Liane Davey's Blog, page 12

June 9, 2023

How to Structure a Monthly Team Meeting

 

How to Structure a Monthly Team Meeting

One of the most important opportunities we have as to make our team, our business and our department more effective is a longer monthly meeting. If you’re in charge of facilitating, chairing or setting up one of those meetings for success, then I’ve got some tips for how to do it much more effectively.

Open With Clear Objectives

The first thing is to start with clear objectives for what a monthly meeting is all about.

When you bring your team together for a full day (if you’re a leadership team), or maybe a half day a month, the purpose of that interaction is really to look for ways to not be working in the business.

A monthly meeting is NOT the same as a weekly operational meeting where you’re kind of rolling up your sleeves and working in the business. I’ve got lots of tips on how to do a great weekly meeting.

A monthly meeting has a different purpose. You’re going to pull out, zoom out a little bit. What you’re looking for is ways to work on the business. I like to think of these monthly meetings as ways to improve the capability, capacity, resilience, and agility of the team. Those are four things that can really become a priority in weekly meetings, especially in our very busy world.

Often we tend to just be solving problems, not actually understanding issues. We’re not looking at anything systemic to make our team or our business more effective – that’s why you want to have this monthly meeting.

I actually refer to these meetings as business builders because it’s the chance to make our business stronger.

What Belongs in a Monthly Meeting?

So if the objective is to increase the capability, capacity, resilience or agility of our business, what are some of the things that belong in a monthly business builder meeting?

Starting the Meeting

Certainly an introduction from you around the state of the business would be beneficial. It may be that you have some kind of KPIs or metrics you use to assess the health of the business. That’s a great thing that you can start with.

You then want to have a round table, a time for folks to check in. But, the round table question is very different than what it would be in a weekly operational meeting. The round table questions are really about the things you think you need to do to improve and strengthen your business. What’s going on in your team with a longer time horizon?

In general, the business builder time horizon should be pulled out to something like a year to 18 months of thinking about your business. Whereas that weekly operational meeting can be sort of quarterly focused or even just what’s happening today. We want to pull that time horizon out much further in a business builder meeting.

Talk About Enabling Functions

Then, it’s time to talk about the kinds of things that are really appropriate. Any one of your enabling functions.

Make time to talk about talent, your technology and how it’s enabling sales, marketing, all of those sorts of things. Create the chance to really do a quarterly review on talent, and how your go-to market strategies are working. If you’re in an IT team, these bigger topics may include talking for a couple of hours really deeply about data security or privacy. In a monthly meeting, you want fewer topics that you can dive into much deeper.

I’m going to say the average agenda item should be one or two hours long so that you’ve got time to really have some productive conflict around these issues and look at them from very different perspectives. Use that time to discuss some of the things that increase the capability or the capacity of your business, like go-to market strategies or talent or technology.

Monitor Strategic Projects

Another thing you want to put in a business builder is monitoring and course-correcting any of your strategic projects.

Those are things that, hopefully if you truly have a strategy, are the things that you’re doing to increase the capability, capacity, resilience and agility of your business. They should then fit perfectly in a business builder. Maybe you have six strategic projects and you’re going to look at two of them each month on a rotating basis to get a deep dive, asking questions such as:

How’s it going?Do you need any different resources?Do we need to change the plan a little?

That’s another really effective thing to put in a business builder. Spending one or two hours on a small number of topics is going to get you to have more of that healthy tension and more of an understanding of what’s going on. You want to structure your meeting with lots of time to go deep on a variety of topics.

Reserve Meeting Time

However, as with any meeting, I’m going to encourage you to save 10% of the time to do an effective close.

For example, if you’re spending an eight hour day in a meeting, you’re going to want to keep 45 minutes for an effective close. That’s to say, “What did we commit to?”, “What are the action items we got out of this?” and “What are we communicating?”

Often in a business builder monthly meeting there are some things you’re ready to communicate and others that you’re not. Being really explicit such as, “we’re going to communicate this and you need to tell your team by such a date”. Or saying, “we are not ready to go public with this so please make sure you don’t mention this to anyone on your team”.

Evaluate the Meeting Quality

A fifth thing you want to do is to evaluate the quality of a weekly meeting. Here’s the link to my handy dandy meeting evaluation tool that will revolutionise your meetings.

The tool allows you to question, “did we put the right things on the agenda and did we add the right value when talking about them?” When you’re going to invest a day or a half day in a meeting, you want to go to the effort to say, “Was it worth it?”

Finally, you may want to talk about any issues that were mentioned or that started to come to light that should be on your next monthly meeting agenda. This can include things you consider as major changes or transformations that you may want to put into strategic meetings.

Structuring a really effective monthly business builder meeting is certainly about opening with context. Getting a round table so that everyone is starting to think about one another’s teams more like a year out, that kind of time frame. Having a small number of topics means you can spend one to two hours per topic and focus on things to increase the capability, capacity, resilience or agility of your business. Be sure not to leave the room without a really effective meeting closer. That’s how you stick the landing and make sure that something is going to be different because you had the meeting.

That’s how to structure a really great monthly meeting. If you need to do the same for your weekly meeting, it should feel totally different. Here’s my tips on how to have a really great weekly operational meeting.

More On This

Running a great monthly meeting

Here’s How To Avoid Holding Pointless Meetings

Meeting Evaluation Tool

Video: Tired of Terrible Weekly Meetings? Try This

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[image error] How to Structure a Monthly Team Meeting [image error] Stop Doing THIS if You Want to Have More Effective Meetings [image error] Hybrid Work Strategies: Deciding What’s ‘Office Worthy’ [image error] Your Best Contribution to a Meeting Might Be to Not Attend at All [image error] How to Close and End a Meeting [image error] Here’s How To Avoid Holding Pointless Meetings [image error] Don’t Accept a Meeting Invite Until You’ve Answered These Questions

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Published on June 09, 2023 00:59

June 4, 2023

How to Deal with Someone Who is Not Self-aware

I’ve been delivering a shiny new speech about giving feedback. It’s full of unconventional ideas and new ways of thinking about how to use feedback more effectively. The best part of rolling out a new keynote is hearing everyone’s questions, which helps me understand the challenges of implementing the techniques. So, when three audience members asked about dealing with someone with low self-awareness, I knew I had to prioritize it for a post.

Are People Self-Aware?

Short answer: No.

Most of us are less self-aware than we think. Tasha Eurich and her lab conducted a multi-year study and found that 95% of people believe they are self-aware about how they’re perceived, but only 10-15% are. Concerningly, Eurich has also demonstrated that the lack of self-awareness is higher among people with more power, the ones whose cluelessness can do more damage.

Even for average employees, low self-awareness has profound effects. In a Fortune 10 company study, Dierdorff and Rubin found that teams with members who were less self-aware made worse decisions, engaged in less coordination, and showed less conflict management. If the team had individuals who over-rated their contributions, their success rate was half that of other teams.

Signs Someone Has Low Self-Awareness

How do you know you’re dealing with a colleague with low self-awareness? There are a few telltale signs to watch for:

They don’t adapt their behavior. People who lack self-awareness use the same approach repeatedly without tailoring it to different individuals or modifying it based on the results.They’re surprised by people’s reactions. Low self-awareness individuals are more focused on their intent than the impact of their behavior on others. So, when you get frustrated, angry, or defensive about their behavior, you probably catch them off guard.They get defensive about feedback. People who are aware of their faults often respond to negative feedback with a groan or an apology, “That is my Achilles heel,” or “Sorry, did I do that again??” If your feedback triggers a more emotional reaction, they likely had no clue what was happening.They overestimate their contributions. When you’re not tuned in to the impact of your behavior, it’s easy to overstate the positive impact you’re making. Low self-awareness colleagues often think they’re more of a gift to the team than they are.They underestimate the damage they cause. On the flip side, people with poor self-awareness also underplay the negative impact of their behavior.Dealing with a Person Who Isn’t Self-aware

There’s no guaranteed way to enhance someone’s self-awareness, but you can try one of these approaches.

Understand How They Would Like to Be Perceived

Rather than confronting someone with evidence that they’re perceived poorly, why not ask how they’d like to be perceived? For example, you can ask questions like, “How would you like to be thought of by your peers?” “What brand are you nurturing with your clients?” “How would you like people to feel when they receive your email?”

Once you know what they’re working toward, you can provide your perspective on what might help them have the desired impact. For example, “If you’d like people to feel motivated after they read your email, you might revisit your language about our current numbers. I felt demoralized after reading that we still have a $2 million gap to make up. How could you reframe a message like this so it feels doable?”

Use Processes to Support Effective Behaviors

Given that most of us lack self-awareness, your team can do a ground rules exercise where you talk about how your behavior impacts one another. For example, you can speak generically about how everyone will show up or choose a specific goal and articulate the desired and undesired behaviors. For instance, you could talk about candor and ask everyone to contribute to a list of ways that their behavior supports candor and a second set of behaviors that detract from it.

Once you’ve got your agreements, negotiate with one another about what you’ll do if someone behaves contrary to what you’ve committed. Is there a code word you can use to call out transgressions gently? Agreeing to the approach in advance will minimize defensiveness when the time comes to address troubling behavior.

Consider Alternate ExplanationsUnaware or Not Onside?

It’s worth taking a moment to consider whether the person you’re accusing of being unaware is fully aware but annoying you because they refuse to agree or acquiesce to your way of viewing the world. In this case, I’m asking you to do the uncomfortable—to consider whether it might be you who needs greater self-awareness. I know it’s not nice, but I’m not here to be nice; I’m here to help you get the team you deserve, which might require some discomfiting growth.

Unaware or Just Despicable?

Sometimes you assume that someone who leaves a dent in others has low self-awareness when they’re just a jerk. But unfortunately, some people are well aware of the consequences and collateral damage of their behavior and choose to continue. For some, it might even get them the desired results (at least in the short term). I’ll return to the case of the malicious person in a future post.

Additional Resources

Try Giving Feedback to a Leader With Low Self-Awareness

In the mirror: Are you competing when you should be cooperating?

How self-aware are you?

 

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Published on June 04, 2023 11:06

May 28, 2023

How to Give Positive Feedback

What did you do the last time you saw a colleague do something remarkable? Did you think, “Wow, that’s awesome,” and go about your day? Did you toss off a “nice job” or give them a fist bump? Instead, wouldn’t it be better if you recognized their efforts with something a little more meaningful and stickier than a pat on the back?

This is the fourth post in the series about how to avoid being a banal bystander on your team. Check out the other posts on how to help a colleague who’s being bullied, deal with passive-aggressiveness, and intervene when teammates are fighting.  But today, we’re changing it up by talking about how you can do more when you witness good behavior.

Balance Positive and Negative Feedback

The purpose of feedback is to help people understand the impact of their behavior on others. It’s an essential source of insight and critical to any person’s development.

Unfortunately, many people are quick to share negative feedback—describing the unwanted, ineffective impact of a person’s behavior—but slow when sharing positive messages. Think of the effects of that imbalance. If you only share feedback when your colleague’s behavior has impacted you negatively, you become the bearer of bad news, a Debbie/Donnie Downer. You become someone aversive the person needs to defend against rather than someone they can learn from. Balance in your feedback protects your relationship.

Plus, it’s hard to learn if you only hear what NOT to do. Balance in your feedback, where you share the positive impact of their behavior, not just the negative impact, makes it a better tool for development. Taken together, positive and negative feedback paint a fuller picture—more of this, less of that.

You’ll notice I’m not using the euphemism “constructive feedback” instead of negative feedback. That’s because all feedback should be constructive. That is, all feedback should have the goal of helping the person learn and improve. One of the reasons I feel strongly about this post is that what passes as positive feedback is often not constructive at all—it’s just formless featherweight flyaway praise. Let’s fix that.

Don’t Rush Your Positive Feedback

Before we dive into the mechanics of positive feedback, let’s just say it; giving someone positive feedback can be awkward. I know it’s weird, but it’s true. What if the person blushes and gets uncomfortable? What if you look like a suck-up? What if they think your feedback isn’t worth anything?

Don’t minimize the duration and intensity of your discomfort by turning your constructive feedback into vacuous praise. Here’s why:

Generic praise is empty calories. There’s no nutrition in it. It doesn’t fuel growth because it contains no information or insight about what created the positive impact or why.If you rush your feedback, it won’t be as meaningful or sticky. As a result, you’ll lose the opportunity to create a genuine connection, and it won’t feel as authentic or as powerful.If you end the conversation after you deliver your message, you’ll have no idea whether it landed. You’ll miss the chance to create a dialogue so you can learn together.

So, next time you think of shortchanging your feedback, stop yourself.  Use these techniques to make feedback feel less like a knock-off comment or trite sentiment.

How to Give Effective Positive Feedback

Before you say a word, start by reminding yourself that your experience of your teammate’s behavior is only your experience.  You experienced their behavior as positive, but someone else might have seen the same behavior as a problem. Always remember that feedback is your truth, not the truth.

Ok, with that said, here’s how to construct your statement.

Orient them to the situation you’re thinking of. If it was a conversation you overheard in the hallway, say so. If it was a presentation they gave last week, you’d better remind them, or they’ll have no clue what you’re referring to.Translate your judgment about why you liked their behavior into crisp, objective feedback with as little subjectivity as possible. Instead of “you were my hero in that meeting,” try “when you asked the boss to let me finish my thought before interrupting….”Expose how the person’s behavior landed with you. Make sure that you phrase it as your reaction or impression rather than as the objective truth. For example, “When you asked the boss to let me finish, I felt like you had my back and that what I had to say was important.”

Most people stop there.  And if you stop there, you have made the “one and run” mistake. So, keep going: Make it a conversation!

Invite the person to take ownership of the feedback using a big open-ended question. That will increase the likelihood that they internalize it. For example, “What gave you the courage to stand up to her?” “How did you decide when it was time to step in?”Now open your mind and try to learn something from the situation. “What could I have done differently so you didn’t need to step in?” Show that you value your teammate and want to benefit from their talents.

If you get to step 5, you’ll probably have to pick your teammate up off the floor because this will have been the most impactful positive feedback they’ve ever received.

When done well, positive feedback helps people know what to keep doing and gives them a sense of their strengths and contribution. But for it to be constructive, you need to deliver positive feedback just as carefully as you would if it were a negative message.

Let me know if you need help crafting your warm fuzzy feelings into constructive feedback, and I’ll help!

Additional Resources

Exercise: Giving Feedback Gently

How to give feedback to someone who doesn’t report to you

Passing on Feedback for Someone Else

 

 

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Published on May 28, 2023 07:07

May 22, 2023

What to Do if You Witness Colleagues Fighting

This is part 3 in a four-part series about what to do when you witness dysfunction on your team. Each post provides a better alternative to being a hapless bystander. In the first post, we talked about how to help if the boss is bullying your colleague. In the second, we got into the all-too-common scenario of being on the receiving end of passive-aggressiveness from a teammate. Today, how to handle it when your teammates are fighting.

Don’t be a Bystander to the Fight

It’s tempting to stay as far away from dueling colleagues as possible, but your teammates will probably be stuck for a while. If they’re fighting, they’ve probably already been hijacked by their emotions and consumed by the urge to protect their territory. In that state, listening objectively is difficult, let alone finding a path toward a satisfactory resolution. At that point, they’re only thinking about protecting their interests.

You, on the other hand, don’t have a horse in the race. Your only interest in getting beyond the unpleasant and unproductive conflict so everybody can get back to work. That means you’re well-positioned to help them out.

Getting involved when two colleagues are fighting will require you to overcome the terrible but deep-seated advice to mind your own business. So, if you were thinking, “Shouldn’t I mind my own business,” let me remind you that you work on the same team, in the same organization as the people who are waylaying things with this unproductive fight, so technically, it IS your business.

And now that I’m done being literal and pedantic, I’ll be practical. In my experience, it takes much longer and leaves room for significantly more damage if you leave them to battle royale and watch from the wings. So help them out, do mind your business.

How To Intervene When Teammates Are in Conflict

If your colleagues are fighting, your best option is to take on the role of facilitator and broker. You’re there to broker a better connection between the two parties. Here’s my playbook when I am in that position.

Communicate

Communication breaks down in a hurry when people are fighting. You can be their outsourced communication coordinator. The main gift you’ll bring is being a better listener than either of the warring factions is likely to be. As you listen, try to pick up the facts they’re trying to convey, the feelings that are being evoked, and especially try to figure out what the fight is really about.

Here are a few lines you can use to make sure each party is hearing what the other is thinking (and feeling).

“What I heard Lucy say is….”

“Phillipe, is it fair to say you’re feeling x?”

“That’s not how I understood Raj’s point. Raj, did you mean…?”

“I get the sense that this is about more than just a new software release….”

Articulate

If you stay calm and neutral, you’ll probably be able to figure out what your colleagues are really fighting about. As you form hypotheses, test them out. If you get a positive response, repeat it so it lands with the other person. Repeat the same process for person #2. You’re trying to uncover what the argument is really about for them.

“For you, this is about giving a fair shake to our team in Wichita. Is that right?”

“You’re concerned that implementing this will hurt morale. Is that what you’re saying?”

“This is an issue of fairness for you, right?”

I think about this process like solving an algebra word problem (sorry if mentioning math word problems just triggered long-suppressed high school trauma). You’re getting a slew of words, some of which seem pertinent but others that are there to throw you off. Your job is to sift through it all and figure out the two equations from which you can solve for the unknown.

It’s the exact same in a conflict situation. Figure out each person’s equation, their interests, and what they’re fighting for, and then you just need to figure out a solution that works for both.

You can tee your colleagues up to solve the issue now that good communication and articulation have helped you figure out the two equations.

Facilitate

Your next step is to encourage the process of developing a plan that works for both of your teammates.

In many situations, once you’ve helped them hear one another and get at the root causes of the fight, they might be able to take it from there without much assistance. But don’t run off if they still need more support.

For example, you might need to use a few neutral prompts to get them pointed in the right direction.

“What would be helpful for you?”

“What might be a good resolution for this?”

“How could you incorporate both of your team’s interests in the plan?”

“Which of the things you’re asking for could you live without?”

Culminate

Finally, you can do a great service by helping them stick the landing on their agreement. So often, the whole process of fighting is so aversive that the combatants are in a hurry to bolt as soon as they find something near enough to a resolution. The problem is that they probably still have slightly different perspectives on what they agreed to.

At this stage, bar the door. Don’t let anyone leave until they’ve been specific about who has agreed to do what and by when. Then, ideally, help them out by writing it on a whiteboard or typing it into a shared document. That way, it’s less likely that they’ll run off in different directions and end up finger-pointing and saying, “I knew you’d never follow through.”

Final Thought

If you’re like me, you find conflict aversive and might be tempted to excuse yourself or quietly check your email when colleagues start to fight. But they’re probably digging deeper and desperately needing a little help. So don’t be the witness to their dysfunction; help them get to the other side of it constructively.

Additional Resources

Conflict Resolution in the Workplace: Task-Based Conflict

Conflict Resolution in the Workplace: Interpersonal Conflict

New Research on Healthy Conflict

 

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Published on May 22, 2023 11:01

May 14, 2023

What To Say to a Passive-aggressive Coworker

Do you have a teammate driving you bonkers with passive-aggressive behavior? That person who nods and goes along in your meetings, then moans and complains about the decisions afterward? The one who’s all smiles and saccharine when dealing with someone face-to-face and then vicious and vociferous behind their back.

So, what should you do, smile and try to escape quickly? Confront them about how petty they’re being? Join them and spill the tea? Yup, those are all options, but there are more constructive things you can do.

Don’t Tolerate Passive-aggressive Behavior

You’ll likely get more of it if you tolerate (ignore, downplay, brush over, or condone) passive-aggressiveness. That’s because when your colleague raises their concerns and complaints privately or indirectly, they can’t be addressed or resolved; the problem persists and probably gets amplified.

And passive-aggressiveness spreads. Most of your teammates will sense your passive-aggressive colleague’s smoldering hostility and start to mistrust the explicit conversation because they know there’s an entirely different narrative below the surface. Some will respond with their own passive-aggressiveness, while others might get fed up and read them the riot act.

Of course, your team might also have that one person who’s utterly oblivious to the subtext of the conversation. They don’t even pick up on passive-aggressiveness. When you mention that the air is thick, they give you that face like, what are you talking about? It’s fine! While ignorance is bliss for your delightfully imperceptive co-worker, it means you bear the brunt of the dysfunction.

For your own sanity and to restore harmony and productivity, you’re best to take action in response to your colleague’s passive-aggressive behavior. But, of course, your exact approach depends on how their grievances manifest. Here are a few good options.

Recommend the Right Forum

Gossip is probably the form of passive-aggressive behavior you suffer with most. If your colleague is raising the right issues in the wrong forum—by gossiping about them where they can’t be remedied—encourage them to broach the topic at a better time and place and with the right audience. Here are a few ways to do that.

“I agree that we’ve been avoiding this decision for too long. What if you mentioned it on Friday in our staff meeting?”

“That’s a great point. But, unfortunately, only Talia can fix that. So, how would you raise the issue with her?

“You’re right. If you’re going to change that, it will require input from Finance. Whom could you talk to that has influence over that process?”

The secret to pivoting is that you start by validating their concerns so they feel like you’re an ally; then, you can be constructive about how they might resolve their issue rather than just complaining about it to you.

Help with the Right Words

Another common way your teammate might be passive-aggressive is by being indirect, snarky, or snide without addressing their problem directly. Many passive-aggressive people turn to sarcasm or one-liners, while others throw in a dramatic sigh or a 180° eye-roll to signal their discontent without doing anything to improve it.  If your colleague hints at their discontent without hitting the issue head-on, help them find the words to address the problem constructively. Try something like this:

“It sounds like there’s something important beneath that comment. How are you thinking about the impact of that option?”

“I don’t know how to interpret your silence. How do you feel about this issue?”

“I’m noticing that your body language has shifted. What is this conversation bringing up for you?”

It’s important not to let your colleague get away with subversive opposition. Instead, frame a question that invites them to expose their thought process so team members can address any issues directly.

Note: one common and debilitating version of passive-aggressive behavior is the common line, “Let’s agree to disagree.” This article talks about the cost of that thinking and gives you strategies to move beyond it.

Reduce the Fear of Reprisal

Your colleague might channel their discontent into whispers, one-liners, or eye rolls because they don’t feel safe raising their concerns directly. Passive-aggressiveness is the guerilla warfare of teamwork where you don’t have the big guns to fight the battle directly, so you hurl improvised explosive devices from the bushes. Your job is to play diplomat so the issue can be resolved peacefully. That might look like this:

“I’m not sure we’re having the discussion we need to have. If we’re going to resolve this, we need to talk about the things we’re thinking but not saying.”

“I think it’s important that we revisit this issue because I don’t think we’re aligned on what we’ve agreed. So can we go around and each say what we believe we need to do.”

“This is going to be an uncomfortable discussion, so can we take a moment to talk about how we can have it respectfully.”

It’s challenging to coerce a controversial opinion from someone who isn’t confident in how it will be received. Because of that, you want to take every opportunity you get to reinforce the importance of having uncomfortable conversations to get to a resolution. Whether you’re a team member or the leader, there’s plenty you can do to make it feel a little safer to raise concerns directly so they don’t leak out passively.

Recognize their Efforts

Sometimes people learn passive-aggressiveness in response to being invalidated, ignored, or shut down. Suppose your colleague has had nothing but negative consequences for raising contentious issues. In that case, you can help them see the value of discussing problems openly, acknowledging the risk, and rewarding their efforts. You can say things like this:

“Wow. I’m so glad you raised that issue. We’ve been dancing around that, and I think we’ll get further if we can address it head-on.”

“How you framed that issue helped us get our heads around what we’ve been ignoring all along. I’m sure it took guts to say that, and I appreciate it.”

“I got upset when you raised that issue in the meeting, but it was right for you to raise it. I’m sorry that I reacted that way. I’d love to hear more about your concerns.”

If all your colleague has received in return for candor is frustration, contradiction, and isolation, it’s no surprise that they save their dissent for private conversations or slip it into snide remarks under their breath. However, you can counteract that conditioning by acknowledging and thanking them for raising issues directly. If you want to ensure that your gratitude sinks in, try delivering it in the form of well-crafted positive feedback.

It can be a real drag to deal with a colleague behaving passively-aggressive. For one, you have to deal with all the pull-aside conversations, exasperated sighs, and snarky comments. But worse than that, you have to live with unresolved grievances and misaligned marching orders that slow your team down. So rather than resign yourself to the vicious cycle of your teammate’s passive-aggressive behavior, help to channel their concerns into the proper forums, find the words to convey their criticisms constructively, protect them from reprisal, and see the benefits not just the risk of speaking up.

Additional Resources

Tools to stop passive-aggressive behavior

‘Disagree & Commit’ Is Better Than ‘Agree to Disagree’. Here’s Why

The Most Annoying Things Your Coworkers Do

Video: The Most Effective Way to Deal with Passive-Aggressive Behavior

 

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Published on May 14, 2023 05:42

May 7, 2023

What to Do if a Colleague is Being Treated Unfairly

“My friend’s boss is being really mean to her, and I don’t know how to help. What can I do?”

I always reserve fifteen minutes for Q&A at the end of my Good Fight keynotes. Hearing the audience’s powerful questions in their own words (and often through crackly emotional voices) helps me empathize with how difficult it is to have healthy conflict in organizations. It keeps things real.

As good as those questions are, the ones that come after the session, in quiet corners, without an audience of 400, are the most telling, the most difficult, and the most important. I have perfected slow-rolling my exit to make more time for those questions. That’s when the bullying boss question came.

How to Help a Teammate Who’s Being Treated Badly

As I said to the man who asked the question, the first and most important thing you can do for your colleague having a rough time is notice. So many of us are overwhelmed with our workloads and absorbed in our own micro dramas that we’re oblivious to the struggles of our teammates. So just the fact that he noticed his teammate and cared enough to ask for help was exceptional.

I then gave him several other approaches to employ.

What To Say to Your ColleagueNotice and Validate

If no one is saying anything about the bad behavior inflicted on your teammate, they might be worried that they’re overreacting, that everyone thinks they deserve it, or that people just don’t care.

As they say in the airports, “If you see something, say something.” It can be as simple as “I didn’t like how David talked to you in that meeting,” followed by, “How did that land with you,” or “Are you ok?” Be the safe place for the person to share their experience and seek support and advice.

Listen and Empathize

Once you’ve opened the gates, you might get a flood, and you might get a trickle; it depends on how emotional they feel and how much they trust you. Don’t pepper them with questions. Instead, let them set the pace and encourage it mostly with open body language and the occasional “wow” or “that sucks.”

As you listen, try not to superimpose your values and feelings onto their experience. Instead, see if you can help them find the words to describe their feelings. Often, having a sounding board to reflect their thoughts will be enough to name the feeling and reduce its hold on them. For example, try saying things like, “Sounds like you’re deflated because Amanda is always criticizing your work in front of the team. Is that what it is?”

Question and Reframe

Once you understand what they’re feeling, you might help them challenge how they’re thinking about a situation in a way that will make it easier to cope. For example, you might hear them say, “I’m not up for this job,” or “I’m so thick; why can’t I get this?”

When your teammate makes generic statements about their worth, you can ask questions to help them get perspective. For example, you could ask about the frequency, scope, or severity of the boss’ behavior in case your colleague is overstating the issue. For instance, you could say, “How often has that happened,” or “Which sections did she not like?” or “What words did he use, exactly?” If the frequency, scope, or severity seem to be out of sync with your teammate’s reactions, you might try reframing.

When you reframe in this circumstance, you help your colleague go from what feels like a massive, enduring gap in who they are to a smaller, situational gap in how they perform. “It sounds like this is the first time you’ve had feedback like this. What was different about this time?” If they respond with squishy statements like, “I’m not creative enough,” translate their messages into something like, “This time, you didn’t go far enough from our current branding.” Changing your behavior feels surmountable. Changing who you are does not.

Feedback and Coach

Is your colleague getting ready to respond to the nasty boss? Offer to hear their dry run. If they’re submitting the second draft of work that the boss rejected the first time, go over it for them with the boss’ preferences in mind. Make suggestions and propose tweaks that might get them a better reaction.

If your colleague wants to give feedback to their bullying or belittling manager, encourage them to share it with you so you can help them process their emotions and prepare to deliver the message as confidently as possible.

Get Directly InvolvedBlock and Tackle

If you’re in the room when your colleague’s boss is treating them poorly, you have the option to step in. How you intervene will depend on exactly what the boss is doing. If they shut the person out of the discussions, you can say, “I’d love to hear what Tracey has to say about this.” If they misinterpret or denigrate what the person says, you can add credence by saying, “I think Tracey makes a good point. I have seen the same thing with my clients this month.” If the boss makes sweeping criticisms, help by seeking more objective feedback such as, “You’d like the presentation to be more creative. What types of things could Tracey include that would feel creative to you?”

One caveat. It won’t help your teammate if these overtures burn your bridges with the manager, so only block and tackle if you are in a safe position to do so.

Alert and Inform

If the boss’ menacing behavior continues, you can also be of great help in alerting others in your organization to the problem. Whom you turn to will depend on the situation, but you could quietly share your concerns with a team member who has credibility with the boss and ask for their help bolstering your colleague’s reputation. “I’m worried that Tracey is getting an unfair rep. How could we support her?”

Alternatively (or maybe additionally), you could seek help from human resources by noting objectively what you’ve seen from the boss and how you’ve tried to help your colleague. Then ask, “I don’t know what to do next. What’s your advice for her and me?”

Connect and Refer

It’s possible that your colleague won’t be able to bear the poor treatment from their boss, and you won’t be able to make a dent in the problem. Sometimes it’s the best choice to get out of a toxic situation. In that case, the most helpful thing you can do is stay in touch with the person and support them as they seek a new job. You will have lots of valuable insight to help them understand their strengths and the situations they might want to avoid.

Then watch for opportunities and make connections within your network to help them reestablish. Leaving a job because you were treated poorly by a boss can destroy your mojo, so knowing that you will stand by them will do wonders for their confidence.

I’m grateful to the audience member who asked this question. The woman in question certainly has the teammate she deserves; even the same can’t be said for her boss.

 

Additional Resources

How to handle a toxic boss

Managing Up as a United Team

Everybody Hurts

Video: Should I Leave My Toxic Workplace?

 

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Published on May 07, 2023 06:33

April 30, 2023

Common Mistakes in Strategic Planning

In my work with executive teams, I see many mistakes in strategic planning. Of course, the worst is not doing strategic planning, but even if you decide to invest in a strategy process, there are plenty of ways to go off the rails. I’ll share a few common ones and provide alternatives to improve the quality of the process and the outcome.

This post is the final in a series about strategic planning. You can get more tips and tactics from the others. Here’s how to get your process started. But you can go back one step if you’re trying to justify why strategic planning is worth the effort. And be sure to peruse this to ensure what you’re doing is strategic rather than operational planning.

Where Things Go Wrong in Strategic Planning

There are many ways to derail your strategic planning process or at least sub-optimize it. As I mentioned in a previous post, you extract the value from doing the planning as much as from having the strategy. The thinking, anticipating, envisioning, debating, challenging, and choosing that you go through are critical. It’s not just about producing a document. Avoiding these mistakes will increase the likelihood that the process creates valuable insights.

Who Should Be Included in Strategic Planning?

Mistake #1: Defaulting to the Executive Team

The executive team usually leads the strategic planning process, but sticking with just the executive team can be a mistake. An optimal process requires an elusive balance of skills and personalities. Sure, you need vision, creativity, and ingenuity, but you also need a deep understanding of your industry and your company. You need people who embrace change and people who spot risk. You need people who help you diverge, and then later; you need people who help you converge (it’s doubtful that these will be the same people). I’m saying that you want diversity of experience, styles, and perspectives around your strategy table. Unfortunately, many executive teams don’t have enough of it.

Another reason you might not want to limit strategic planning to the executive team is that the executives have the most vested interest in keeping the organization as it is. If you suspect turf wars, egos, or individual agendas might hamper your strategic planning process, this article will give you tips on addressing interpersonal issues before you launch your planning process.

For both reasons (a dearth of diversity and dysfunctional dynamics), I often recommend bolstering the executive team by adding a handful of people to form what I call a Strategy Council. For example, you could add people who are tuned in to the external environment, those who’ve worked in other organizations in the industry, visionaries, technology gurus, or one or two highly analytical people. You can have 12-15 people in these conversations, and they will work well.

Where Do We Start to Create a Strategy?

Mistake #2: Definition Tactics Before Setting Trajectory

Another common mistake is diving into your SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) without first understanding what you’re trying to accomplish. It’s hard to discern what factors in the external environment are relevant if you don’t know where you’re headed. It’s like listening to the traffic report before selecting a destination—interesting but irrelevant.

Instead of going straight to the external environment, start by defining the north star for your strategy, including your organization’s purpose (or mission) and strategic goals. Knowing why you exist and what you need to achieve will define the trajectory and slope of your strategies.

Your purpose defines your trajectory, which opportunities you’re moving toward, and which you’ll ignore. Your strategic goals define the slope or steepness of your strategy; how ambitious your strategies must be. On the other hand, if your strategic goal is to prevent acquisition by doubling your size and taking advantage of scale, your strategies will need to be bold. If your goals are more modest, your strategies can be too.

Without a north star, every opportunity looks exciting; every threat seems terrifying. But when you know what you are, where you’ll play, and how you’ll know you’re winning, you’ll realize which opportunities and threats need your attention and resources and which don’t.

How Many Strategic Priorities Are Too Many?

Mistake #3: Avoiding Hard Choices

Sometimes teams get stuck in the trap of thinking that more strategies and tactics will increase their organization’s chance of success. I have found it’s the exact opposite. Strategic organizations pick a lane and focus their resources and attention on a small number of plays that will make them successful. If you’re a giant corporation like Microsoft or 3M, you might have room for multiple strategies. Still, most organizations do themselves a disserve by trying to be everything to everyone.

When facilitating strategic planning, I encourage my clients to land on four, max five, strategic imperatives. They should be so mission-critical that everyone in the organization can remember them and use them to make decisions in their daily work. More than four or five, and there’s no way anyone will remember them, let alone use them to guide their priorities. Note: strategic imperatives are insights, not actions, and no cost is associated with them. It’s the limits of people’s attention that constrain how many you include.

When it comes to strategic projects, which are the tactics you use to advance your strategies, you are constrained by both attention and resources. If you try to have five projects for each of your five strategies, you’re diluting your resources across 25 projects. That’s probably too many to fund and ask people to implement. So instead, pick a small number of projects that each advance your organization on multiple strategies. Finish those and then add the next set.

More Mistakes You Make in Strategic Planning

I could go on and on with more mistakes that might erode, dilute, or distort your strategic planning process.

Mistake #4: Setting unrealistic goals (aka “the hockey stick”)

Mistake #5: Being too internally focused and creating an operational rather than a strategic plan

Mistake #6: Having a vanity purpose statement or goals that don’t stand up to financial pressure

Mistake #7: Not making evidence-based decisions

Mistake: #8: Being blind to the risk of over-strengths

Mistake #9: Talking about the tactics and projects as if they were the strategy

Mistake #10: Writing the strategy in lackluster, jargon-filled language that no one cares about or remembers

I’m going to need to do parts two and three of this post to expand on mistakes 4-10. But that’s for another day.

Which of these strategic planning mistakes have you seen? And which ones did I miss? Let me know.

Additional Resources

Strategy execution needs to be more inclusive

Stop Trying to Sound Strategic!

How to Communicate Strategy

 

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Published on April 30, 2023 05:32

April 23, 2023

Don’t Confuse Strategic and Operational Planning

You might be trying to do too much with your strategic planning process. Are you smooshing operational and strategic planning into one undifferentiated, overwhelming, let’s-do-a-bunch-of-good-stuff-to-get-better plan? If so, you might be shortchanging both processes.

What’s the Difference Between Operational and Strategic Planning?

Operational planning is about improving the organization’s current health; strategic planning is about futureproofing it.

The Purpose of Operational Planning

The operational planning process should help you identify the highest-value opportunities to make your organization run more effectively. It’s an exercise in optimizing the status quo. As a result, you’re finding ways to become more effective in your current model.

As such, operational planning should consider continuous improvement opportunities for your talent, supply chain, manufacturing, or go-to-market. Can you find efficiencies or more effective ways of doing things? How can you enhance the business’s capability, capacity, resilience, or agility? Those are great operational planning questions.

Operational planning, which optimizes your current organization, is one of the most critical management activities.

The Purpose of Strategic Planning

Strategic planning should lift your eyes to the horizon and identify the highest-value opportunities to transform the organization to succeed as the external environment changes. It’s an exercise in transforming your organization. You’re identifying ways to stay competitive—and sometimes to stay in business.

Your strategic planning process should start with big questions about why your organization exists and what trends in the outside world might affect your ability to serve that purpose. From there, you’re looking for insights about how you might need to change your trajectory to be successful. Does your product need to evolve (or even change drastically)? Do you have the right business model? Is your distribution path aligned with your market? Strategic planning is not about tweaking the status quo; it’s about asking whether you need to upend it.

Strategic planning, which future-proofs your organization, is a critical leadership activity.

Setting Strategic Versus Operational Goals

One of the most obvious ways to see a strategic planning process slipping into operational realms is when the participants start discussing the goals. There’s a noticeable difference between strategic and operational goals.

Operational goals are the targets for what you need to achieve today to have a well-functioning organization. Strategic goals put a pin in the destination you need to arrive at in the future.

How about a quiz? Which of these goals sounds like a measure of the organization’s current health (operational), and which sounds like a measure of futureproofing (strategic)?

Improve gross margins to 35%Reach a net promoter score (NPS) score of 70 or greaterTransition product mix from 10% to 40% subscription revenueLaunch IPO by the end of 2025Grow revenue by 35%, compounding

What did you say?

While no hard and fast rules govern what’s an operational versus a strategic goal, the key is differentiating between what is important today versus tomorrow.

Gross margins are an essential measure of organizational health. If you don’t get sufficient margin, you’re not going to be profitable; if you’re not, you’re going to burn through cash pretty fast. I’m putting gross margins in the organizational health category.Customer satisfaction is similar to gross margin; it matters in the short- to mid-term. You might be able to compete on price for a while, but a healthy organization prioritizes the customer experience. I’m saying that NPS is an organizational health goal.Product mix might be an operational goal, but for many organizations, it’s the measure of a fundamental shift in what they take to market. One good indication that it’s a strategic goal is that shifting your product mix might sap your resources for a while (making it a drain on current organizational health), but without the shift, you might not be around for much longer. So it’s operationally painful and strategically important.
One typical example of shifting mix as a critical measure of the futureproofing of the business is where digital services are disrupting physical products or services. Harvard Business Review is full of case studies of companies that either made or missed that transition.Securing access to capital to fuel growth is definitely strategic. Reaching the necessary valuation and locking down the internal processes that make you eligible for an IPO and an influx of capital is an excellent example of a strategic goal.I thought I’d throw in an “it depends” example for the last one. Revenue growth used to be an obvious example of a measure of organizational health. Suppose that’s where it sits for your organization; great. But in the past decade, many companies showed us they could get away with growing subscribers or users without having to make any money. In those cases, revenue growth is less significant to the organization’s current health and more critical to future-proofing (as they demonstrate whether they can transition unprofitable users into profitable paid customers).
Alternatively, reaching a certain size might be necessary to achieve a scale or market share, preventing you from being swallowed up in industry consolidation. You decide where revenue growth fits in your goals.What Happens When You Confuse Strategic and Operational Planning?

The primary issue in blurring strategic and operational planning is that you don’t do a complete job of either. As soon as those gross margin and NPS goals go on the board, you’re into a conversation about tweaking your support function or changing pricing. It’s nearly impossible not to get into the weeds, and once you’re there, you’re not asking anything about how the world is about to disrupt you. It’s the proverbial rearranging of the deck chairs on the Titanic example.

But it’s just as problematic if you think your strategic planning process will get you the data, detail, or diligence you need to take your operations to the next level. Much of the heavy lifting of operational planning should happen within functions and departments. Unfortunately (fortunately), most executives are too far removed from the operations to do more than commission the work.

A Final Thought

Above, I differentiated between operational planning as an important management responsibility and strategic planning as a key to leadership. Then, at some point, someone decided that “manager” was a derogatory, condescending term and started calling everyone a “leader.” Like many euphemistic changes, this one muddied the waters. Perhaps that was when we began confusing operational and strategic planning. So, let’s return to separating them and doing a better job of both.

Additional Resources

Your Strategy Should Serve Two Purposes

How Team Dynamics Affect Strategic Planning

Video: What to Do If You’ve Been Told You Aren’t Strategic Enough

 

 

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Published on April 23, 2023 08:13

April 16, 2023

How Does Strategic Planning Benefit Companies

“Plans are worthless, but planning is everything.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower[1]

In the previous post, I discussed how to start strategic planning. Now it’s time to talk about why you should.

As this quote from the former U.S. general and president suggests, the benefit of planning is not that you’ll know exactly what to do a year from now but rather that you’ll have thought about the potential scenarios and possible responses in advance so that you can take more deliberate, considered, and decisive action when the moment arrives.

Why Should You Do a Strategic Planning Process?

Whether you lead a small team or a giant organization, it makes sense to carve out time to anticipate what’s coming, envision your response, make trade-offs and big bets, and align your team around how to make decisions. Here are a few of the benefits I have seen when my clients work through a robust strategic planning process:

Lengthen Your View

A strategic planning process creates a forum for discussions with a longer time horizon than the every day. Yet, even in the most senior circles of the largest companies, I’m astounded by how much of the airtime is consumed by discussions of issues within the year, quarter, and sometimes even the week. This is like driving a car while looking at the hood—perilous.

Organizations that take strategic planning seriously consider their purpose with at least a 10-year horizon and then consider the external environment with at least a 3-year view. Are those guesses about which way the world will turn accurate? Seldom. But the exercise of anticipating, imagining, and connecting the dots is valuable nonetheless.

The most significant benefit to lengthening your time horizon is having more time to react. As a small, scrappy competitor gets their footing, you can be incubating new approaches so you’re ready to flip the switch when the time is right. If the coming change is monumental, you have time to build new capabilities that will allow you to respond.

Lengthening your view increases your flexibility to respond.

Establish What’s Primary

Some of the magic of strategic planning is figuring out in which order to answer the big questions. I alluded to that concept in the previous post when I suggested that some organizations’ strategies are driven by meeting a customer’s need (purpose-driven strategies) while others prioritize the owners’ needs (shareholder-driven strategies).

If you start by answering the wrong question, you’ll feel the tension and resistance and get a hint that something’s wrong. For example, if you start with your purpose and feel you’re developing something that works for your customers but not for your owners, as happened to colleagues of mine recently, you’ll know that you started with the wrong question. Reframe around the primary need, and you’ll feel things click into place.

Establishing what’s primary orients all other decisions.

Plan in Context

The annals of Harvard Business Review are replete with cases of companies that ignored changes in the market for so long that their businesses couldn’t respond and faded off into the sunset (or Chapter 11). Strategic planning must include a thorough review of what’s happening in the external environment to allow you to see storm clouds on the horizon.

Recognizing a forming storm is especially difficult because disruptors often start as small, unsophisticated, laughable, non-issues. If you’re Hilton, are you really going to be worried about a company that encourages people to sleep on air mattresses on other people’s floors? If you’re Intel, are you going to go to full alert based on a microchip that makes greeting cards play music? If you’re Blockbuster, are you losing sleep over a company that asks people to wait for their DVD rentals in the mail? Um, well… those examples make it clear that you should.

Strategic planning allows you to look at societal, economic, political, and regulatory trends that might be great opportunities or threats to your business. The process asks you to imagine how customers, suppliers, and markets will change. And it forces you to look at how technology will change what’s possible. By considering these changes deeply, your organization is in a better position to assess what to do and when.

Planning in context makes you less vulnerable to external factors.

Force Trade-offs

If leaders are bad at lifting their eyes to the horizon, they’re often worse at making trade-offs based on what they foresee. A good strategic planning process should force you to decide what’s most important and to deprioritize, delay, or outright dump strategies and tactics that aren’t as likely to yield results.

The result of doing so is more effective resource allocation and at least a hope that some of your tactics will be fully implemented. The alternative is trying to do everything, diluting your resources and burning out your people en route to few projects being implemented fully.

It’s a contentious, agonizing, and sometimes antagonistic process to winnow down potential strategies to a set of maybe four or five that will make the biggest difference. With those strategies in hand, it’s even more excruciating to select the seven, eight, or nine big bet tactics that will make the difference. You will find the result miraculously liberating as everyone finally knows what matters most.

Forcing trade-offs allows you to do more with your resources.

Align Actions

Almost all organizations that conduct strategic planning use it to create a set of tactics that have plans and budgets. But there are wide swaths of your workforce that aren’t assigned to one of those strategic projects and therefore feel exempt from worrying about strategy.

A great strategic planning process has a second purpose, which is to provide a single source of the truth and a touchstone that employees can use to make optimal choices in both extraordinary and routine activities. There’s a full case for this second purpose here, but suffice to say that the best strategic planning processes enlist the attention and energy of all employees in bringing the strategy to life.

Aligning actions mobilizing your whole organization to execute your strategy.

Strategies Last Longer Than Plans

I am a big fan of strategic planning, not because the resulting plan is perfect and the world will stand still while you execute it. I’m a big fan of strategic planning because the strategies help you make better decisions as the world changes around you.

[1] Eisenhower seems to have first said these words in 1957, paraphrasing something he said in 1950. He said he had heard the phrase from someone in the army. See more here.

Additional Resources

Your Strategy Should Serve Two Purposes

Why Your Strategic Planning Needs More Insight

How Team Dynamics Affect Strategic Planning

Video: What to Do if You’re Told You’re Not Strategic Enough

 

 

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Published on April 16, 2023 05:34

April 9, 2023

How to Get Started on Strategic Planning

Is it time to initiate a strategic planning exercise for your organization? If so, you might be looking for a source of inspiration or momentum. But what is the genesis of strategy? How do you get going from a standing start? Is there only one way to come at strategic planning? No, definitely not!

Over morning tea, Craig and I reflected on how each of our current consulting clients has a different starting point for their strategic planning. It might be helpful to outline the various scenarios in case one suits your organization and helps you come to strategic planning with more clarity.

What is at the Heart of Your Strategy?

When I say “what’s at the heart,” I mean what’s driving your strategy. What comes first?

Another way I often talk about this is: “What’s the tail, and what’s the dog?”

Strategy has a flow where you need to make the most important decisions first and then use those early decisions as the lens through which you view (and constrain) the proceeding answers. If you start with a question that doesn’t belong at the heart of your strategy, you’re letting the tail wag the dog. I don’t recommend it.

That said, there isn’t only one answer to what could or should be at the heart of your strategy. Here are some options.

Mission-driven Strategy

Our 3COze strategic planning process traditionally starts with an organization’s purpose or mission. Establishing the center is as straightforward as asking, “Why does our organization exist?” Using a mission-driven approach, your answers should focus on your organization’s value from the perspective of your beneficiaries (customers, patients, community members, etc.). In this type of strategy, the demand exists, and you’re there to meet it. Does your organization exist to protect a coastal watershed? Are you helping businesses store, protect, and use their data? Do you make vacations affordable for more families?

A mission-driven strategy means you’re compelled by something you must accomplish, and the answers to all the other strategic questions flow from that purpose. Your strategic goals are framed primarily in what you will achieve for your beneficiaries. For example, you will have protected more square kilometers of coastline, enhanced the ease of access to petabytes of stored data, or sent thousands more families on their first international vacation.

For a mission-driven strategy, ask, “Why do our beneficiaries need from our organization?”

Vision-driven Strategy

Another organization we’re working with is pushing beyond the existing industry and envisioning a future different from today. This type of process begins by asking, “What’s possible?” Then, using a vision-driven approach, your answers should focus on providing something that no one has ever asked for. In this type of strategy, you’re not responding to demand; you’re creating it. Your beneficiaries might not recognize themselves as your customers because they haven’t yet imagined your innovative service, experience, or product.

A vision-driven strategy rejects the status quo and incremental improvement in favor of radically shaking up existing models. Your strategic goals are framed primarily in what you will build and how you will start to develop a market for it. For example, you’ll have a working prototype, a group of beta testers, or early evangelists for your brand.

For a vision-driven strategy, ask, “What does the world need?”

Shareholder-driven Strategy

While mission- and vision-driven strategies can be enthralling, a slightly more pragmatic version focuses on financial stakeholders. A shareholder-driven strategy centers not on what your customers want but on what your owners need. For example, we’re working with a publicly traded company that needs to consider where the company fits in its investors’ portfolios. They are highly successful because they are a solid, reliable, low-risk investment that meets the needs of institutional investors. Assessing the attractiveness of strategic options through an investor lens can lead to different answers than considering from the customer’s point of view.

Lest you think that shareholder-driven strategy is only about capitalist stockholders, I once facilitated strategic planning for a digital animation company that artists owned. They didn’t want to capitalize on many of the avenues open to them because it would have required them to compromise their artistic integrity. As the owners, they were happy to say “no” to strategies that strayed from that core.

In a shareholder-driven strategy, your strategic goals are framed in terms of criteria aligned with the interests paramount to your stakeholders. That might be a modest rate of return with little variability, or it might be the chance to pioneer a new form of digital animation. Still, either way, the goals of a stakeholder-driven strategy start with understanding the owners’ needs and then finding the market opportunities that allow you to meet them.

For a shareholder-driven strategy, ask, “What do our owners want from us?”

Competence-driven Strategy

One other option for where to dig in with your strategic planning process is to try a competence-driven approach to strategy. In this version, you’re starting with a core competence and finding the markets, customers, and situations where this competence is of outsized value. A competence-driven strategy begins with the question, “What are we better at than anyone else?” This is a great approach when you’ve demonstrated excellence in one space, and you’re looking for new places to apply your strength.

For example, perhaps you’re a pharmaceutical company, and you’ve pioneered an mRNA vaccine platform during the Covid-19 pandemic. Now your strategy shifts to finding new diseases or even other health domains that might benefit from your technology (I just read about Moderna taking mRNA technology to non-virus-based forms of cancer.) Of course, it doesn’t have to be a technology that’s your core competency; it might be a particular demographic (your company has a strong tie to seniors, accountants, or HVAC installers), a valuable skill (better at billing, recruiting, or graphic design), or unique relationships (ties to municipal government, influencers, or corporate CIOs).

In a competence-driven strategy, your strategic goals are framed in product or market mix and your ability to transpose a skill that’s working in one market to an adjacent one. For example, you might measure the percentage of accounts or leads in your new target industry, brand awareness with a new stakeholder group, or the revenue from new products.

For a competence-driven strategy, ask, “Where else could we apply our unique competencies?”

Strategic Planning Needs Energy

A great strategic planning process needs a spark to overcome the inertia of existing strategies and tactics. One great way to light the fire is by finding the starting point that’s most compelling to your organization. Is there a problem that the world needs you to solve? Is there an opportunity no one but you has seen? Are your owners counting on you to deliver something specifically suited to them? Do you have something special that can be applied in new ways? If you can enthusiastically answer one of these questions, the rest of your strategy will follow. You can even start with one of these four approaches and then use another as the second filter for your opportunities and threats.

What’s at the heart of your organization’s strategy?

Additional Resources

Your Strategy Should Serve Two Purposes

Strategy execution needs to be more inclusive

From HBR: Strengthen Your Strategic Thinking Muscles

YouTube: What to Do if You’ve Been Told You’re Not Strategic Enough

 

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Published on April 09, 2023 08:34