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Stop Treating R&D as a Luxury
You agree with the general concept of having new products and services to offer your customers. After all, a company that relies on stale stuff is likely to fail. But how do you put together an effective R&D plan when budgets are limited?
It sounds like something only the biggest companies overseas do. Most think that “Research and Development” are two luxury items to be indulged in when times are good. And Jamaica’s economy has not shown sustained GDP growth in years.
But what if R&D is just a fancy name for innovations you cannot afford to delay? Sadly, some only realise this in retrospect. Today, they are out of business because they failed to abandon old, obsolete thinking. How can your firm ensure that it doesn’t destroy value because it’s too slow to learn?
- Be Hyper-Curious About the End
Most of us remember when videotape rental companies did a booming business. To most, this appeared to be a great niche, with guaranteed traffic every weekend.
I happened to live in the US when Netflix arrived, offering the chance to rent a DVD by mail. Initially, it was inconvenient to send items through the post. Compared to renting a video from Blockbuster, it took longer and stuff could get lost.
Apparently Netflix agreed and tried to sell itself to Blockbuster…who literally laughed as they left in embarrassment.
A few years later, after they closed 9,000 stores, the smiles were replaced by tears.
In retrospect, it was all very obvious to see what was happening. Today, we shake our heads at their arrogance in disbelief. But are you committing the same mistake in your organisation?
If you accept the fact that it’s just a matter of time before your industry is disrupted, congratulations. You are ahead of the game. Consider that, in your company, a short-term plan, by itself, may not go far enough to show that the clock is ticking.
If you are really curious, you should have a plan for exiting each major line of business. Create a deadline date: the moment when you intend to earn your last dollar from the pertinent product or service.
Alongside this doomsday prediction should be a plan to launch a new category of product or service. Where should these timelines come from? Your long-term R&D plan, of course.
For example, immediately after making a record year of profits in 2000, Fuji Film’s research showed it had a 10-15-year end-game. Kodak also had fantastic sales, but was never curious enough about the future to take the right actions. Consequently, Fuji thrives in a whole different industry. Kodak is just a single tiny business, having destroyed an estimated US$9 billion of value.
- Allow Competing Alternatives in Your Planning
How should your company determine these choices?
In your next strategic planning session, ensure that you permit attendees to propose various visions of the future. (If team-members share the same age, gender and background, consider that to be an impediment.)
You want different points of view to emerge for your “Vision 2040”, for example. First, make sure you are all starting with the same facts. Then, invite advocates to describe their preferred future. Even if it makes others uncomfortable. Get them to share details as they paint a vivid picture and draw fellow participants in to expand it.
Do not squelch your colleagues.
When you have a number of candidate futures, stand back collectively and assess them, because it’s time to choose which one(s) to pursue.
In this moment of truth, you should be scared witless. Why? You could easily and unwittingly fall into the path of more videotapes. Or film.
In other words, you could doom your company. Or save it. Agonize if you will, but understand that your decision cannot easily be reversed. It’s just not the kind of choice that can be revisited whenever the breeze changes direction.
- Decide and kill off alternatives
Instead, treat this moment of selection as a final verdict which will assign time, money, manpower and other corporate resources. You are making a bet which has an unsure outcome, but understand that the team must be willing to stand by its selection.
However, this means that if major assumptions change, then it’s your duty to revisit the plan. But this should be rare.
Blackberry needed to do this when the iPhone turned out to be a serious threat, for example. Only a dose of humility would have saved it from obsolescence.
Unfortunately, this advice isn’t easy to take. Most shy away from the kind of hard conversations required until it’s too late.
Don’t disappoint your shareholders, employees, suppliers, pensioners, and other stakeholders by being slow or cowardly. Instead, make the difference by investing in your organisation’s future.
Francis Wade is the author of Perfect Time-Based Productivity, a keynote speaker and a management consultant. To search his prior columns on productivity, strategy, engagement and business processes, send email to columns@fwconsulting.com.
Planning for Profits vs. People vs. Purpose
You need to add a widget, row, or prebuilt layout before you’ll see anything here. 🙂
Like most other business-people, you have almost given up on the task of combining short-term and long-term strategic planning.
It’s not that you don’t believe in it at some level. You acknowledge there is value in thinking expansively and inspiring others with BHAGs (Big Hairy Audacious Goals).
At the same time, things are changing too fast nowadays. You can barely find time to focus on solving short-term problems, let alone anything pie-in-the-sky.
But what if the popular conventional wisdom, that long-term strategic planning is dead, is wrong?
What if there were huge gains to be made in the following areas from an interwoven short/long-term approach?
Area 1 – gaining competitive advantage by planning for horizons just a bit longer than others. (Amazon)
Area 2 – inspiring staff with commitments that create an irresistible future. (Unilever)
Area 3 – becoming a sustainable organization that takes care of its own, organic ESG concerns first. (CVS)
These areas could be the keys to unblocking multiple goals at once, while bypassing the worst tendency of companies to fall into short-termism.
In this webinar, you’ll be exposed to a practical method of doing interwoven short/long-term strategic planning. You’ll find out how to invest two or three days (rather than weeks) in a way that returns game-changing results. But maybe most importantly, you’ll be well-informed.
Register today.
Time: Thursday March 30, 2023, 12:30pm Eastern
Join Francis Wade, two-decade veteran of 50+ interwoven short/long-term strategic planning retreats in this one-hour introduction.
NB – Space is limited
Creating the Future
Have some people in your company become reaction-machines? In other words, do they run around all day responding to the latest crisis? Deep down, you know they are inefficient, but what can you do to shift to a culture in which the future is created rather than feared?
There is a debate raging within C-suites about the way companies should be led. Some believe that the world has become more VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous.) As such, it’s not possible to plan for the future.
Instead, all you can do is react to the latest disruption. And if you have any energy left over, look ahead…but only for no more than five years. COVID has made this opinion popular.
But I think it’s an excuse.
The opposing point of view is that individuals and companies need a vision of the future.
If you believe in the latter, and prefer to create the future, here are ways to persuade others who feel the activity is a waste of time.
1) You can’t stop creating the future
Fact: in any company, the leadership team is always shaping the future. It may be disjointed, muddled, and hidden from view, but there is a destination being realised with every decision. This can’t be helped.
The only question is, is it being done well or badly?
In essence, a future being realised badly is one that lacks definition, so no-one can put words to it. In fact, two managers might say opposite things when asked. “Survival” may be the only commitment they have in common.
So it’s a free-for-all, with some people playing football while the rest are playing cricket.
As such, there’s a lot of drama, with balls flying everywhere. At the end of the day, when everyone is exhausted, the action stops. Some balls will be near the boundary, others lie in the back of nets, but no-one can tell the score.
Consequently, when good employees sense that the vision is poorly defined, they leave.
2) Things will always change
Another excuse given to avoid planning for the future is that conditions alter too often. Why create another disappointment? Instead, desist from planning because it would only add to a string of prior letdowns.
I think our experience in Jamaica with Vision 2030 is instructive: a country which is “the place of choice to live, work, raise families and do business.” Even though governments have changed, and mishaps have occurred, it remains a single point of focus for our citizens.
Even though we have much to accomplish with limited time left, the reality is that it is still our shared goal…whatever comes to pass.
This puts things in perspective, and allows us to lift ourselves from the most recent shooting, drought or political conflict. As a leader, you can also give your workers a sense of purpose.
They need not surrender to the latest drama unfolding in their email inbox.
3) You don’t know how
But perhaps the most salient reason companies get stuck in the short-term is that long-term planning is too hard. It takes too long.
Furthermore, they see the end-product as overly detailed and rigid.
In my firm, we recently began a study of 50 past long-term strategic planning retreats. Based on two decades of experience, I am able to declare that the old point of view is outdated. Fortunately, both short and long-term strategies may be completed together in a few days.
This means that with the right skills, there should be no obstacles.
But don’t take my word for it. Chances are, you belong to an organisation which does not have a 15 to 30-year strategic plan. It could be your place of work, church you attend, or even an alumni group.
Make this practical – gather people together in a meeting to create a big vision, and a multi-year strategy to underpin it. As you engage in the process, follow the steps outlined in my Gleaner columns from February 5, 2023, and November 3, 2019 as guides.
Remember that the point is to inspire your team with the possibility of a breakthrough result.
This exercise will take you one step closer and help reverse the myth that life today is more uncertain than ever. It’s not true. In fact, the end of World War II was more hectic, but it led to the creation of a number of long-term institutions such as the United Nations and World Bank.
Our challenges in 2023 pale in comparison. Take practical steps to give your organisations an inspiring future today. Don’t hold back because you are scared or misinformed.
Francis Wade is the author of Perfect Time-Based Productivity, a keynote speaker and a management consultant. To search his prior columns on productivity, strategy, engagement and business processes, send email to columns@fwconsulting.com.
Why Your “Non-Specific Vision” Has Stopped Inspiring Staff
We all know what it’s like to be inspired by a vision of the future. It feels good, as if we are responding to a higher purpose. But why do corporate visions fall often flat?
In 1991, I led a vision statement exercise for my AT&T, New Jersey organization. The project took several weeks and included two workdays.
Over 50 persons in the department were involved. After a number of activities we (the planning team) felt quite proud of the final document. It was signed and mounted near the entrance.
We were energized. And wanted to do much more.
Fast forward to 2023, and now I admit that the hard work we did would be insufficient today. While the creation of a vision statement was a breakthrough activity at the time, it would hardly move the needle now. Why?
Things have changed. If you intend to motivate staff with a view of an inspiring future, you must use more precise tools. Here are some insights.
1. Follow the “Fool-Yourself Rule”
Thanks to Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp, Twitter, and Tik Tok, we are flooded with inspirational memes. Perhaps your friends also send 5-10 quotes with a pretty background each day.
Given the overwhelm, you probably aren’t as easy to arouse as you used to be. In fact, now you could be a bit jaded.
This isn’t a personal problem and there’s nothing wrong with you. The most likely explanation? You have raised the bar.
For example, statements that everyone can claim to be true don’t lift you up. Case in point: “Thankful I am near the top of my profession!”
Anyone can post this accolade on their timeline because it lacks specific measurements. It’s vague. Unclear. And falls flat.
Today, the same problem pervades corporate statements. Check your company’s vision. If it sounds as if it’s already been done, then it’s failing the test. So does the AT&T department vision of old.
Today, effective organizational visions prevent people from fooling themselves into thinking they have arrived. Instead, they create a useful tension because they evoke a clear gap.
2. Fill in the Details
Today, we are exposed to would-be inspirations via text, image, videos, audios, and interactives. Dynamic communicators use these elements to paint vivid portraits of their visions.
In like manner, we need to create detailed pictures of the future. For example, in addition to saying “a company that is diverse” we would say:
– no more than 50% of our staff comes from any tertiary institution.
– at least 35% of employees originate from other CARICOM countries.
– no single gender dominates new hires by more than 10%.
These specifics raise pointed questions such as: Why are these numbers chosen? What is the target year? What is today’s baseline?
They provoke a followup: “How will we get there?”
In the past, company leaders could get away by saying “Trust Me”. But those days are gone. Now, a written strategic plan must bridge the gap between today and tomorrow before employees buy in.
3. Detail the Steps
Use your strategic planning retreat to create a vision, give it details, and link it back to 2023 with a plan. Start with a structured, high-level brainstorm to bring everyone together on the same page around your vision. You can begin with words, but make sure it has a date such as Vision 2030 Jamaica.
Then, once agreement is reached, convert the words into metrics. What will be the KPI’s in the chosen year? Also, craft a list of interventions needed to move the numbers in the right direction.
Finally, use a modern tool – back casting – to connect your vision for the future with today in a single timeline. How does it work?
Simply start with the future and work back towards the present. For example, if you choose a 25 year target, start in 2048 and work backwards to this year.
But here’s an important tip – don’t try to do this exercise in a large group. Instead, hand-pick a small one.
During its deliberations, the smaller team crafts a logical and feasible timeline. It should be conservative. Easy to understand. And showcase a host of cause-and-effect relationships so that others can follow your logic.
But above all else, it must be credible. Now, any stakeholder can be taken through the long-term strategic plan and believe in it.
This is all a far cry from the vague vision statement we put up at the entrance at AT&T. That document had neither a target year, nor specifics, nor a means to accomplish its goals.
If your company is still parading a vague vision statement in its corridors, retire it. Create a new detailed vision for a specific year that energizes staff.
Francis Wade is the author of Perfect Time-Based Productivity, a keynote speaker and a management consultant. To search his prior columns on productivity, strategy, engagement and business processes, send email to columns@fwconsulting.com.
Ep 4 – MB#4 – – What’s the First Order of Business in Your Next Strategic Planning Retreat?
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Become a “Fair Witness”: In his book, Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert Heinlein
Richard Rumelt / The Crux: How Leaders Become Strategists (thecruxbook.com)
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Ep 3 – MB#3 Why Organizations Need to Stop Putting Lipstick (i.e. ESG Goals) on a Pig
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Best timeline for strategic plans
You are about to begin a fresh round of strategic planning. The team is eager, but before the retreat starts, you have a tricky decision. What length of time should your organization create a plan for?
Some already have strong opinions. The head of sales wants a 2-year plan. He needs the retreat to be short so he can go back to hitting his numbers.
At the other end of the spectrum, the V.P. of innovation and research wants some clear guidance on which technologies to pursue. The choices are wide, and a poor decision could doom the organization. She is thinking of a 40-50 year planning horizon.
They are both persuasive, but you need to make a choice. What are your next steps as the sponsor of the upcoming strategic planning retreat?
- Punt the Decision
Fortunately, there is an approach that relieves you of duress. Given the importance of the planning horizon, get the team to make the choice during the meeting. How does this work?
First, explain to them why this is critical – the specific year and time elapsed (e.g., 2043, 20 years). It’s a critical one that deserves the input of all involved. As such, it should be crafted in real-time, face to face, but only when all the facts are on the table.
Therefore, the act of choosing the horizon should not be the first item on the agenda. Instead, begin by following a process to share pertinent information from all areas together in one place so that the team has a common understanding. During this preliminary session, remind the team that the next session will require them to choose a planning horizon. Ask them to keep this in mind as they review past performance and today’s issues.
This should actually help them remain hopeful. Why? Some of your company’s challenges probably only have complex, long-term solutions. In prior meetings, leaders gave up because they didn’t have enough time available. Now, they do.
When the subsequent session begins, explain the mistake of choosing a planning horizon which is too short or too long. Offer them the following two “warnings” to help pick the optimal timeframe.
- The Too-Short Warning
Ask the team, “What happens if we choose a tiny horizon?” They may admit (after some reflection) that a 2 to 3-year plan will simply extend the past. Why? It’s only human.
They won’t say it out aloud, but people unconsciously prefer continuity and hate uncertainty. Our default mentality is to pick a predictable future. A short planning horizon keeps things comfortably the same.
But what about the power of a transformation? You should also remind them that if they don’t use time as a deep resource, they won’t create a Jim Collins-like Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG). Such objectives are meant to inspire and uplift. They give meaning and add resilience, especially to younger staff.
Also, with a short planning horizon, key problems which need time will remain unsolved. Plus, you’ll also be missing important trends. For example, a 5-year planning horizon blocks you from seeing developments which take 7 years to mature. By contrast, if your competitors consider a longer time frame, they might include the trend in their thinking to their advantage.
Finally, aggressive executives love short-time frames because they see it as a way to force staff to work harder, and achieve results sooner. The problem is that some projects (like pregnancy) can’t be rushed. Don’t pretend that magic is real, or you’ll see employees merely going through the motions, doing the minimum.
Why? At its heart, short-termism is a synonym for selfish leadership. “My current needs trump your future needs.” It’s as if the team is also saying, “Instead of making difficult decisions now, we will leave them for you young folk in the hope that you still have time.” It’s the very opposite of sustainable business thinking.
- The Too-Long Warning
Sometimes team members become true believers in long-term reasoning. They say “the more the merrier!” and call for a one-hundred year planning horizon. They may even cite examples of Asian organizations which do so.
However, you should take a look at your environment. Chances are, a planning horizon which is too long will mystify stakeholders who can’t relate. Instead of being inspired, they’ll become cynical.
Also, you might not have the resources or skills to plan too far out. Remember, whatever horizon you choose must be connected back to today.
Get your team to find consensus on the optimal time horizon in a healthy, real-time debate. It will set the stage for the success of your organization’s strategic plan.
Francis Wade is the author of Perfect Time-Based Productivity, a keynote speaker and a management consultant. To search his prior columns on productivity, strategy, engagement and business processes, send email to columns@fwconsulting.com.
Culture Still Eats Strategy for Breakfast
You have heard the saying that “Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast”. It has a ring of truth to it, but you don’t want to believe that strategic planning is futile – a victim of large, negative forces which cannot be overcome. But if it’s neither entirely right nor wrong, can we still use it?
The most depressing naysayers warn us that fancy plans can only go so far. Jamaican culture on a whole, or a specific corporate culture, will only allow so much change, but no more. But is this just a cynical way of looking at the world? Should it be discarded, or is there an element of truth that should be included in your planning for 2023?
After all, you don’t want to waste time shaping interventions meant to move the company forward, which could be doomed from the start.
In this context, what is culture made of? While there are many definitions, let’s assume that it comprises unconscious habits, practices, and routines. We all have them. And when we humans come together in an organisation, we can’t help but bring these elements, combining them into one.
For example, all companies have people who complain about being treated unfairly. Some leave their ruminations in the car park. Others spend most of their workdays kvetching to themselves. But our definition would focus on the complaints which are continually shared in workplace conversations.
By contrast, the occasional complainant, who resolves matters quickly, does not add to the culture. When a single problem is solved, it goes away.
This definition of culture is one your strategic planners should adopt. Why? Most teams I work with want to include some kind of cultural transformation in their long-term plans. Unfortunately, they lack expertise in this area. They only know enough to label organisations they have experienced from the past, judging some as superior, and others toxic.
However, they don’t know how to create a large-scale shift from one level to another. Without this expertise, their objective remains more of a hopeful wish than anything they can operationalise. To make things more concrete, here are some practical steps to take to forge the kind of culture that supports your strategic plan.
- Go Past Current “Values” and “Purpose” Statements
If your company hasn’t revamped its core statements in the last year, chances are they are no longer offering much guidance. In the worst cases, staff only use them to point out hypocrisy gaps…the places where your leaders are not walking their talk.
If you find yourself in this kind of situation, the standard advice is to undertake a refresh. Rather than driving up further cynicism and resignation, retire the statements and declare that they have done their job. Set up an effort to define new ones in light of a fresh strategy. Point out their purpose: to help accomplish a specific long-term vision.
This is Blue Ocean-style, opportunity creation at its finest.
But most leaders may still want the documents to be vague, echoing the tone of the ones they are replacing. Today’s best practice calls for a different approach. Instead of being ephemeral and high-level, look to define specific behaviours so they can’t be mistaken.
- Specific Behaviours Listed in the Corporate Strategic Plan
It may become clear as you do your planning that some of your corporate culture must be changed. For example, a culture of constant victimhood isn’t likely to be innovative and entrepreneurial…the behaviours your new strategy needs to succeed.
But these initial phrases are only clues. They aren’t detailed enough. Instead, take a deeper dive into the specific behaviours you want to change. Here, they need to pass the Video-Tape Test. If they can be enacted on film, then they are clear enough to be included in your strategic plan.
For example, a phrase like “responsibility” may fail the test because it doesn’t speak to a specific behaviour. By contrast, “I apologise to those I have wronged” is a specific behaviour which is undeniable.
It’s also one which can be trained, coached, measured and added into a performance system. As such, it becomes a tool to assist in accomplishing the strategic plan.
While you may group similar behaviours for ease of transmission, it’s important to be careful. Why?
The fact is, this isn’t about a change for its own sake. Instead, the planning team should see a clear cause-and-effect relationship between newly envisioned behaviours and critical elements of the strategy.
As such, these are carefully defined, culture-change projects designed to shift specific behaviours. Although such efforts are challenging, don’t allow them to languish or be eaten up by a toxic culture no-one supports.
What Role Does a Corporate Strategy Officer Play?
Your company is thinking about creating a new role: strategy specialist. This person should support the entire strategy creation cycle and help produce a strategic plan with impact. But what exactly should be that person’s responsibilities? What uncommon value should they add?
The challenge of filling this position is unique. Why? Strategy is the main job of the CEO or MD. They birth a new plan in a retreat or offsite, then ensure it gets implemented effectively. The effort is meant to define the future of the organization and accomplish outstanding results.
In many companies, the top executive is the only person who is consistently looking far ahead.
As such, strategy specialists are playing specific support roles. Here are some unique activities they should undertake.
- Manage and Change the Strategic Planning Process
The best practices for crafting a strategic plan are constantly in flux. For example, if you are still doing a SWOT analysis in your planning meetings in 2023, it’s a sign of outdated thinking.
The most qualified person to manage and update the strategic planning process in your company could be the strategy specialist. They can do the research needed to uncover improvements and test fresh technology. This keeps the process running efficiently, engaging participants along the way.
The truth is, it’s quite hard to create a great strategic plan with a bad process. Some may think it’s a matter of personality, but I differ. While a “strong” leader can make a difference, this is a group effort.
A strategy specialist recognizes this fact and knows that a top quality plan needs a wide range of employees to implement them. What holds them together is a well-defined process and skilled facilitation.
- Craft a Special Role During Implementation
When the planning cycle is over and implementation has begun, a strategy specialist needs to be wary of picking up the role of de facto project manager of “strategic initiatives.”
Instead, leave that role to the Project or Programme Management Office – PMO. This is, after all, their area of expertise. Alternately, focus on feeding the executive team with critical updates from outside. Here’s why it’s important.
Once a strategic plan has been completed, it’s not like adding another unit to a 1,000 home housing scheme. A carbon copy. Instead, it represents a compilation of brand new thinking.
As such, each strategic plan is built with a number of untested hypotheses, which themselves rest on a foundation of assumptions.
No-one can know for sure whether the hypotheses and assumptions are correct. But the strategy specialist must track whether they hold up as life unfolds.
In other words, long before an executive detects that there’s a huge threat to the current strategy, the specialist should have picked up early warning signs. In this sense, he/she is like a detective, scanning the horizon for bits of pertinent information which indicate a changing headwind.
It may be an industry trend. Or a fresh technology. Or a new government regulation. Perhaps a surprise competitor has emerged. These are all developments which threaten the foundations of the current strategy.
As such, they must be weighed and measured to determine if a revisit is necessary.
- Measure Implementation
At the same time specialists monitor the external world, they should ensure that the plan is taking root in the organization.
Most companies have past horror stories about strategic plans which were crafted, and sounded good on paper, but never reached implementation.
There are a number of pitfalls which can occur. Some have to do with a lack of accountability. There are difficult, feedback conversations which just don’t take place.
Part of the reason lies with a manager’s missing skills. But he/she also lacks data.
I recommend you use the Balanced Scorecard to measure how well your strategic plan is being implemented. It can also be used to test the assumptions and hypotheses within the plan.
In both cases, the company’s leaders can see at a glance whether implementation is actually taking place. But are they required to watch the numbers this closely?
Absolutely. Every single strategic plan is intended to move the needle in an organization. This change occurs at the expense of prior habits and priorities. The battle to make these changes is real.
The specialist ensures that this progress is being made. They also raise a flag when not enough is happening to ensure success.
In summary, the strategy specialist role is an unusual one that most organizations have not identified clearly. However, every serious organization must perform these functions. Even if they are all conducted by the CEO, they should never be allowed to fall through the cracks.