May 2008 DeepInsights

RELATIONSHIPS for flawless execution come in many shapes and sizes. They are human, technical and environmental. Each requires oversight activities to sense when the specific relationship necessitates revisions.

HUMAN involvement is best when people understand the goal, commit to the goal and hold themselves accountable for performance. Often goals become clouded as time passes because dialogue dwindles. When dialogue dwindles, time is dedicated to doing WORK instead of understanding how the work contributes to reaching the goal. Time outs must be maintained to keep everyone focused on the big picture understanding who, what and how to assist those who are struggling to keep up.

TECHNICAL issues are often the cause of individual struggles. They require clear definition with active support. The answer may lie in training, equipment, outsourcing, consultation or revision to the goals that would make the technical issue irrelevant. Scheduled time outs are a great investment to determine root cause and solution.

ENVIRONMENTAL concerns are best thought of as outside influences that can be positive or negative. First, one must know their ecological system and what parts might influence their outcome, positive or negative. Second, assignments for observation should be made to determine if an event is noteworthy. Third, data should be reviewed in a collaborative setting to determine the effects on goals and execution.

HUMAN, technical and environmental issues left unattended will generate lack of goal clarity, weaken commitment, reduce initiative and sap creativity. The solution is discipline to schedule more not less dialogue in a knowledge workplace.

April 2008 Deep Insights

Succession planning is often thought through when crisis, chaos or an unexpected departure occurs. Organizations must be proactive to protect themselves, their customers, investors and personnel. An anticipatory succession strategy must exist within their culture for recruiting, developing and fostering loyalty.

Active recruiting of “like minded” people to begin their careers with your organization is critical to a successful succession strategy. Relationships formed with educational institutions, business organizations and through community activities are sources that require cultivation. Too often, these sources are left unattended or assigned to midlevel/senior management.
In fact, they should be assigned to the most recent recruits. Recruits speak the language of their source and are capable of telling other “like minded” people about their positive experiences within the organization.

Development of the personal and professional skills of new recruits allows an organization to promote from within. This succession strategy requires an environment for employees to grow while participating in the development of others and occurs best through mentoring. While mentoring is often thought of as a download exercise by those with experience, technology has broadened mentoring into an upload experience as well. New personnel bring skills only they know. Organizations must create development opportunities for those skills to be uploaded into the organization. Succession planning is mutually beneficial, benefiting the new recruit and the organization as the development process progresses.

If managed correctly, the recruiting and development process will create an anticipatory succession strategy within the culture of the organization. Recruits will recruit. The mentoring process will ensure that information and development occur by uploading and downloading. And, promotions from within will provide an organization with a ready supply of competent and loyal successors.

March 2008 Deep Insights

Management lives at the edge of peril; one side is success and the other failure. Decisions are constantly made that will keep the organization from stumbling into a vacuum of nothing. Success and failure can be equally dangerous if resources are not allocated through awareness, inclusion, feedback, development and participation.

If people in the organization are unaware of how their behavior benefits or distracts the organizations performance; Management has failed. Management must embrace a culture of transparency leading processes that drive inclusion. Once included people gain an awareness of their objectives and the behavior that breeds success will begin to take shape. Clarity of objectives will drive initiative to a higher level increasing performance to reach the organizations goals.

Good leaders will set transparent objectives and ask people to develop action plans to achieve success. Mechanisms will be structured to deliver transparent feedback for everyone to see each others performance. Transparent feed back will inevitable lead to a determination of where and when additional resource are required. When resources are allocated good leaders become active participants available for consultation. They embrace the perilous situation as an opportunity to further develop themselves and the personnel they are coaching. Everyone has a stake in the outcome.

Peril provides Management with the opportunity to seek out answers from people throughout the organization responsible for execution. Peril is a catalyst for organizations to embrace results not effort to become dedicated to transparency, collaboration finding the right way not the one way.

February 2008 Deep Insights

Sensing a company’s position in its environment is an art often forgotten, as managing acute crisis overpowers the pause required to achieve future goals. When current crisis overpowers a company’s ability to pause, energy is exhausted each day with little or no thought of tomorrow. How can a company avoid such pitfalls?

First, pause at set intervals to determine the company’s current state. During this pause, determine the company’s preparedness to function, preparedness to embrace issues with skills that meet the need. Identify skills that are unavailable and the choices that are available to fill them. Will these GAPS be filled through development, can they be resolved by outside talent or can they be mastered through an environmental change to make them irrelevant. Continued revisions must be made for energy to be spent on results.

Second, each pause must embrace issues beyond today. A company must sense the environment and its influence on tomorrow. A pause for analysis will determine what best of all worlds the company will participate in, in the future. What learning is required to be prepared to function productively in the future, what new processes lead to preparedness and how flexible are they? A successful company must understand that today’s answers are only valuable if tomorrow will be like yesterday. History is important; to the extent it leads one to embrace development for the future but can be an albatross if providing a sense of security.

Uncertainty is universal and can not be a scapegoat for avoiding a pause to understand ones environment. Sensing today and tomorrow, making choices for a company’s preparedness will lead to energy allocation for success.

January 2008 Deep Insights

PASSION is the internal desire to make contributions to causes that push us beyond our normal capabilities. No, it will not be without setbacks but we know we will reach our goal. Passion is energy.

Traveling the path driven by passion, information turns to knowledge, knowledge to action. The flow of information, knowledge and action reach a seamless stream where results become self-evident driving thirst for more. Time goes by; hours turn into days, days turn into weeks, weeks turn into months and months turn into years. Passion drives people to join and participate utilizing their strengths to their fullest, adding value, reaching beyond their goals. People learn to anticipate needs, building skills or finding them in new people adding value to achieve results. Experiments are the norm, not status quo, understanding environments where we act on goals for success. Occasionally when a person’s passion drifts or weakens departures occur, however, the process is one of encouraging outward movement bringing brilliant light upon a win-win for everyone.

PASSION elements are people’s desires, hopes, dreams and the resolve to stay the course while facing adversity. The elements are not derived from another’s point of view but by ones own beliefs. These elements are not created through fixing weaknesses but rather by allowing strengths to dominate, leading people’s passion into the limelight. Passionate people build an environment for others to succeed with them.

November 2007 Deep Insights

Successful creativity often is judged by winning or losing in the short term. These short sited creative wins become the criteria to judge others and the voice that speaks loudest. It becomes the standard overlooking sustainability for long term success but it fails to deliver.

Short term judgments of creativity are predicated on solving current issues quieting those who attempt to ensure longevity. The need to instantly and creatively solve a short term issue will overwhelm the need to establish long term value, consistency and trust. People who build short term creative solutions are often glamorized, written about and held in the highest esteem. Their criterion for success is then written for others. However, if that short term creative success falters, those who created and enjoyed the notoriety whimper into the shadows without a second thought from anyone. Long live the King, the King is dead.

Creativity over time is a goal that deserves more focus. Will what we are about to do maintain value, is there a consistency of purpose, does it follow core values and is it creating a level of mutual trust between all parties? A creative product is the result of discovery, attentive to lessons learned, merging insights into ideas and shutting out the voices demanding short term success criteria. Energy is dedicated to connecting past and present events and to envisioning a future where more value has been created.

Creativity is a way of being. It is embedded in an organization; it is a product of small, medium and long term success criteria. Creativity is an orchestra not a soloist. Creativity is a journey not a destination.

October 2007 Deep Insights

Performance evaluation begins by setting goals for the future, matching capabilities and talent against the goals and then structuring metrics to tell everyone if we are moving toward our goals.

Goals are the foundation of performance evaluations. Without goals all views of the here and now become subjective. Each view is determined by an individual who creates chaos. Goals allow people to know where they are expected to go and what part they will play. Goals serve as the impetus to develop new skills, discard outdated skills and enhance skills that are useful. Goals and skill development set the evaluation process in motion.

Assessment of capabilities against goals leads to the future success of the individual and company. When an individual learns where the company is headed, understands how his or her capabilities will or will not add value, a vision for what is needed arises. This vision is no longer an individual vision but a global vision in its formulation to achieve success for the company.

Metrics are the mirror for effort in motion to achieve individual and company goals. Metrics are interventions for everyone to focus on their efforts producing results. If results are not forthcoming, efforts must be redirected to ensure success. Transparency of metrics is the best of all worlds allowing people to make adjustments independently before goals are not met.

Performance judged against goals with metrics to forestall crisis will lead to individual and company success.