Every organization has politics. Every business has a power base and a structure. And every organization has internal and external barriers that need to be straddled, worked-around or overcome. This often means that success comes not from following the rules but from delivering outcomes. And this also means that success also comes with inherent failure – after all, governance processes are in place for good and valid reasons.
But as we reach the last quarter of the year, leaders will be turning their attention to closing what business they can before the year end, as well as planning for the new year ahead. With the economy remaining tight, we may be tempted to focus only on the short term – securing business, bringing in every last dollar of revenue and squeezing out extraneous costs – leaving the 2010 plan open ended or only half-baked. If you find yourself in this situation, you may want to consider what I call “Do-able Strategy”.
- Direct business engagement – work with your leadership team to identify and prioritize the new business opportunities in your sales pipeline. Determine where best you can inject yourself into the process with a view to closing the deal – or get out of the way and let your team do its job.
- Objectives – scan your opportunity pipeline for the emerging “need states” of your top customers. Are there new issues or business problems appearing on your customer’s horizons? Use these to begin feeding your 2010 strategic objectives. Make sure that these are folded back into any customer discussions that are taking place during the last quarter.
- Authority and responsibility – Now it is time to invest your team with what Wally Bock calls authority and responsibility. Make them responsible for achieving outcomes and then ensure they have the authority to make it happen (remember the do-able strategy is as much about doing as it is about strategy).
- Breakdown – as all the elements of your near and short term plans begin to take shape, it can become overwhelming. Remember to breakdown your strategy into executable programs. Ensure that there is someone responsible for each program.
- Learn – we can always learn from a process. Make sure that your learnings are being recycled into your forward planning. Don’t repeat the same mistakes. The goal is to become a scholar-practitioner.
- Engage the emotions – many leaders tiptoe around emotions. They see them as the messy side-effect of dealing with people. But emotions can supercharge your team. Rather than avoiding emotions, engage them. Talk to your team about your vision. Work to include them in operationalizing it. As Steve Roesler reminds us, “emotions prompt us to act”.
Nina Nets It Out: Sometimes circumstances conspire against our best strategic efforts. Rather than sacrificing longer term planning for short term gain, consider accelerating your planning process. It’s not a substitute for a formal, rigorous plan, but it can alleviate the pressure in the short term.
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Increasingly, businesses are seeing the benefits of working in a matrix. But while this works for the organization, individuals can often find operating in a matrix, more than a little challenging. But there are some very simple things that you can do to make the matrix work for you.
First up, polish your communication skills. When you work in a matrix, you need to be clear about your work, your direction and your deliverables. Different teams have their own internal cultures – and if you are new to that team or working across a division, you likely will miss the non-verbal communication at play. To combat this, over communicate – ask questions if you are unclear. Clarify the expectations of colleagues and learn to articulate your thoughts precisely. If you need to, take a course; but don’t overlook the importance of this communication.
Secondly, remember there are only 24 hours in a day. When you work in a matrix, you are likely to have multiple deliverables from multiple teams. That means you must manage expectations of all involved. When asked to take on a new project, politely explain your level of utilization and then ask your project leader to help you prioritize your efforts. Make sure that this is clearly communicated to the people you report to, along with the expected impacts. Be sure to avoid over-committing and under delivering.
These two steps can make a dramatic difference to your life. But what about leaders? How can you lead well in the matrix? Gill Corkindale suggests the following steps for leaders:
- Make sure the culture is robust, supportive and you have the right values and behaviors in place
- Ensure that you are a skilled communicator: networking, influencing, coaching and facilitating skills are paramount
- Draw up clear goals, objectives, and performance metrics for managers and staff and see to it that they are aligned vertically and horizontally
- Empower teams to make decisions and to resolve conflicts at an appropriate level
- Don’t tinker with the structure, but let the networks and matrix evolve over time
- Use your expertise and personal network to influence those over whom you have no formal authority
To this list I would add:
- Foster village thinking – create opportunities for your matrix team members to collaborate on both personal and professional levels
- Achieve with grace – when you are a leader in a matrix organization, many disparate teams will contribute to your success. Make sure that your success is achieved (and acknowledged) with grace.
Nina Nets It Out: Matrix organizations can deliver astounding results, but attributing these results to a particular line of business can often be difficult or fraught with political danger. Leaders must ensure that they continue to emphasize communication, team work and responsibility across their matrixed teams and share the spoils of success as they arrive.
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We like to think that we can have our cake and eat it too. However, in business, few leaders have such luxuries available. Instead, we must make choices regarding our preferences or priorities. A simple example might be speed versus accuracy. Obviously, we’d love to get things both fast and right. However, there are most definitely times where we must choose between the two. Even in this example, it is not always clear cut which choice must be made. As you can imagine, accuracy is highly desirable in anything we do, be it for business or personal purposes. However, sometimes getting something 100% accurate is overkill. It sort of follows the 80-20 rule. Sometimes getting to 80% is good enough because the “cost” associated with the final 20% may not be worth it. But, generally, I am of the philosophy of “I’d rather have it right than fast”.
In a recent entry on the Harvard Business Blog site, Freek Vermeulen writes about this issue in a piece entitled Slow and Steady Wins the Growth Rate. His piece resonates with me as he uses his own experience of learning to play the cello as an analogy for his point about “time compression diseconomies” – a term coined by professors Dierickx and Cool from INSEAD. I studied violin and played for many years beginning when I was nine years old. His piece highlights a very important point – three hours does not always equal three hours. The point being that doing something for a half an hour 6 times is not the same as doing that same activity for one three hour period. Think about exercise. We all likely realize that exercising 6 days a week for 30 minutes each session is much better for our long-term health than exercising once a week for 3 hours.
Rushing to accomplish something very rarely works out as well as we’d like. Growing a business faster by hiring more and more employees without allowing the business to properly onboard and acclimate these hires will not ultimately achieve the desired results. Rather, it will likely lead to challenging times with leaders scratching their heads in wonder and then commencing the downsizing that inevitably will follow. Patience, or “slow and steady” as Vermeulen says, is necessary in order to achieve sustainable success. Taking the time to “do it right” will ensure a better outcome versus scrambling to get it done as quickly as possible. Vermeulen’s own study of multinational companies demonstrated the effectiveness of this approach by showing that “growing at a moderate-yet-steady pace increased profitability much more than did short outburst of rapid expansion–almost twice as much.”
On a very simplistic level, we all understand this. How many of us would be comfortable to learn that our doctor’s office is measured on “patient throughput”? Ouch! When I have to see a doctor, I want to know for sure that they are interested in “getting it right” not getting me in and out fast. Businesses must balance these oft-competing objectives in order to strike the proper, sustainable result – and it is we, as leaders, who must make those decisions and set the priorities.
Nina Nets It Out: Whether you’re studying an instrument, exercising or tackling a business issue head-on, be sure to understand that there are real choices in how we go about accomplishing whatever it is we are doing. There’s an expression that comes to mind: “There is never enough time to do something correct the first time, but there is always time to do it over again.” Be sure to assess the needs of each situation and decide what is most important before taking your first steps.
]]>This is a particularly important skill for leaders — after all, it is easy to be caught up in the detail of running a business. Some even find it enjoyable. But leading a business also means being able to operate, like Richard Branson, at 30,000 feet.
To recap, Porter’s five forces are:
- Rivalry among existing competitors
- Bargaining power of buyers
- Bargaining power of suppliers
- Threat of new entrants
- Threat of substitute products or services
The Harvard Business Review have published a reaffirmation and extension of Porter’s five forces. In this 12 minute video from HBR you can hear Porter speak about the five forces, or, you can see an edited, 5 minute version, on YouTube.
Nina Nets It Out: Despite being written 30 years ago, Porter’s five forces still provides a solid framework for thinking through business strategy. No matter where you are in your career, understanding this framework can provide you with a way of understanding the trends, opportunities and challenges faced by your company and your industry.
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