail at the first hurdle

Debriefing with a client the other day, I asked about the biggest leap his company had made this year. "That’s easy”, he said. "When we decide to act, it used to take us six months to get rolling. Now, we’re out of the blocks within a couple of weeks.”

“And YOU know the reason why ..."

I’d worked with this business for over a year so I didn’t have to ask for the back story. When my CEO client was appointed, he had focused on turning the management team into a world class decision-making machine. This would culminate in a vibrant and agile strategic process. The Board was happy, and everyone felt good. For a while.

But then … nothing happened. The strategy called for five major initiatives but the necessary expertise was all tied up in pre-existing projects, repair work that couldn’t be postponed. And the repair work dragged on.

When I first met the CEO six months later, I asked the usual “biggest challenge” question. “Delays. People are just too busy to begin the important work.”

I asked him whether my Accelerated Project Launch© could help. Since people’s time is precious, we would focus everybody on a short series of workshops conducted over 2-3 weeks. Results had been astounding—decisions that typically took months were now taking a few days. And since we were so time efficient, we could fit this into the busiest schedules. All we needed was CEO support.

“Let's try that with my most urgent initiative.” he had said. It turned out that a few hours together was enough to lay plans that incorporated all the best expertise. After that, valuable work could begin without postponing the important projects that were mid stream. This worked so well that he asked me to run an Accelerated Project Launch© for all five initiatives.

At the end of our recent debrief, I asked whether they could be moving too quickly. “Whether we get our strategy right or wrong, the immediate next step is to know how well our plans survive the reality test. Why wait to find out whether you’re aiming in the best direction?”

Fact is, the best decisions are worthless unless they are acted upon. And the best decision-making can happen faster than you think.

Challenge

Take a look at your planning and execution process over the last year. Note down these milestones:

1. The date that your strategic plan was finalized.
2. When the first initiative’s kick off meeting occurred.
3. The date the last initiative kick off meeting occurred.
4. When all initiatives were completed and your team was full steam ahead on executing the strategy.

Now write down the dates that you could have achieved for 2, 3, and 4 if the early decision making had taken days rather than weeks or months. What would this have meant for your business?

A change of timing this week—call me Friday between noon-3pm Eastern on (647) 400 2514 and we can talk about accelerating your team's decision making in busy times. First come, first served but if I don't pick up, leave a message and I’ll call you back promptly.

... and if you missed these related articles, go back and take another look:

Important vs Urgent–why I wrote my new book The Right Kind of Help When Better Beats Best The Decision Action Loop

Where should you draw the line on sharing?

We've all seen examples of over-sharing—everyone with a smartphone has access to technology that can spread information to hundreds or millions in the blink of an eye.

While individuals tend to overshare details of their personal lives, businesses are missing opportunities to connect. We have the technology, but haven't figured out where to draw the sharing line.

When I ask business leaders how they are using technology to connect with their customers and prospects, the answer is generally "social media marketing". After all, it's a low cost way to broadcast good news, faster than a press release, and it's a place to watch out for bad reviews. But social media is hit and (usually) miss.

When I ask how a business forms deeper relationships, we start to uncover opportunities.

Every business produces data, regardless of its core purpose. Whether you manufacture ball bearings, mine uranium, or create software, the information that surrounds your production process can be used to improve your business. If the information is digitized, its value skyrockets simply because it can be shared.

The question is—shared with who? Many business leaders still struggle with this question, but my answer is simple.

Share the information with the people to whom it will be most useful—those who can do good, not harm, with the added knowledge it provides.

Ask two questions ...

What information do you have that would harm your business if shared? This is either personal information that your customers have entrusted to your keeping, or intellectual property that a competitor could use. This is the information that you should protect with your information security strategy.

For every morsel that remains, how can you distribute it as quickly and inexpensively as possible in the most convenient way for the reader? You could distribute this in a work intensive way—"call your account manager for order status, account balances, and to change your options"—or deliver it to each customer's phone, inbox or browser in the manner of their choosing.

Which way will provide your customers with the most convenience and allow your staff to focus on higher value relationship building?

Challenge

Consider the information that your business generates:

1. Is all the useful data in some system, or on paper?
2. What information could be used to do harm in the wrong hands?
3. How can you share everything else in the most efficient, need to know basis?

This week's office hours are at the usual time—call me Friday between 9-noon Eastern on (647) 400 2514 and we can talk about your line on sharing. First come, first served but if I don't pick up, leave a message and I’ll call you back promptly.

... and if you missed these related articles, go back and take another look:

Have you simply moved the problem? Shake Hands with the Customer The Decision Action Loop Master Small Data Before Big Outside-In Design No Need to Outrun the Bear Know Your Risk Let Information Flow Out of the Box A Question of Innovation

Pinpointing Value

Apparently, I left you hanging at the end of my Don’t Copy Paste post. A lot of readers have asked that I tell the story of the happy ending.

So here it is ...

How to avoid Systems Implementation failures

There’s a typical thread to implementing new business systems which I call Systems Implementation 101—list what’s wrong today, interpret this list as the requirements for the new system, find a platform that could do the job, partner with people who build what you ask for, build, test and go live. I’ve seen hundreds of projects that set out this way and my response is always the same—add four steps or you’ll miss the boat.

Here’s the graduate program:

Step 1—start with a clean slate

Set aside your starting point—the current system—right at the beginning. Assemble a team that represents all parts of your business that will own the success of the project. Have the team answer two simple questions:

1. What is our business?
2. What should our business become?

Step 2—now dig for gold

Conduct an exhaustive search of the ways this project can materially benefit your customers and employees, and the future of your business. This can be done in a day or less. Create a brief summary of how this project can contribute to what your business should become.

Step 3—for the rest of the project, trace every decision you make back to this list

Returning to your current system, assess the easiest way to meet the objectives defined in your gold list. A wholesale replacement is sometimes necessary, but do not undertake a revolution before you have ruled out more evolutionary paths.

Test approaches with a series of constraints:

1. What can we achieve without making any changes to our current system?
2. What can we achieve by only adding to what we have?
3. What can we achieve by only replacing parts of what we have?
4. What can we achieve by replacing our current system in its entirety?

Be sure to structure your approach as a series of improvements over time so you assess what you’ve learned at each phase and proceed with this new knowledge in hand.

Step 4—don't stop until you're done

Go Live is too often regarded as the end, when everyone can take a collective sigh of relief. In reality, implementation is only phase 1 of 3, the end of the beginning.

Phase 2, which I call Stabilization, is a period of months after you go live where you’re on call for unforeseen setbacks in production, and where you measure the achievement of the outcomes from your gold list. Expect that to take time, adjusting practices as you learn from the production experience. Three months minimum, sometimes a full year business cycle.

Phase 3 is steady state. You need to get comfortable at the outset that you know how this is going to work. You’re business will continue to change—how will that be reflected in your system, and who will do the work?

And how will you know when it’s time for the next implementation phase?

And so to the Happy Ending

Returning to the conversation in Don’t Copy Paste, my client recognized that her team had completed Systems Implementation 101 when she really wanted the graduate program. So we agreed to collaborate on the program. “I’m really scared of Step 3—did we miss the boat?” was her only reservation. Fortunately, Steps 1 and 2 are pretty rapid. When we got to step 3, we designed a series of retro-fits that delivered the goods.

My client’s team completed the graduate program in just a few months and are now counting the wins. They’re happy.

Your Assignment

When would be a useful time for your team to complete steps 1 and 2 for your next initiative?

Remember—it only takes a few days and works whether or not you’re considering a major change.

If you missed these related articles, go back and take another look:

Don’t Copy Paste your business Revealing Value, one step at a time Digging for Gold Why Platforms Matter When Better Beats Best The Right Kind of Help The Best Collaborations Know when your team needs help?

And by the way, my two simple questions are adapted from Peter Drucker’s three key questions. I recommend you look that up.

Don't Copy Paste your business

As I was wrapping up a CEO workshop on Value last year, I noticed one of the attendees sitting distraught in her chair. I went over and asked if there was anything wrong.

She looked up from her notes—"I just copy pasted my business".

My workshop had focused on importance of establishing every possible opportunity for value at the outset of any change initiative. I'm not a big fan of project failure stats—they tend to be self serving—but there's one that I've seen often enough to quote:

50% of projects only deliver 50% of the expected value.

My response is to set expectations even higher—identify more value. I run a three hour workshop that typically uncovers many new forms of value that can deliver additional return on the investment.

If you identify all forms of value before you even decide to undertake the initiative, you will have the best foundation for the potential, the ROI, the requirements, the approach, and for benefits realization after go live.

But if you select the replacement system that most resembles "the way we do business around here" and tell the implementor that you must conduct your business the way you always have, your throwing away a once-a-decade opportunity to re-invent your business, introduce new practices from the outside world, and benefit from the expertise of others.

You'd be copy pasting your old business.

I sat down next to my guest as she confessed that her company had done just that in the process of completing a major systems upgrade.

The happy ending is that we partnered to find a way to retro-fit value to her business. But that's a story for another post.

Your Search for Value

Think back to an initiative that you've undertaken in the last couple of years. The bigger the better, but this works on any scale. Now answer the following

1. What was your rationale for deciding to proceed?
2. After the initiative was completed, did anyone note opportunities missed as the project was being conducted?
3. Have you had reason to redo any of the work in order to meet other goals? Could the rework have been avoided with the help of a Value Workshop at the outset?

Office hours this week are a little later on Friday—11-2pm Eastern. I'll be reachable on (647) 400 2514 to discuss ways you can avoid the copy paste syndrome. As ever, if I don't pick up, leave a message and I’ll call you back promptly.

... and if you missed these related articles, go back and take another look:

Revealing Value, one step at a time Digging for Gold Why Platforms Matter When Better Beats Best

Creating Experts

Pick a sport. Any sport. Now think about the top ten teams or individuals in the world. Name one that would be on that list if they'd never been coached.

Many of us coach our kids. So tell me why so few of us coach in the workplace.

No mistake—coaching is a skill. A learnable skill. All you need is empathy, the ability to impart behaviours and techniques, and the skill you're coaching in (hitting a ball, inspiring change in an organization, running effective meetings, or running a mile quickly).

It's a form of leadership. Leading by questioning, challenging and inspiring. A coach doesn't do the task, but she can inspire a dozen coachees to get 12 jobs done at the same time. And next time, they'll all be able to do the job without the coach's help.

Sure, some managers can coach, but they are different hats. Managing is directive, coaching is not. You can't do both well at the same time.

And coaching is far more valuable than training. Training is about transferring process knowledge. Coaching is about enhancing skills and behaviour in context of a specific goal. Winning a league, achieving a personal best, leading a project, building consensus around a strategy, learning to delegate work. The more daunting the goal, the more we need a coach. Someone who's been there, done that, and provides a shoulder to lean on.

How many coaches do you have in your organization?

How would it look if you could create expertise?

Who are your Coaches?

Pick a vital skill that is in short supply in your organization:

1. Who's the expert?
2. Who in your organization needs to develop that expertise?
3. What's the next project or assignment that will provide an opportunity for the master to coach the student?

You know the drill—call me Friday between 9-noon Eastern on (647) 400 2514 and we can talk about coaching opportunities for you to develop the coaching habit across your organization. First come, first served but if I don't pick up, leave a message and I’ll call you back promptly.

... and if you missed these related articles, go back and take another look:

Important vs Urgent–why I wrote my new book The Right Kind of Help The Best Collaborations Your help to shape my roadmap Mixed Emotions Steve Jobs Know when your team needs help?

Graft or Craft

I decided to dig a small garden once. Nothing too big, just enough to plant a few vegetables.

I had two options—rent a power tiller or get out my shovel.

Since it was a Holiday, the rental store was closed so I opted for graft and reached for the shovel. Took me all day, of course, but the job was done and I'd earned a beer.

Sometimes, when we just need to get a job done, it's natural to apply graft. Work out what we don't know as we go along. Graft manifests itself in many ways—best efforts, sincere dedication, muscling through. But there's a downside—making avoidable mistakes, correcting mistakes, painful, costly learning.

It's easy to think we're saving budget and only spending sunk costs—until we recognize the opportunity cost. And the demoralizing affect graft can have.

The alternative is Craft. Calling in expertise and building tools that will get the work done right. Taking advantage of "been there done that" experience, smart adaptation, anticipation and mitigation. Improving by learning small lessons. In the end, the job gets done better and faster.

The next time I planted a garden, I planned ahead and rented the biggest tiller I could find. That day, I had time for two beers.

Is your business working smart?

List the things your organization does that are simply hard work. Now ask how you could make them easier:

1. Are there activities that are just not valuable?
2. Can you simplify the way the job gets done?
3. How much can you automate?

Call me on (647) 400 2514 during my Friday office hours between 9am-noon EST and we can talk about ways you can discover unnecessary graft in your business.

... and if you missed these related articles, go back and take another look:

Revealing Value, one step at a time Production lines and the Bottleneck Effect Digging for Gold Why Platforms Matter When Better Beats Best Minimal Effort Means Avoiding Work