I recently wrote a provocative article on how executives are blindly putting demands on their employees that are ruining their productivity.
It’s my dream that one day it will adorn the walls of cubicles of every Caribbean company!
Reducing Crime with a Boost in EQ
Recently I wrote an article for my regular column in the Jamaica Gleaner that describes what corporate Jamaica can do to invest in an increase in EQ / soft skills, and thereby reduce our murder rate.
New in 2012: Time Management for Coaches, Consultants and Managers
Over at 2Time Labs and MyTimeDesign, I have crafted a new niche to explore in 2012.
Prompted by a post-conference workshop I’m presenting in September at the Institute for Challenging Disorganization, I am finding that there is very little help being provided to those who are tasked with improving the productivity of others.
In the past, it’s boiled down to “Here, read this book.”
To get things rolling, I have written a couple of article for the Sunday Gleaner and the Stepcase Lifehack website.
It’s fascinating to me that no-one has done much to help professionals who don’t know where to start. In 2012, we’re out to change that.
Recent Gleaner Articles
My bi-weekly column in the Sunday Gleaner Business Section continues to spark decent feedback from different corners.
The last few columns had to do with migration, and I provided some specific advice to both those who are thinking about migrating, and the companies they leave so that we all can take better advantage of what is often seen only as a loss.
Here are the two articles:
How to Improve Your Company Retreats
In a series of three articles I have been tackling the problem of improving company retreats, based on my experience of leading these events for over ten years.
You can find the series of three articles written for the Jamaica Gleaner at this link: http://jamaica-gleaner.com/search.html?cx=partner-pub-4993191856924332%3A98b6e2-dgz1&cof=FORID%3A10&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=wade+retreat+francis&sa=Search&siteurl=jamaica-gleaner.com%2F#450
Shaking Up Egotistic Leaders
This was the title of an article I published recently in the Jamaica Gleaner.
Taking the Very Long View in Strategic Planning
How long a horizon does your company use when it develops its strategic plan?
In a recent article in the Jamaica Sunday Gleaner, I make the point the there’s tremendous value in looking at a planning horizon of 20-30 years.
Here’s the article: Taking the Very Long View in Strategic Planning.
For more details about this approach that the firm uses with strategic planning clients, see the book written by a former employee of Framework Consulting, Amie Devero — Powered by Principle.
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As companies set up their annual strategic-planning retreats, there is a natural temptation to forget about the future, and focus on today. While the recession has driven us to examine daily cash flow, it is a mistake to think that the long-term future doesn’t matter.
It certainly does, and here are the reasons why I encourage my clients to consider a 25- to 30-year future.
Vision statements are fine tools for ensuring that an executive team – and an entire company – are focused on the same things; however, they are often used badly.
Before a team sits down to define the future, it is safe to assume that each person comes with two different understandings: the exact year ‘the future’ refers to; and what constitutes his/her vision for that year.
Too many companies jump right into statement building only to discover after consensus is achieved that half the team is in 2021 while the other half is in 2012. Some never discover this fact and suffer when discord breaks out as budgets, targets, and interim measures need to be defined.
Good future statements are based on specific years, like the one that our own Government has defined: Vision 2030 Jamaica.
Coming to agreement on the ‘planning year’, such as 2030, is a critical first task in any retreat.
LOOKING FAR AHEAD
When I work with top teams in their strategic planning retreats I urge them to pick planning years that are 25-30 years in the future. Their first reaction is one of shock, and there is usually resistance. Some argue that they can’t think that far ahead. Others say that business conditions change so much each year that such planning is unrealistic.
I draw an analogy to what Columbus had to endure when he committed his first voyagers to travel to lands that were ‘over the horizon’ – beyond their capacity to see.
This was no easy undertaking at a time when many believed that the Earth was flat and that one could fall off the edge by travelling too far out of sight. He was able to paint a vision of a land that he had never seen that existed ‘over the horizon’.
The fact is, it is impossible to accomplish big goals unless you are able to see that far in your mind’s eye.
Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com fame puts it well: “We are willing to plant seeds that take five to seven years to grow into reasonable things. You can’t do big, clean-sheet invention unless you are willing to invest for long periods of time.”
Another interesting thing happens when executives look far enough into the future. They stop focusing on themselves, and their personal goals. An over-the-horizon future is one that is not about them, but instead must focus on the next generation as most executives won’t be around. As they plan for a future that excludes them, they start to ask themselves what they really want for the company: its shareholders, employees, customers, and other stakeholders.
Bad news
At first they discover some bad news: they want very different things.
This is a sobering discovery as they realise that they have been working at cross-purposes for some time, pulling towards different destinations. However, once they come to a new consensus, they can work together for the first time.
What prevents these 20- and 30-year visions from turning into random fantasies is the next step: laying out the details of what happens in the planning year. Once the team completes the prior two steps, they can describe the destination in measurable details.
Revenues, profits, financial ratios, headcounts, physical locations, geographic locations, bi-lingual abilities, these are all examples of the metrics that are used to convert a far-away future into a coherent, measurable goal.
The last step is the so-called Merlin Process in which the future targets are connected to today’s actuals in a single matrix. Many adjustments take place at this step as the team ensures that there is a feasible pathway from the present to the planning year. Unfortunately, this is usually the point at which some nice-to-haves must be discarded as the true essence of the plan emerges.
For the past 10 years, I have witnessed teams take the long view and the results are usually inspiring.
A new world emerges as they lift themselves above daily pressures to craft a unified vision that is well over the horizon.
How to Change Workplace Values: Ignore Them
I recently wrote an article for the Jamaica Gleaner on how to change workplace values. It’s as controversial as the speech it was based on, which was given to the Rotary Club of St. Andrew.
You can hear the 22 minute recording at the following links: http://audios.fwconsulting.com or http://2time-sys.com/fwconsulting.com/audio/Rotarynot-values.mp3
Here is the full text of the article I sent in, which wasn’t carried in the on-line version.
In organizational life, it’s sometimes better to change things by simply not talking about them. Case in point: “Corporate Values.” Why is that? It’s because we don’t know what we’re doing when we talk about “values,” and the resulting confusion crowds out that which is most important.
CEO’s and other executives frequently convince themselves that the cause of their staff’s unwanted behaviour is that they lack a mysterious ingredient… “Values.” When they make these pronouncements they fail to see some important, but inescapable truths that doom their efforts to instant failure.
Us vs. Them
Almost without fail, those who call for a change in values are older than the target group whose values must be changed. Often, they are simply talking about the “good old days” when people behaved themselves, murder was rare and your door could be left open all night. It was also a time (apparently) when workplace discipline was enforced, company loyalty was high and no-one complained about low wages.
However, a closer examination shows that the unluckiest Jamaicans at the time were born dark-skinned, female and to parents who were unmarried, but these historical facts are often overlooked in a rush of nostalgia.
The hard, heavy judgements being applied by those who call for value-based transformations are hidden from their sight, but are often quite obvious to the accused i.e. staff members who are supposed to be living values such as “Respect” or “Teamwork.” What often ends up happening is perverse.
Staff members who are presumed to “lack the values” end up learning a profound and lasting lesson in how to point fingers, be dogmatic and studiously avoid blame. New values indeed.
The Clueless Leading the Blind
What generally amazes me is that those who call for changes in the values of others have no experience in making such changes in their own lives. They make it sound easy… when in fact, my experience and the research on corporate culture change show that it takes place slowly and painstakingly. The blind, unfortunate targets of such transformation efforts silently complain: “If it’s so easy to change values, why don’t YOU show us how?”
It’s too bad that that question isn’t asked more often in corporate change efforts because it would put a halt to the nonsense that executives perpetuate in the name of Corporate Values. It would force leaders to put up or shut up, and convince them to perhaps undertake one or two personal experiments, just to see how hard it is to change a single value.
One thing they’ll realize is that there is no way to judge the presence or absence of a corporate value. How about lying to your boss? Well, was it done to avoid punishment, or to protect him/her from a crushing public opinion?
Because there are no hard measurements possible, we fool ourselves into believing that we have values when we don’t. Companies do it all the time on a massive scale. Enron…. “integrity.” JPS… “reasonably priced service / high customer satisfaction.”
An over-focus on corporate values creates imaginary destinations at which people in the real world cannot ever arrive.
Cutting the Confusion
While corporate-value preaching is an easy and inexpensive activity to implement, it’s better to simply stop talking about values. Instead, focus your staff on observable behaviours that everyone can agree on, anyone can measure and executives can demonstrate without suspending common sense. For example, instead of valuing “Wellness,” get more people to burn more calories each day in exercise programs that measure “total pounds lost” or ” average body-fat percentage lowered.”
Then, use the most recent research to put reinforcements in place that encourage the change, including publicising the executive team’s fitness data on the corporate intranet, accompanied by pictures and graphs of each manager’s progress. Or, use the principles of www.stickk.com and get people to bet on their success with live cash that gets refunded only if they meet their goals.
That’s the kind of commonsense creativity that companies require, but they might first need to officially shut up, and stop wasting time and effort making value-based complaints.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Lazy Jamaican Companies!?
A Regular Column
Good news — my sometime contributions in the Jamaica Gleaner newspaper are going to become a regular, bi-weekly column.
You may see some of the ideas presented in this blog being re-worked and updated, as I have the sense that I have a lot to say, and am restricted to 700 words each week!
i don’t know what day it will appear on — they’ll make a final decision once we get going.