I have been getting a lot of questions from seminar participants about what I think are the most common mistakes that leaders make.  I certainly have an opinion on this, but I would like to be able to give a response which captures the thoughts and ideas of many leaders.

Please take a moment to send me your thoughts.  I will compile the data and do a post on it.

Thanks.

In recent weeks I have been asked the question several times, “How do you take your corporate strategic plan and make it actionable for everyone in the organization?”

Great question.  One that all leaders need to think about.  This is a challenge that many leaders do not even recognize is facing them.  Unfortunately, it is also one at which we fail on a regular basis.  Without motivating and mobilizing everyone in the organization in the same direction, you are unlikely to achieve the results you desire.

First, I have to clarify one thing.  The failure to move plans to action is rarely one which applies across the entire organization.  The plan tends to take hold in one form or another in many places.  The problem is that it is rarely a consistently applied and orchestrated effort.  Our direct reports tend to understand the plans we are making and the direction we are taking because in most cases they have been involved in the discussions which have led to the decisions in question.  However, other employees may not.  This is where leaders often fail.  They fail to recognize that they must drive the effort to understand the direction and take action at all levels in the organization.

…most employees do not understand what strategic plans mean in terms of day-to-day actions for them.

The disconnects emerge and get worse the further the employees are removed from that decision-making level.  Unfortunately, the people who will be most critical in accomplishing the tasks you have defined are often those that are furthest from that decision-making level…the shop floor, if you will.  The cascade of information to all levels is generally not managed and monitored well.  The message received at shop floor level is often muddled at best. 

The problem is that leaders often feel that publishing the vision and a few strategies on the corporate website, announcing them in town hall meetings, or hanging posters of them in the lobby is enough.  It isn’t.  You, as the leader, have to understand that many people just will not get it as you intend.  They are not as familiar with the issues facing the organization as you are.  They do not deal with those issues every day so they do not see how those issues evolve, develop and change.  They do not discuss them with experts and colleagues inside and outside the organization to study, dissect and analyze them as you do. 

What they hear from you is the summation of a lot of thinking and analysis.  They hear the end result of all that analysis; they hear a conclusion and do not see all the steps that went into getting to that conclusion; they have not been involved in all the discussions and cannot make the jump from issue to answer.  They do not understand what those strategic plans mean in terms of day-to-day actions for them. 

In motivating a workforce one of the basic elements is clarity.  People are motivated simply by being clear on what is expected of them.  In this case what they want to know is “What does this mean for me?  What is required of me?  What can I do to help?”  They do not have any idea how to take that vision, strategy or plan and put it into practice every day.

I make it a point to conduct regular town hall meetings at every site in my organization.  At those meetings I remind everyone of the direction in which we are going as an organization, and I explain to them what it means.  I tell them what actions we will take to get there.  Most importantly, I tell them what it means that THEY must do every day to contribute to achieving that goal.  I make it a point to put it in terms that are relevant to the tasks they perform every day.  As I walk around the organization I make it a point to talk with the employees at all levels and ask them how are they applying our strategies in their everyday work.  Those discussions always lead to clarifying questions and a better idea of how they can do their jobs in a way that better supports our strategic direction.

As an example, if we are pushing hard on distinguishing ourselves on customer service, I will tell them that this means that they must look at every type of situation in which they come in contact with the customer, get a clear understanding of what the customer needs from them in that situation, and make it a point to meet that need.  In our business it can be something as simple as having a human being answer the call rather than a machine…ensuring that the reports we send arrive on a timely basis…being polite and helpful on the call.

Finally, to ensure that the plans are completely put into action, the direction must be reinforced regularly.  The daily demands in the workplace make it difficult for any of us to keep those priorities clear and actionable.  The cascade of direction and information from the top has to be accompanied by periodic assessment and feedback on how we are doing with it…Where is it working?…Where is it not working?…How do we keep it on track? 

It requires leadership making it important.

This post builds on the subject of the last post in which I wrote about leaders not taking the time to accurately diagnose an organization’s problems before jumping into decision mode.

Do you know the arcade game in which you take a mallet and hit the head of a mole sticking up out of the table surface?  Each time you hit one mole another pops up elsewhere on the table.  That game is called “Whack-a-Mole”.

In the interest of being decisive and acting quickly, leaders often fail to take the time to think through their decisions from a systems perspective; as a result, when they fix one problem, another pops up.

Failure to think about organizations from a systems perspective results in ”whack-a-mole” decision-making.  This is what happens when leaders attempt to solve problems without carefully thinking through the impact of their decisions on all aspects of the organization.  They fix one problem and cause another in the process.

Businesses are complex systems.  When you make changes to one part of that system you must be aware of the impact that those changes may have on other parts of that system.  This is a fundamental concept in process improvement technologies such as Six Sigma or Kaizen.  As process problems are analyzed, a process improvement expert creates flow charts or maps of the process.  Inputs from related processes and outputs to others are identified.  As changes to the target process are explored, the impact on related processes are examined to ensure that any planned change does not adversely affect another part of the system.

Organizations are comprised of groups of people (departments) performing tasks which contribute to creating a product or delivering a service.  Each group has a set of processes that it follows to perform those tasks.  Many of those processes require input from other groups in the business.  For example, consider a drug manufacturing facility.  Very simplistically, the bulk manufacturing group is instructed to produce a product.  These instructions are derived from market analyses which identify that the demand will be there to sell the product.  The timing of this request is made with enough lead time to enable the Quality Control group to perform certain testing of the product, and to allow the packaging and shipping to be completed.  Production requires that the appropriate components have been purchased and are available to make the compound, and it requires that the facility has been cleaned from any previous batches so that there is no cross-batch contamination.  In this simplified example you can see that the process to manufacture a batch of drugs requires input from marketing, production planning, purchasing and facility maintenance, and has an output which effects quality control, packaging, shipping and sales.

Now envision a situation in which Quality Control identifies a problem in the technique they have been using to calculate the stability of the product, and they change their process to a more accurate but more time consuming process.  If they do not consider the impact this decision will have on the other parts of the organization and manage that change carefully, it is likely that the company will miss timelines to ship product and stores will run out of stock.  This will damage the company’s reputation with the customers.

Unfortunately, leaders often feel under enormous pressure to act quickly in leading their businesses.  The pace of business is fast.  There are massive amounts of data to sift through and understand.  Technologies and market dynamics are changing rapidly and adding to the pressure and the complexity of making decisions.

Leaders must be conscious of the need to take the time and involve the right people in evaluating situations, drawing the correct conclusions, and making the right decisions.  They need to look at problems from a systems perspective and think through their decisions ensuring that the impact on all related processes is understood before acting.