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How Your Organization Can Learn from Disruptions

If, like most leaders, you are struggling with the rude COVID-19 surprise, consider that this is just the beginning of a new normal. Some say there are other massive disruptions on the horizon. Perhaps one way to cope is to redefine what it means to be a learning organization.

Back in the early 1990’s I attended a training offered by Peter Senge’s company. He’s the author of The 5th Discipline – The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization. The concept was a great one – organizations needed to focus on learning in order to adapt to changing times. 

However, that was before the advent of email or the internet. In today’s context, what we thought were “changing times” looks to be quaint.

For example, in the past few weeks, as a leader you have been forced to become competent in pandemic crisis management. Consequently, you can now define a number of brand new terms: social distancing, self-quarantine and “non-essential worker.”

Furthermore, your organization has picked up some fresh skills, albeit in bits-and-pieces: scheduling staff to minimize contact, limiting viral transmissions, enabling work from home and determining critical functions.

To fill these gaps, you have spoken with other executives, listened to the business news, used Google searches, and perhaps even hired subject matter experts. Unfortunately, for most companies, this has been a hit-or-miss affair. In other words, your organizational learning has taken place by “Buck-Up.”


Some CEO’s thrive on high-stress challenges such as this one. But most people don’t. Instead, they want a systematic way to develop the skills and knowledge needed to coast through any future disruption. How can your organization respond effectively to the next challenge?

1. Learn from the Covad-19 Learning Gaps

The best leaders noticed that their organization was caught in a situation where critical knowledge was missing. Even if it had a generic disaster recovery plan, the nature of this disruption defies ones anticipated by textbooks.

Instead, leaders realize that the company which can learn quickly, especially in a crisis, would be the one that has the advantage. Rather than being stalled, it would rapidly assess the threat. The gaps found would be converted into learning content to be disseminated within hours to those who need to use it: board, stockholders, executives, managers, workers, customers, suppliers, et al.

Unfortunately, too many companies rely on the fact that the CEO is a smart, capable person. While this is often true (especially in small organizations) it’s a mistake to equate individual learning with organizational learning. 

The latter is far more powerful and seeks to equip the entire company with capabilities which endure long past the tenure of any particular person.

2. Empower a New Learning and Development Specialist

It’s one thing to identify the need for this kind of rapid learning, but the question is: “Who should manage it?” Most companies have shed whatever training people they once had in prior budget cuts. Plus, the landscape has changed. Years ago, employees sat in three-day Microsoft Windows or Excel workhops. Today, the idea of sitting in a classroom to learn how to use an app is a joke.

The need for this kind of trainer has disappeared.

However, at the same time, the requirement for someone to take charge of organizational learning in challenging moments is evident. But this is not the same small skill-set trainers used to have. What kind of capabilities should this individual possess?

3. The New Learning Skills

Today, this person would be a kind of crisis-manager, but not one that addresses the issue directly. Instead, they would be concerned with uncovering the learning that’s required to solve the problem in the mid-term, so that it never recurs. As such, they’d require a blend of technical and change management skills, plus the ability to respond within days, if not hours. 

In addition, this person should also be a quality diagnostician, able to discern the true learning gaps inherent in novel challenges. In a flash, they can analyze new technologies, alliances, distribution networks, supply chains, government regulations and other kinds of unique threats and opportunities. Due to the importance of their work, they would behave more like entrepreneurs than bureaucrats. 

Finally,  they would also need to think of innovative ways to get people to learn. A CTO-friend of mine developed a practice of assigning brand new technologies to members of his team.

Their job? To research the area and deliver a training program to his colleagues after a month or two of intense study. It was a low-tech solution to a very high-tech problem. This is a simple example. But it reflects the out-of-the-box thinking a learning expert would have to do to prepare your organization for its next rude surprise.

http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/business/20200322/francis-wade-learning-disruptions

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Why Strategic Planning is a Team Sport

As an executive, you must make an annual decision about your organization’s strategic plan. Should the exercise be done as a team, hire outsiders to perform a study,  or simply fall back on the CEO’s thinking? While there are pros and cons to each approach, one generally yields the best fruit.

Once your company successfully grows to a certain point, it must consider the long-term impact of its actions, and make a choice. Does it continue to allow the founder to drive the decisions on each major course of action? After all, he/she is the most knowledgeable person, and the only one who has the full-time job of thinking strategically.

However, even though CEOs are generally smart people, there comes a stage when their brilliance, and this tactic, only gets them into trouble. They find themselves alone in implementing their strategies. No-one else takes the time to understand or invest themselves emotionally. Instead, they sit back and wait for the Boss Man/Lady to do all the big-picture thinking…as usual.

In a small company with a “Snow White” organizational structure (i.e. a single strong extrovert surrounded by introverts) this approach can work. However, an enterprise that must grow by hiring talented people will eventually run into trouble. High performers either refuse to join, or leave after a few months.

An alternate tactic is to invite in an outsider. A consulting firm willingly does all the interviews, data gathering, analysis and report writing. The result is a beautifully packaged set of strategy recommendations.

However, they have actually done their client a disservice.

By undertaking the intellectual labour themselves, they also undermine the emotional commitment. In other words, by the end of the project, they believe in their ideas more than anyone else, especially those who must implement them. Even those who originally had the ideas are sidelined as they become branded by Consulting Firm X.

But there is a third tactic. You could treat the development of the strategic plan as a team exercise, like a sport: an effort in which each person must play their part. However, there are several pitfalls to this approach that need to be avoided.

1. Impartial Facilitation
The best event to forge final decisions is a strategic planning retreat. Unfortunately, most are little more than one of two extremes: a place to air opinions of all kinds without making any commitments, or a presentation of pre-agreed decisions in which people are “encouraged“ to buy-in. Neither produces satisfying results.

Instead, the most effective retreats allow consensus to build from the bottom-up. In most cases, this is best facilitated by an outsider who allows contentious issues to be brought up in a civil way that helps your team make final, binding decisions.

These new points of agreement are the entire purpose of the activity – to craft ultimate, difficult choices that close the door on other alternatives.

2. Immediate Capture
The second pitfall is to think that a hearty discussion is sufficient. In a tiny company, this approach may work as it’s easy to share information.

However, in a larger organization, these agreements must be translated into projects or initiatives which lead to wide-spread behavior changes. To ensure that this happens, your team should document the new strategy immediately after it makes decisions.

In other words, the written substance of each strategy cannot wait to be captured until the next day. If the team waits even a few hours to translate their decisions into words, you may learn the hard way that strategic conversations have a ridiculously short shelf-life. As soon as they are explored and completed, their essence begins to fade once a new conversation commences. 

The only option is for you to capture these conclusions immediately, before everyone scatters to go home.
Unfortunately, this approach is rarely taken because people believe that a fancy Strategy Report is the true final product. It’s not: the decisions your team made are far more important.

3. Instant Ownership
The last pitfall you could make is to leave the retreat without proper ownership being assigned. Overall responsibility isn’t enough: key activities may still languish due to a lack of personal accountability. 

The solution is simple: assign sponsors to each of your new initiatives, even if they don’t possess subject matter expertise. Their sole job is to shepherd the project until a manager is assigned. In fact, they may only relinquish their sponsorship years after the planning event, but when they play their role well, it keeps the retreat’s momentum going.

Every sport has its peculiar conventions and practices. Avoid these pitfalls and you increase the odds that your team will win.

http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/business/20200308/francis-wade-why-strategic-planning-team-sport

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The Power of Innovating on Unmet Needs

Innovation is hard. What is the hit-rate like for new products and services in your organization? If the track record is poor, then you may need to delve into the hidden drivers of behaviors in your target market.

Most innovation in Jamaica follows the same process. First, someone high enough in the company has a bright idea – a flash of insight. Their intuition tells them that there’s revenue to be made from customers who will willingly pay for a new offering.

Then, the idea is shared, but more often than not, a directive is issued. An employee in a lower position is given the job of evaluating the concept. They return with misgivings but it soon becomes clear that the high-level originator won’t be easily swayed. A final decision is made to proceed.

However, when the product fails in the market, everyone is mystified, except those employees closest to the prospects. They have their pulse on customer behavior, and can see the shortcomings of the idea clearly. However, they lack enough clout to make a difference.

Companies try to compensate for this power imbalance by surveying workers for ideas, but the truth is that lower-level staff often draw a blank when polled for new product suggestions. They just don’t have the skills to speak to the executive suite. Fortunately, there’s a better way.

At the heart of Tony Ulwick’s “Jobs to be Done” theory is the idea that everyone is going about their daily routine trying to get certain tasks executed. Here is a method that links this notion to innovation.

1. Ask for Unmet Needs

An “unmet need” is expressed as a three-part statement: “When I feel/need__________ I want to ____________ so that____________.” In other words, it’s an expression of a psychological state lying deep within the customer’s experience which then leads to action.

While this desire may be weak at the start, if it continues to be unmet it grows until an actionable decision is made.

Consider that customers of your company are a walking bundle of unmet needs. Normally, your marketing department would simply assign them to a well-defined segment. Set that approach aside and, instead, start looking for unmet, emotional drivers.

The challenge is that customers cannot be surveyed directly about their deeper, driving feelings. Why? People give unreliable answers in questionnaires, often telling the surveyor the answers they believe the person wants to hear.

Alternately, it’s far better to have a conversation with customers about their actions, then gently probe them for the reasons behind them. Their explanations may be unclear, but their past behaviour offers important clues. Keep asking until a pattern of actions and underlying emotions emerges.

2. Look for Substitutes

Strong unmet needs cause people to take concrete steps, even if it only leads them to partial, temporary substitutes.

By definition, the fact that the need persists means that the substitute is doing a poor job. For example, someone who has a feeling for some quick, new ideas to use in their organization may go searching on television, the local bookstore or Facebook. While these substitutes are all readily available and inexpensive, they are time consuming and foreign, so the need never gets fulfilled.

Therefore, your new product or service should be so well-crafted that it displaces the substitutes currently in use. They are, in fact your real enemies.

Take this fortnightly business column as an example. At first blush, you may think that another newspaper represents the competition. However, when I performed the Ulwick analysis I realized that the real competitors are television, books and Facebook.

From a traditional point of view, these conclusions makes no sense. Yet, in the customer’s world, the psychological gap that drives them to these substitutes has its own, perfect logic.

3. Use Benefit Statements

Closing the psychological gap isn’t easy. In fact, innovators often have a difficult time articulating the emotional-filled reasons their new product or service improves the customer’s life.

However, once the unmet needs and substitutes are known, the task becomes easier. For example, one benefit of reading this column regularly might be that “It gives you fresh ideas for your Jamaican organization with a minimum investment of effort, so you don’t have to waste precious time searching the internet.”

Contrast this approach with that taken by traditional marketers who imagine distinct market segments. These are usually formed around demographic data such as “an employed woman between the ages of 30-45 with two children and a bachelor’s degree.” Unfortunately, segments don’t work as well because people are actually individually and psychologically motivated by unmet needs in particular circumstances. Not by generic characteristics.

In summary, use these three insights to dramatically improve your connection with your prospect’s hidden motivators.

http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/business/20191117/frances-wade-innovating-unmet-needs

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On Separating Breakthrough Strategic Plans from the Others

Have you ever been presented with a strategy document that appears to be nothing more than a list of projects? If so, the good news is that you aren’t crazy if you thought that something was missing. A sound plan is more than a grab bag – it should bring an intangible hypothesis to life in words and images that staff members can use in their daily activities.

On an assignment recently, I was asked to look at a strategic plan put together by a public sector organization. Fortunately, it had all the boxes ticked. Every single item was cross-referenced with Vision 2030 Jamaica, United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals plus a number of other guidelines set by esteemed international bodies.

However, there was a gaping hole. The plan lacked any connection between detailed project plans and the reasons they were created in the first place. Apparently, the consultants who assembled these projects left out an important activity, such that employees were forced to take empty steps. With little emotional or logical guidance to the original ideas, they were going through the motions, but missing the point. How can you ensure this never happens to your team?

1. Stick to Breakthrough Goals

If your strategic planning team isn’t intent on crafting breakthroughs, then cancel the retreat. Save your North Coast hotel money and just follow business as usual. If the idea of producing breakthroughs sounds daunting, it should. By definition, these stretch targets don’t produce themselves, yet they are the reason leaders are appointed. Even with little explicit training in how to do so, executives are expected to realize the unimaginable and unforeseen.

One method I use to move leadership teams into this zone is logical: I request that they step into and create a specific 15-30 year future. I ask: “What are you willing to create?” and “How does it translate into numbers?”

As they follow the process to sketch out these results by the chosen year, they naturally produce stretch targets which cannot occur by accident.

To find an example of a breakthrough commitment, look no further than Vision 2030 Jamaica: “…the place of choice to live, work, raise families and do business”. We can probably all agree that this extraordinary outcome has no chance of being realized by routine actions.


2. Fire-Test and Adjust Breakthrough Commitments

The big problem leaders have when sharing such lofty targets is that the first reaction is one of disbelief. People hear the words and immediately dismiss them as fantastical; to be ignored.

A good way to alleviate this pressure is to build a logical bridge between the future to the present. This can be done by back-casting – working one’s way back to the present using the current day facts and future targets as anchors on opposite ends. Unfortunately, teams sometimes discover that such a connection is impossible to build. It could be that the goals, when taken together as a whole, are infeasible.

In this case, they must be readjusted in order to remain credible, a task leaders must undertake to retain their followership. This simple act restores trust: it’s the opposite of the nonsensical “I Don’t Care, Do It Anyway” pressure that some managers try to apply.


3. Preserve the Emotional Connection

Perhaps the hardest challenge is to help project teams who are executing each day to retain their link to the original intent of the Breakthrough Goal.

For example, I have met few at the lowest or even mid-levels of the public sector who are inspired by Vision 2030. Even though it articulates our citizens’ deepest commitments, it has gotten lost in mundane business-as-usual execution.

One approach to retain the link is to explain executive reasoning in words, images, videos and interactives. Together, they show how the Breakthrough Goals of the organization were derived in tones which are both logical and emotional, making them easy to understand.

Another way is to give staff the means to translate Breakthrough Goals into personal objectives. This exercise helps them retain the underlying intent, but own the outcome for themselves.

If your organization is looking at a list of projects which don’t add up to more than an empty bunch of activities, consider that your leaders skipped a task along the way. Instead, take actions to restore them. Trust that staff who appear to be merely going through the motions can be inspired. Shift to seeing them as people who are waiting for you and your fellow managers to step up and lead.

Like many solutions of this nature, the best examples are wrought from the very top of the organization. Leaders must tell the truth about their own lack of inspiration if they are to forge the kind of commitment which leads to sacrifices and risk-taking. These are a few of the essential ingredients needed to see a breakthrough goal become a reality.

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On Separating Breakthrough Strategic Plans from the Others

Have you ever been presented with a strategy document that appears to be nothing more than a list of projects? If so, the good news is that you aren’t crazy if you thought that something was missing. A sound plan is more than a grab bag – it should bring an intangible hypothesis to life in words and images that staff members can use in their daily activities.

On an assignment recently, I was asked to look at a strategic plan put together by a public sector organization. Fortunately, it had all the boxes ticked. Every single item was cross-referenced with Vision 2030 Jamaica, United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals plus a number of other guidelines set by esteemed international bodies.

However, there was a gaping hole. The plan lacked any connection between detailed project plans and the reasons they were created in the first place. Apparently, the consultants who assembled these projects left out an important activity, such that employees were forced to take empty steps. With little emotional or logical guidance to the original ideas, they were going through the motions, but missing the point. How can you ensure this never happens to your team?

1. Stick to Breakthrough Goals

If your strategic planning team isn’t intent on crafting breakthroughs, then cancel the retreat. Save your North Coast hotel money and just follow business as usual. If the idea of producing breakthroughs sounds daunting, it should. By definition, these stretch targets don’t produce themselves, yet they are the reason leaders are appointed. Even with little explicit training in how to do so, executives are expected to realize the unimaginable and unforeseen.

One method I use to move leadership teams into this zone is logical: I request that they step into and create a specific 15-30 year future. I ask: “What are you willing to create?” and “How does it translate into numbers?”

As they follow the process to sketch out these results by the chosen year, they naturally produce stretch targets which cannot occur by accident.
To find an example of a breakthrough commitment, look no further than Vision 2030 Jamaica: “…the place of choice to live, work, raise families and do business”. We can probably all agree that this extraordinary outcome has no chance of being realized by routine actions.

2. Fire-Test and Adjust Breakthrough Commitments

The big problem leaders have when sharing such lofty targets is that the first reaction is one of disbelief. People hear the words and immediately dismiss them as fantastical; to be ignored.

A good way to alleviate this pressure is to build a logical bridge between the future to the present. This can be done by back-casting – working one’s way back to the present using the current day facts and future targets as anchors on opposite ends. Unfortunately, teams sometimes discover that such a connection is impossible to build. It could be that the goals, when taken together as a whole, are infeasible.

In this case, they must be readjusted in order to remain credible, a task leaders must undertake to retain their followership. This simple act restores trust: it’s the opposite of the nonsensical “I Don’t Care, Do It Anyway” pressure that some managers try to apply.

3. Preserve the Emotional Connection

Perhaps the hardest challenge is to help project teams who are executing each day to retain their link to the original intent of the Breakthrough Goal.
For example, I have met few at the lowest or even mid-levels of the public sector who are inspired by Vision 2030. Even though it articulates our citizens’ deepest commitments, it has gotten lost in mundane business-as-usual execution.

One approach to retain the link is to explain executive reasoning in words, images, videos and interactives. Together, they show how the Breakthrough Goals of the organization were derived in tones which are both logical and emotional, making them easy to understand.

Another way is to give staff the means to translate Breakthrough Goals into personal objectives. This exercise helps them retain the underlying intent, but own the outcome for themselves.

If your organization is looking at a list of projects which don’t add up to more than an empty bunch of activities, consider that your leaders skipped a task along the way. Instead, take actions to restore them. Trust that staff who appear to be merely going through the motions can be inspired. Shift to seeing them as people who are waiting for you and your fellow managers to step up and lead.

Like many solutions of this nature, the best examples are wrought from the very top of the organization. Leaders must tell the truth about their own lack of inspiration if they are to forge the kind of commitment which leads to sacrifices and risk-taking. These are a few of the essential ingredients needed to see a breakthrough goal become a reality.

http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/business/20191103/francis-wade-separating-breakthrough-strategic-plans-herd

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The Art of Being Strategic

Why is it that strategic plans often languish on the shelf? Some would say it’s a matter of lazy executives but experience shows that it has more to do with creating the right context from the start.

A client I work with has an idea: “let’s put up our own website.” At first blush, it makes sense. Every organisation has one. It’s an easy, inexpensive way to let the world know you exist.

However, a brief survey of websites of similar organisations reveals an inconvenient truth: they are all embarrassingly stale.  The layouts look tired. Not a single site is current, or has been updated in ages. Whoever had the original vision has long gone, leaving behind an obsolete artefact.
But it’s likely that when the idea was first pursued, people were excited. They invested personal energy in the project and when it was done, felt satisfied that their vision had come to life.

Unfortunately, they also made a deadly mistake. In their minds, the purpose of the activity was to produce an object (a website) versus to launch a process (a way to keep staff in touch with the public.) In other words, the context they created for the project was limited.

This particular error happens every day. Imagine the typical family. The kids want to adopt a dog, but their parents refuse. The fact is, the older, wiser heads know that owning a pet is more than possessing an animal object. It also means engaging in a process of feeding, exercising and cleaning that takes time and money. They understand that this job is likely to fall into their laps when their children lose interest.

As adults, they see the real cost.

This also happens in strategic planning retreats when companies try to compress the activity into a single day. It’s possible to create a report in this time-frame if the team focuses solely on producing unlimited visions of the future. They walk away feeling inspired, as if they have just adopted a dog or launched a website.

However, the typical second day is usually focused on adding in real-life constraints – the true cost. Once they are included in the plan, tradeoffs must be considered which lead to the team making difficult decisions. Among them is a choice to kill certain initiatives.

The sad reality? There just isn’t enough time, manpower, money or energy to accomplish all the goals set on day one. That initial mood of boundless creativity must be balanced.

Apart from spending two days on this activity, what else is required to be strategic versus just producing a plan?

1. A Context of “Being Strategic”
Paradoxically, the main output of each planning exercise may not be the plan. Perhaps, it’s better understood as the start of a process which engages everyone.

In this process, a new paradigm is introduced which reshapes everyday work. Now, instead of simply doing their job, an employee is doing so for a greater purpose which inspires them.

This means that the plan should be changed as often as necessary in order to play its role as a guide for daily actions. These updates keep it fresh and relevant.

Some companies unwittingly rob employees of learning how to “be strategic.” First, they  hire outsiders to write their strategy. When the final document (the object) is handed over, the company finds itself unable to execute because no-one possesses the requisite way of being to be successful. It disappeared out the door with the consultants.

2. Make Concrete Commitments
In prior columns I accused executives of failing to treat their time with the same level of rigour as they do their budgets. Consequently, their strategic plans are unrealistic and are treated as if they can all drop their overfull schedules at a moment’s notice.

One antidote is to book the same time in each executive’s calendar for implementation: e.g. Monday morning from 9-12 am. Doing so means cancelling or delegating existing commitments. It’s a way to ensure that the new projects and processes in the plan have a chance of survival in the real, post-retreat world.

3. Make Behaviour and Process Changes
Pay attention to those strategic initiatives which are as painful to implement as the challenge of learning to write cursive with your non-dominant hand. At both the individual and corporate levels, old habits and processes will assert themselves, resisting the planned changes.

Instead, put in place new systems for performance management, rewards, recognition, training and automation. Hardwire these improvements to reduce the possibility of failure.

Part of being strategic is acknowledging all these obstacles and finding ways to work around them. Admittedly, they are harder than simply producing a document but they will ensure that your plan is realistic and provide a unique pathway to future success.

http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/business/20190714/francis-wade-art-being-strategic

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Why It‘s Time to Ban the SWOT from Your Next Retreat

Does the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities  and Threats (SWOT) technique deserve it‘s accepted place in your next strategic planning retreat? Maybe not. There are more precise ways to understand the current state of the business that take less time and use more facts.

My recommendation: If you are leading your organization‘s next planning exercise, lift things up a notch by omitting the SWOT activity from the agenda. There are three reasons why this list-making activity needs to be transformed.

1. It’s just an opinion survey

When people cough up strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats they are merely offering opinions. While there are facts sitting in the background somewhere, the truth is that the exercise is based on opposable points of view, even allowing items to show up in multiple lists. For example, a reality such as “We have five employees” could fit into any of the four categories, construing it as either a “pro” or a “con”.

Given the fact that anyone can have an opinion about anything, merely accumulating these arbitrary points of view is a low-quality exercise. Discussing and debating them at length only reduces your meeting to a talk-shop.

2. It anchors the team in old thinking

The purpose of a well-designed retreat is to establish a clean break from the past. By contrast, the SWOT activity does the very opposite. Why? It merely asks people to rehash old, familiar lines of thinking. This reinforces the emotional link to whatever former strategy happened to be in place, which in turn, makes it harder to create a fresh one.

For example, imagine what happens when the team lists the fact that having five employees is a weakness. Now, it’s difficult to see it as a strength, which it may be in the context of a fast-changing industry. Stating the old concept as the solid truth only stands in the way of realizing a new paradigm.


3. It takes too much time

As the designer of the retreat, you are probably painfully aware that time is a scarce commodity. A SWOT survey gets people talking, but it requires several hours of precious space to collect the group’s point of view, collate and present it. This time could be better spent doing deeper dives into hard data.

Given these three shortcomings (which many executives already quietly realize) why does the exercise continue to be so popular? As a retreat organizer, you may have the answer: because it‘s easy.

Not only is a choice to do the activity never challenged, those who participate are unlikely to challenge each other during the exercise. Unfortunately, this avoidance tactic violates research showing that a group must struggle to produce good, new ideas. Here are some recommendations I make to solve the dilemma of coming to agreement without taking a shortcut.

1. Do the SWOT Survey Online, Before the Retreat

My clients do these surveys before retreats, as part of our data gathering and include all employees. The most salient results are summarized in the meeting within 15 minutes, which saves time and effort.

2. Facilitate a Current Snapshot

Perhaps the original intent of the SWOT was to gain an understanding of the present state of the business. This picture is still needed, but it must be fact-based.

As I have explained in a prior column, your snapshot can be pulled together using different perspectives: financial, customer/competitor, operations and employees. Add in an analysis of the external environment with the PESTER views, (Political, Environmental, Sociological, Technological, Economic and Regulatory), taking special note that technology is emerging as the most critical outside factor.

At first glance, this may seem like a dull recitation of boring data. However, the point is to understand (as a team) the story the facts are telling. Inevitably, this will include a robust discussion of various strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats but there‘s no need to group them. Instead, let the information do the talking, rather than hasty opinions, and weave the four SWOT themes into the narrative. Invariably, the tale the data tells is nuanced, filled with ups and downs, polarities, discrepancies and paradoxes. Only a team of insiders with a deep appreciation of the organization and their individual speciality can fully pull it together. Certainly, an outside consultant can’t.

Of course, there are companies which attempt to skip the snapshot altogether and jump right into planning the future. Unfortunately, doing so yields pipe dreams with no foundation in reality. It reduces the trust needed to make a risky move.

In summary, it takes a concerted effort to have everyone on the team see the company’s current position from a joined-up point of view. However, it’s more than a team-building activity: It’s also an evaluation of the status quo which is the first step to carving out a transformative strategy. Don’t block a big change which needs to happen with a costly SWOT mistake.

http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/business/20190519/francis-wade-ban-swot-your-next-retreat

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Why Some Leaders Hate Long-Term Planning

Why do some managers hate to make long-term plans for their business? The hidden secret is their deep fear of failure but there‘s a way to be confident about their team’s quality of visionary thinking.

Vague aspirations to “Become World-Class” will always drive some portion of your employees crazy. Even if it happens on a grand scale, the answer isn’t to abandon visionary thinking.

Fortunately, the Jamaican Government’s Vision 2030 avoids these perils by having both clear measurable targets and a specific end-date. Without these two components, it would be just be wishful a bunch of thoughts…fairy tales with no basis in reality.

However, most managers under-estimate the effort to produce such detailed targets. They struggle, but don’t understand why. One reason relates to a lack of harmony between two opposing camps: Dreamers and Realists. Your team is best served when a drive for inspiration (i.e. Dreaming) is balanced by a need to be practical (i.e. being Realistic). Here are three steps to include in your next planning meeting.

Being Inspirational through the Details

If you have noticed that most of your employees have lost the zest for Dreamer-led Rah-Rah / “Being Number One” chest-beating, you may ask: “Why did it become passe?” In short, it doesn‘t do well in today‘s world where authenticity is the main currency.

They see such lofty goals as inauthentic because they lack specific, measurable characteristics. As a result, it ruins their credibility, reducing them to having no more significance than an idle knock in table tennis, or a meaningless game of solitaire played just to kill time.

Today, your employees expect real engagement which must be linked to clear performance feedback which is objectively measured. Such black and white targets tell them whether they have won or lost, not only individually, but on a corporate scale.

In the case of Jamaica 2030 there was, I imagine, a long hard distance to go from becoming “the place of choice to live, work, raise families and do business” to defining multiple, explicit targets for specific sectors. It’s exactly the tough task many executive teams are unwilling to do. Instead, they try to take lazy shortcuts. For example, it‘s popular to get each department to come up with its own goals, then ask a clerk to pull them together in a final document.

At first blush, this approach may seem logical, or efficient. However, the end-product ends up being little more than a grab-bag of bits and pieces. This Frankenstein plan is exactly what Realists fear the most because the lack of practical coherence dooms it to failure.

Allowing Brutal Reality to Trim Dreams

Some Realists feel so strongly that they block or boycott planning retreats altogether. Instead, they argue that today is the best guide to tomorrow and advocate no more than annual budgeting. Implicit in this approach is the assumption that competitive advantage was decided in the past, and won’t change.

This dangerous idea is usually not spoken out aloud…until it’s too late. Like Cable and Wireless of old, they deny the arrival of an impending Digicel, thereby facilitating their competition’s success.

Unfortunately, most executive teams never resolve the difficult tension between Dreamers and Realists, preferring to allow one side to “win”.

The way out of this zero-sum game is to balance the time devoted to each camp during your next strategic planning retreat. When you create your agenda, build this in: ask everyone to Dream, then stop. Pause, and then provoke participants to trim the vision by making it Real. In other words, allow each approach to run its full course before switching from one to the other. The fact is, both are important, but they are impossible to reconcile simultaneously in a workshop setting.

Time and Discipline to Balance Both Activities

Most executives don’t appreciate this delicate balance. Instead, if you belong to one group, you are likely to point fingers at the other, complaining that time spent in their preferred zone is wasted. As a result, I often find myself in the middle, arguing for a balance. This means pointing out the pitfalls of “short” retreats. I explain why we no longer offer them: they favor one camp over the other, producing a weak strategy which is neither rigorous nor durable.

In other words, trying to focus exclusively on Dreamers or Realists defeats the purpose. The point of such sessions is to make the most difficult decisions regarding the future of the company. Bringing both camps together is just one of the critical end-products.

Teams who realize this fact produce miracles: building inspiring long-term plans based on realistic short-term commitments. While it’s a hard result to generate in a mixed group, this balanced approach is the best way to craft sustainable competitive advantage.

http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/business/20190324/francis-wade-hidden-secret-leaders-who-hate-long-term-planning

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Why Strategic Planning Offers Team-Building Opportunities

Why is it said that a well-conducted strategic planning retreat can be the best executive team-building session ever? What elements should you include so that the time spent helps participants work better than before?

First, you must start by setting aside any recent, fluffy definition of “team-building”: it’s  become synonymous with “entertaining.” For many it means “changing out of work clothes to engage in an activity completely unrelated to the job”. Here in the Caribbean activities such as paintball, casino nights, church services and Soca parties have all earned the label, even as they deliver a “feel-good” experience.

However, many executives are not amused. They see it as unproductive, a way to bribe employees by giving them some fun (they supposedly want) in exchange for doing work (which they don’t really want.) This perverse logic represents old thinking. It comes from a time when productivity had to be coerced.

By contrast, the highest performers who typically make it to the executive ranks are already motivated. For them, team building shouldn’t be a break from work. Instea, it should enhance it by giving them a focused, intense opportunity to fix communication problems, deal with unresolved issues and learn new soft skills.

However, if you are designing such an outcome, don’t expect it to be easy. The best way to start is by focusing on observable behaviors which are missing. Once they are identified, provide your trainees the chance to practice them in a safe environment. Think of it as the equivalent of sparring with a partner in boxing, practicing in the nets in cricket or doing 100 free throws in basketball practice. Repetition, especially under the watchful eye of a demanding coach, works.

A strategic planning retreat, due to its intense nature, can be engineered to produce such outcomes. Here’s how you do it.

1. Recast the Retreat as a Balance

The worst mental model to have of a strategic planning retreat is to think of it as a round-about way to develop a key document. In fact, it’s easier to get the CEO or consultant to just sit down over a weekend and type away until the task is done.

When convinced by others, some leaders condescend to conducting a full team retreat just to get other people to agree to their ideas. In these settings, the event is simply a rubber stamp. The goal of including colleagues is to sell them on the CEO’s or consultant’s brilliance.

By contrast, an authentic retreat which infuses team-building at every step views the process of developing the details as co-equal with the final product. When they are both respected, you can achieve a fine balance between engaging participants and upholding the quality of the end result.

2. Use the Retreat to Engage and Train

The best process to create a group strategy involves two kinds of thinking activities. The first, “divergence”, means generating new ideas. The second, “convergence”, is the activity of bringing about agreement between different parties.

In a strategic planning retreat, it’s possible for you to emphasize these two opposite phases, teaching participants how to recognize each one. Now, they can learn the relevant skills within each activity and how to switch between them.

In particular, convergence is fraught with danger. In these phases, a good retreat should have moments when the fight for contending ideas becomes fierce. After all, the stakes are high and people from separate disciplines see the same facts with the special lenses they have been trained to use.

Don‘t be like members of weak teams which try to avoid such tussles by putting decisions to a vote. Effective groups work out their differences in an open discussion. Before doing so, take your participants through a self-evaluation of the specific skills needed when diverging or converging. As they make progress towards the end result, get them to reflect on how to improve them in real time.

The truth is that a strategic planning retreat is actually made up of everyday conversations. It’s just that you can seize the opportunity for participants to reflect on the quality of these discussions as well as the final output.

If you also provide an experienced coach to give feedback in the moment, that’s a huge bonus. She should encourage each person to take risks, to try out fresh skills. Expect some new behavior changes to occur in real-time that stick around for years to come.

The bottom line is that a strategic planning retreat is an ideal chance to practice and up-level everyday executive skills. By the end, the benefits the company gains far exceed that of the best party or outside exercise. That’s real team-building.

http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/business/20190224/francis-wade-strategic-retreats-best-team-building

Posted on

Why Strategic Planning Offers Team-Building Opportunities

Why is it said that a well-conducted strategic planning retreat can be the best executive team-building session ever? What elements should you include so that the time spent helps participants work better than before?

First, you must start by setting aside any recent, fluffy definition of “team-building”: it’s  become synonymous with “entertaining.” For many it means “changing out of work clothes to engage in an activity completely unrelated to the job”. Here in the Caribbean activities such as paintball, casino nights, church services and Soca parties have all earned the label, even as they deliver a “feel-good” experience.

However, many executives are not amused. They see it as unproductive, a way to bribe employees by giving them some fun (they supposedly want) in exchange for doing work (which they don’t really want.) This perverse logic represents old thinking. It comes from a time when productivity had to be coerced.

By contrast, the highest performers who typically make it to the executive ranks are already motivated. For them, team building shouldn’t be a break from work. Instea, it should enhance it by giving them a focused, intense opportunity to fix communication problems, deal with unresolved issues and learn new soft skills.

However, if you are designing such an outcome, don’t expect it to be easy. The best way to start is by focusing on observable behaviors which are missing. Once they are identified, provide your trainees the chance to practice them in a safe environment. Think of it as the equivalent of sparring with a partner in boxing, practicing in the nets in cricket or doing 100 free throws in basketball practice. Repetition, especially under the watchful eye of a demanding coach, works.

A strategic planning retreat, due to its intense nature, can be engineered to produce such outcomes. Here’s how you do it.

1. Recast the Retreat as a Balance

The worst mental model to have of a strategic planning retreat is to think of it as a round-about way to develop a key document. In fact, it’s easier to get the CEO or consultant to just sit down over a weekend and type away until the task is done.

When convinced by others, some leaders condescend to conducting a full team retreat just to get other people to agree to their ideas. In these settings, the event is simply a rubber stamp. The goal of including colleagues is to sell them on the CEO’s or consultant’s brilliance.

By contrast, an authentic retreat which infuses team-building at every step views the process of developing the details as co-equal with the final product. When they are both respected, you can achieve a fine balance between engaging participants and upholding the quality of the end result.

2. Use the Retreat to Engage and Train

The best process to create a group strategy involves two kinds of thinking activities. The first, “divergence”, means generating new ideas. The second, “convergence”, is the activity of bringing about agreement between different parties.

In a strategic planning retreat, it’s possible for you to emphasize these two opposite phases, teaching participants how to recognize each one. Now, they can learn the relevant skills within each activity and how to switch between them.

In particular, convergence is fraught with danger. In these phases, a good retreat should have moments when the fight for contending ideas becomes fierce. After all, the stakes are high and people from separate disciplines see the same facts with the special lenses they have been trained to use.

Don‘t be like members of weak teams which try to avoid such tussles by putting decisions to a vote. Effective groups work out their differences in an open discussion. Before doing so, take your participants through a self-evaluation of the specific skills needed when diverging or converging. As they make progress towards the end result, get them to reflect on how to improve them in real time.

The truth is that a strategic planning retreat is actually made up of everyday conversations. It’s just that you can seize the opportunity for participants to reflect on the quality of these discussions as well as the final output.

If you also provide an experienced coach to give feedback in the moment, that’s a huge bonus. She should encourage each person to take risks, to try out fresh skills. Expect some new behavior changes to occur in real-time that stick around for years to come.

The bottom line is that a strategic planning retreat is an ideal chance to practice and up-level everyday executive skills. By the end, the benefits the company gains far exceed that of the best party or outside exercise. That’s real team-building.

http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/business/20190224/francis-wade-strategic-retreats-best-team-building