Iceberg averted.
I have long used this metaphor – when we have a substantial project we need to complete within an organization, the path between the vision and the implementation is strewn with icebergs. We see the top of them, yet we know that more than half of their ferocity lives below the surface. These are powerful underlying currents that threaten all strong moves like the maturity of the firm, the mix of the team, and the focus of the process environment.
I am working with the EVP of a Fortune 500 firm that was putting the final touches on an organizational change that has great potential for improved performance. Like many leaders making org changes, she had obsessed over getting just the right mix of drive, emotional intelligence, and functional skills in a new leader that could take this key function to the next level.
She also had the common blindspot of putting the right person into a system and culture that would have the equivalent of a riptide pulling their new leader back toward the status quo. Long term, this leads a firm into a treadmill-like existence, where serial organization changes provide an allusion of progress without delivering the results hoped for.
I work with accomplished leaders at firms as they implement their strategy, specifically to help them identify roadblocks and remove them before they stall their efforts. Typically these firms are very operationally efficient and good at what they do. They set goals and expect to meet them. These are the leaders who are well trained and work hard.
Why then is strategic change so challenging? The short answer is that in the day to day, they are building muscle within normal operational scope. Unfortunately, that work doesn’t prepare you to move the team to a new challenge like a new market, a substantially new product, or up-leveling a key internal process.
Looking Left, Then Right, Then Left
In the US, with drivers seated on the left-hand side of the vehicle, we use this sequence to be sure we are not pulling out into someone coming from the left. Why? There are immediate consequences to making a left-hand turn and missing traffic from the left. My first UK trip taught me in a very short order that I needed to reverse this sequence for being in the right-hand seat and turning right.
Leading a significant strategic change is like changing the side of the car we are sitting in. For normal operations, we know the questions to ask, where to look in the documents, what the financial and quality benchmarks should look like, and how we will get to market.
When doing new, we typically extend our confidence to the new area, and unfortunately, we turn into oncoming traffic. If only competence in the core could lead directly to competence in implementing a new strategy.
How to Build Foresight
The good news is, after 3 decades of helping firms implement strategy, I can report that these blind spots come in patterns, and, much like driving in the UK, are knowable. In the specific case of this organizational change, we were able to test a prototype of the change in the form of a chartered cross-functional team prior to installing the final organizational design. By collaboratively building this effort, there was significant learning and no careers were put in jeopardy.
Specifically, when we go to work with a client, we develop a profile during a diagnostic session that identifies and ranks ten specific blind spots that are common to strategy implementation in complex firms. Once we’ve identified a client’s most vulnerable underlying elements, we go to work mitigating them by framing them, naming them, and introducing team and individual coaching.
Why This Works
The secret sauce is in the diagnosis and integration. Every day our inboxes are inundated with yet another tool, feature, or approach that is guaranteed to release performance in your firm. Let’s stipulate that each of these tools works well – but only in a very specific situational context. What is missing is the systems work to identify precisely those areas that are key in your firm, at this time, with the team that you have.
There are well-studied patterns in many disciplines, such as the effect of different leadership styles being present on a team. This can be useful on its own but comes alive when it’s used in conjunction with insight about the organizational life cycle and a firm’s market strategy. Integrating these insights into a testable hypothesis allows enormous learning to occur before the “go live.”
How I Help
I help firms with executing the work to implement their strategy. This involves taking their work as seriously as they do and co-developing plans and strategies in a deep way to make the results they are seeking an inevitable result of the actions and investments they are making.
In short, I help leaders make a clear diagnosis and then use patterns to make specific shifts and take actions that induce success.
If you’d like to have a conversation with me about a complex and elusive challenge, please email me at scott@scottpropp.com, or use this link to put a call directly on my calendar.
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