The show can be downloaded from here.

Norman also appeared on Critical Mass a podcast hosted by Ric Franzi and Doug Gfeller which features Orange County business owners, executives, entrepreneurs and experts sharing their ideas and insights to help everyone make better, more informed decisions.

The show can be downloaded from here.

By now you know that I am not a big proponent of the traditional annual strategic planning process.  Yet I do feel very strongly that one of the key objectives for these sessions is still critically important; perhaps even more important today than ever before.  That critical objective is to establish a clear direction for the company.

In my last blog (Strategic Planning is Dead – Long Live Strategy Execution) I stated that all decision-making takes place within a given context.  If we are striving to have the corporate body respond in the semi–autonomous fashion that enables it to respond to its environment at today’s speed of execution, then everyone in the organization must be operating from the same context.

Context is the guiding principle for making any decision.  The context for strategy execution lies within what we call The Strategic Compass™ and consists of the corporation’s Soulful Purpose, its Values and Vision of its Desired Future. 

We can best understand these elements of the Strategic Compassä by first looking at how these elements drive individual human behavior. 

The Soulful Purpose is the core reason, the foundational purpose for existence.  All living organisms, including humans and Living OrganizationsÒ, are designed to maximize their ability to fulfill their Soulful Purpose.  When we make choices consistent with our Soulful Purpose, life seems to flow effortlessly. 

Along with our purpose for existence, human behavior is always an expression our core values.  Even if we are mostly unaware of what these are, our core values still drive most of our behaviors.  In fact, it is through those behaviors that we reveal our true core values.

The final element that defines behaviors is a vision of a desired future.  This is not a “vision statement”, but rather an expression of what life would be like if we achieved our deepest desires.  It is a picture of a future state that we truly desire.

All living organisms operate mostly in a semi-autonomous state.  That is, we are not making cognitive choices, but rather responding to the cues from our environment.  We continuously take in massive amounts of data about our environment, but apply less than 10% of our conscious thoughts in determining how best to respond to it.  Our semi-autonomous nervous system makes these choices for us. 

The three elements of ­­­­Soulful Purpose, Values and Vision of Desired Future serve as a compass for our bodies in making decisions. 

Think of these three elements as a container.  Like a container that gives shape to water, the Strategic Compassä gives shape to the Context field of energy, defining the choices available to us. 

Like individuals, The Living Company is also driven by these three elements of the Strategic Compassä.

When I speak on the components of Soulful Purpose, Values and Vision, I am often asked how these differ from the commonly accepted concepts of the Mission/Vision/Values statements that all strategic planning consultants help their clients create.  My answer is, it is no different if these statements are truly driven from the Context field, and not just mere statements reached through an intellectual process of the Activity field.  It is analogous to the difference between viewing our bodies as mere machines versus the totality of what defines being human.

For example, a mission statement driven from the Soulful Purposeä of the Context field will engage and heighten the core spirit of the organization.  One created from the Activity field results in lifeless mission statements that fail to engage the spirit of the organization. 

Are there any good mission statements out there?  Yes, I believe there are, ones that reach down into the Soul of the organization and maintain the Context field energy in its expression.  Here are some examples I believe convey this:

3M - “To solve unsolved problems innovatively”
Mary Kay Cosmetics - “To give unlimited opportunity to women.”
Wal-Mart - “To give ordinary folk the chance to buy the same thing as rich people.”

In each of these, one “feels” the Soulful Purpose™ of the company.  It is simple, direct and guides decision-making for everyone in the company.  It provides the essence of the Strategic Compass™.

Similarly a company’s core values establish the parameters for what we are and are not allowed to do. Again, this is different than the “value statements” all companies now have, such as “operate with integrity”, “respect for all”, “collaboration and teamwork”, etc., etc

The same thing happened to “values statements” that happened to “mission statements”. They became an Activity field exercise and lost connection to the deeper energy that engages people and guides decision-making.  Here is an example from Walt Disney of one that is more aligned with what I believe is required: 

·    No cynicism

·    Nurturing and promulgation of “wholesome American values”

·    Creativity, dreams and imagination

·    Fanatical attention to consistency and detail

·    Preservation and control of the Disney “magic”

 
These are real substantive values that guide behaviors and set a moral compass for everyone to follow in their decision-making.

The last component of the Strategic Compass™ is the Vision of a Desired Future.  We all know that the intent of ‘vision statements is to create a compelling vision that would energetically pull the organization into the future.  Unfortunately, this too went the way of becoming a plaque on the wall, losing the very essence, the energy that pulls the organization forward towards the desired results. 

To realize the power that was originally intended, the Vision of the desired future must go beyond being a statement.  It must become a story.  A rich story of what we are striving to create, of what our world will be like when we achieve our Soulful Purpose™.  And like all good stories, it will evoke an emotional pull on the part of the listener; moving them, literally and figuratively.

When we restore the Context field energy, the energy of purpose and meaning, to who we are, what we stand for and what we are setting out to create, then we have realized the true essence of the corporation’s Soulful Purpose™, its Values and its Vision.  We will have created a Strategic Compass™ that everyone our organization interacts with, internally and externally, will align with.

When the Strategic Compassä is combined with robust frameworks for effectively evaluating inputs from the environment, such as the ARC Framework™ and Real Time Execution Wave™, The Living Organization® will naturally increase its velocity of execution, which in turn maximizes value for all stakeholders.

To learn more about The Living Organization model and how it can be applied to your organization, download our free white papers here.

In his recent posting. Norman wrote on our belief that traditional strategic planning processes and frameworks have failed to adapt to the nature of the modern business environment, and are no longer the optimal approach to high-level decision-making within an organization.

We believe that a new decision-making framework - the RealTimeExecutionWave™ - better accelerates execution.

Building upon The Living Organization® model - and the ARC Framework™, we looked at the various existing planning & decision-making frameworks currently in use. The framework which came closest to our own thinking was the OODA loop, created by John Boyd as a means for explaining fighter-pilot effectiveness, and which subsequently has seen great adoption at all levels of US military planning: tactical, operational and strategic. Learn more about OODA.

While we have retained the same terminology as that used in Boyd’s OODA, we have evolved the framework to reflect our belief that the decision cycle is more akin to that of a wave with directionality, frequency and amplitude, rather than a recurring loop as defined in the OODA framework.

RTE Wave - A New Decision Making Model

In my previous blog, I declared Strategic Planning was obsolete.  The current approach for defining where an organization is going and how it will get there - the ubiquitous Strategic Planning Offsite meeting - can no longer produce the desired result.   Why? In our dynamically changing world, the environment where we execute is not the same one we originally planned for.

However, the underlying objectives of the Strategy Planning process still remain as important today as ever.  It is still critical to establish and communicate the strategic direction for the firm.  And it is even more critical to align all the elements of the living corporate body to perform in ways that ensure the organization achieves its desired results.

Since the key objectives of setting strategic direction and organization alignment towards those goals remain critical, the process by which these objectives are achieved needs to change. To better understand why this is, let’s continue to explore the analogy of the corporate body operating in a similar fashion to the human body.

We know that over 90% of our behavioral responses to our environment occurs semi-autonomously.  The nervous system determines the body’s response to thousands upon thousands of simultaneous inputs received from our environment.  The brain (our body’s central decision processing function) has little say in how our body responds most of the time.   And this is a good thing.  Imagine what life would be like if all decisions had to first go to our brains for a decision before any action would occur.  There are thousands, perhaps millions of choices being made between the many functional parts of our bodies in one of the most coordinated and collaborative team efforts one can imagine. 

Think about what happens when you drive.  When driving on the freeway at 65 mph, how much of your conscious thought is actually focused on driving?  What percentage of your brain is coordinating your foot that is pressing on the pedal, with your arm that is controlling the steering wheel, while taking in the data from your eyes as they scan the environment around you?  It is quite amazing to realize that we get to our destination while our conscious thoughts are focused on everything but our driving.

Wouldn’t it be nice if our organizations can get us to our destination with the same degree of semi-autonomous behavior; where the corporate body could respond to the rapidly changing environment with the speed and accuracy of decisions that ensure our ultimate success, much as the human body gets us to our destination?

Like our human bodies, corporate bodies are driven by their own version of the semi-autonomous nervous system. Directors and managers comprise the corporate nervous system that guides the day-to-day decisions made by the hundreds or thousands of people (the corporate body’s cells) as they respond to the myriad of data inputs coming from the corporation’s operating environment.

With this metaphor in mind, let’s return to the challenge of strategy execution and the role of setting the strategic direction and aligning the forces within the organization to the desired results.

In the traditional approach to strategic planning, the CEO and executive team participate in a offsite planning session, where they evaluate strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, (the classic SWOT analysis), set the future direction for the organization, and map out specific action plans to achieve the desired results.  They then go back and communicate these well thought-out plans to the rest of the organization with “marching orders” as to what the various functional departments will each carry out. So long as the environment remains pretty much as they understood it, this approach was likely to produce the desired results.

But herein lies the failing; the environment now changes at a rate faster than the planning horizon.  Said simply, the marketplace dynamics will have changed significantly before the organization has a chance to realize its planned results. 

The current execution model relies too much on the executive team (the brain of the corporate body), being involved in the decision making.  Starting with the planning process and carrying over into the myriad day-to-day decisions, the executive team is the dominant decision makers.   When the environment moved slower this was acceptable, but at today’s rate of change this no longer works.  It is analogous to the brain guiding every movement while driving a car.  The driver would slow down to the same speed as that of a student driver trying to get everything coordinated.

The problem lies in the nature of decision making: every decision is made within a specific context.  This context holds the core reason for why we are here and what we are trying to do, and holds the core values against which we evaluate various alternative actions.  It also contains the framework which allows us to organize and make sense of the thousands of data inputs we collect. 

In the current approach to strategic planning and execution, the Context of the organization resides with the Executive Team and little, if anything, is ever done to infuse this core Context throughout the organization.  Instead, what is usually communicated is only the “what and the how” of the plan, not the “where and why.” 

Without the Context of Soulful Purpose, Values, and Desired Future and a framework for sorting and evaluating input, the corporate body will never be able to execute without continuous involvement from the executive.  Going back to our driving example, one could say that most organizations today operate like student drivers who are thinking about every move they make.

To operate at the speed of today’s business environment, organizations must have the corporate body operate in a semi-autonomous fashion, much like the human body.  This requires a different approach to strategic planning, with most planning focusing on establishing a strong Context; a Context which is not merely communicated but is infused throughout the corporate nervous system.  Additionally, a decision making process must be established that allows individuals (the cells of the corporate body) to quickly respond to the environment in a manner consistent with the Strategic Context. 

To learn more about Context, the human body analogy to today’s corporation, and The Living Organization® model, please click here to download a free white paper.

All we do is ask them if they would be open to discussing a potential career opportunity. Virtually 95% of the time the employee replies, “Yes.” Why would anyone not want to know what is going on in the market, have a discussion around their career or just get a feel for current compensation ranges? Even if they are completely happy in their current position, this is good stuff to know.

The important, and I believe the most relevant question is,” Why, out of the 95% that are open to discussing career opportunities, do roughly 10% indicate that they are happy with their job, and although it sounds like a good opportunity, they aren’t interested in pursuing it further?”

What do these 10% have that the other 90% don’t? That is something a recruiter has nothing to do with. They generally have four things, 1) they are learning in their current position, 2) they feel they are having some impact on the company, 3) they are growing, and 4) they respect their boss. When these four things are part of a person’s job, the best recruiter can’t get them to move.

An example of this recently happened. I was jointly interviewing candidates with one of my clients.  At dinner one night, my client started asking me about the job market, “Is it picking up?” and  “Are any particular industries hiring?”  He mentioned that he thought the market was getting better because in the last couple of months he had been contacted a couple of times by recruiters for potential opportunities.  Like most, he listened to what they had to say, but in both instances he thanked the recruiter for the call and flatly turn them down.

Why, I asked?

Like most, his answer had nothing to do with compensation. He commented, “I enjoy what I’m doing. I have a great boss and most of all I’m challenged.” Then he added, “When I stop being challenged it is time to move on.” In fact, prior to being promoted to his current position he was looking. If his current position had not come open he would have left the company.

As he explained it, “My last boss treated me like a step child (I used step child. His word did start with an S). The position had lost its challenges, the job was the job, and that was all there was to it.” His boss was rarely around to support him and he was doing the same thing this year as he had done the last three years. Boredom and lack of respect for his boss had set in. The good news was that he worked for an excellent company. BTW, he has been with this company for 12  years and in his current position for 4 years.

This is a classic example of how one employee went from engaging recruiters to telling them, “Thanks, but no thanks.”

We realize that not every company has the ability to promote someone or move them to another position in order to retain them. However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t a number of things a company can do to help their best talent feel challenged, feel that they are learning, and be respected by their boss. This can happen in just about any sized company.

The best recruiter couldn’t “steal” this person.  It all had to do with the job and the person’s boss.  The vast majority of people leave because they lose respect for their boss.  The best selling book, First Break All The Rules, validates this. This book should be required reading for all managers, regardless of how many years they’ve been a manager. As recruiters for the last 30 years, my partner Barry Deutsch and I, can also validate this is clearly the number one reason candidates tell us they are open to talking about a new position.

To help companies and hiring managers identify some of the things that managers can do to retain their best talent we have put together for you to download our 8 Level Retention Matrix. This matrix will help you identify whether or not your managers are doing what it takes to retain your best talent.

If your managers do some, or most of these, you won’t lose your talent to a recruiter. Your competition will.

You can also download for free our most popular chapter on sourcing top talent from our best-selling book, You’re NOT The Person I Hired. CLICK HERE to download your free chapter.

I welcome your thoughts and comments.

Brad Remillard

Author’s Bio:
Brad Remillard is one of the founding partners at IMPACT Hiring Solutions. He has been an executive recruiter for over 25 years. He has conducted over 10,000 interviews and been involved in over 3000 executive searches.

IMPACT Hiring Solutions provides hiring solutions to mid-size companies. These solutions include executive search, in-house training programs around hiring best practices, assisting companies develop an effective hiring methodology that attracts top talent, advanced interviewing techniques and one-on-one coaching.

Let me share a few paragraphs:

“The harsh reality for Toyota is that it went too far overboard in striving to become the biggest, baddest car company on earth. And in the course of their quest they literally abandoned damn near everything that got them to the point of being a true corporate juggernaut to begin with.

The Toyota “Way”? It went right out the window as soon as they started planning new assembly facilities at the same time they were still finishing plants that weren’t even up and running yet. The “old” Toyota would never do that. The “old” Toyota would take their sweet time in making sure that a new facility was every bit as focused and dialed-in as their best facilities. If it wasn’t, it simply didn’t open until it was.

But the “new” Toyota started skipping steps and compressing timelines. And the details started slipping through the cracks. People – engineers, managers, manufacturing types – were schooled in the Toyota Way, but in the company’s breakneck, accelerated pace to eclipse GM as the world’s largest automaker it didn’t sink in. There simply wasn’t enough time to let it sink in either.

Communication broke down, both internally in Japan and externally to the troops in the U.S. The Toyota Way wasn’t the focus of the organization any longer. Classic Toyota descriptors such as “quality,” “reliability” and “durability” were replaced with words like “units,” “volume,” “production plan acceleration” and “domination” of markets.”

In today’s world, it does seem that many companies share the  “bigger is better” philosophy.  The faster one can grow the company, the better it will be for everyone.  This is the attitude fostered by the “machine of production” paradigm where everything is measured in relation to dollars and volume. 

The “new” Toyota, with its extreme focus on growth using metrics of volume and size killed the very thing that made it a great company – it lost its Soulful Purpose.  The Toyota Way, like the HP Way, represented more than just a slick set of phrases or plaques hung on the walls.  It was a symbol of something that was deeply felt at the very core or soul of the organization, and passed on like DNA generation after generation of managers and employees.

We are all for growth, and even accelerated growth, as long as the organization stays focused on its Soulful Purpose and ensures that this is at the center of everything it does.  How fast is too fast? When growth is at a rate where it can no longer be effectively passed on to each new hire, carried out in each decision made by every manager, then the organization is simply growing at a faster rate than it will be able to sustain in the long run.

There is no one right rate of growth for every organization.  The right rate of growth is strictly determined by how effectively it can propagate the Soulful Purpose to every new generation of employee. Companies undergoing large growth or expansion initiatives should heed Toyota’s recent downfall and take a very close look at their core values, ensuring that a “practice what we preach” philosophy remains intact at all levels of operation.   

Yet when you ask them what their process is to find top talent most reply in the same way, “We run ads” or “We post it internally.” That is the way 80% of all companies go about finding people.

Below are three real life examples of alternative ways of finding people.

1) In 2007, I was having lunch with a partner from a local CPA firm. During lunch he commented that they had been struggling for six months to find an audit manager. In fact, he commented that they would pay a $10,000 bounty for an employee referral. I didn’t add a zero. So I asked, “How many people have you hired?”  The reply, “None.” They were doing the usual, running ads and asking current employees. That was their process for finding people.

So as the lunch continued, he mentioned to me that they had just brought on a new client and that he had just had lunch with the new CFO at this same restaurant. I immediately asked the partner, “Did you ask the CFO who was the best audit manager at his current company?” or “Who were some of the best audit managers he had worked with in the past?” He had never even thought of this. I suggested that he could contact all of his CFO clients and ask them. After all, it is in the client’s best interest to have good audit managers.

This was such an obvious thing to me and yet he was willing to pay ten grand. For those of you thinking it takes too much time to find good people, I don’t think asking these few questions would have extended the lunch that much.

2) Last year I was conducting one of our in-house workshops for a mid-sized technology company in New York. During the workshop, one of the key executives mentioned how difficult it is to hire technical people. I probed a little further and asked about the type of people they hire. She commented that they want people comfortable with technology. People who understand how networks work, people who diagnose a computer problem when a client calls with a problem, install software, and perform basic repairs that clients need right away if something goes wrong. They were willing to train on their specific systems and software. They just wanted someone that was moderately technical and comfortable with technology.

These people were “extremely” hard to find.

I asked if they ever go to Best Buy and engage the Geek Squad. Have they ever taken in a computer and found someone that provides great customer service and demonstrates that they understand technical issues?

She and her team had never thought about these people. I received an email two months after the workshop letting me know they had hired two people from Best Buy.

3) My best friend manages a store for one of the major retail chains. Every time we play golf, I have to listen to him complain about how hard it is to find people willing to work. He complains that his company works people hard and is demanding. The result is a lot of turnover.

So I asked him how often when he or his team is out shopping and they come across a great person in another retail chain do they engage the person, give them a business card and ask the person to call him, or let the person know that if they ever think about leaving to call him.

I mentioned that I go to a coffee shop most mornings when I’m in town for an hour of work. At this coffee shop, every person is probably in their late teens and early twenties. These people run the coffee shop. They open every morning at 6 AM so they have to get there by 5:30, they are friendly, they know customers by name, the coffee shop is clean and they are great employees. So I asked if he ever asked any of them about potentially coming to work a his store.

In both cases he replied no, and that he doesn’t even encourage his team leaders to be aware of potential employees when they are out shopping.

Qualified people are all around us. As a recruiter, I always have my antenna up. Most CEOs and hiring managers just walk right by these people. Work with  your team and start noticing people hiding in plain sight.

Download our Hiring Process Self Assessment Scorecard and evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of your hiring system. CLICK HERE to get your assessment.

Get our most popular chapter “Sourcing Top Talent” from our best selling book, “You’re NOT The Person I Hired” which is available for Free to download. CLICK HERE to get the chapter.

Consider joining our LinkedIn group,  Hire and Retain Top Talent. This group is dedicated to discussions and articles to help  you improve your hiring and retention. CLICK HERE to join the group.

I welcome your thoughts and comments.

Brad Remillard

The latest sturm & drang stems from this past week’s announcement of the iPad, Apple’s latest attempt at disruptive innovation.

As can always be anticipated, the announcement was meant with the usual unbridled optimism & support from Apple’s fan base, and countervailing skepticism and outright derision from its critics. The criticisms typically center around the following issues & observations:

1) It’s only an iPhone or iPod Touch on steroids, not really a netbook computer - many people - including myself - were hoping for a tablet format Macintosh, running the OSX operating system. We didn’t get that.

2) It doesn’t have…..one or more of the following “must haves”: USB….multi-tasking….Flash…..a camera….SD slot….stylus input….ability to load software from other than Apple’s App Store….etc..

Most of these objections can be seen as coming from a conceptual framework that views what Apple is attempting to do as a next-generation multi-function computer. In such a model, the product attributes of features, functionalities, CPU power,  I/O interfaces, “openness”, etc. Are all considered paramount - allowing the user to configure and use the device as she prefers. This is clearly not what we will be getting from the iPad. Nor, is that the product’s design intent….

Rather, Apple appears to be attempting to create not only a new platform category residing between the smartphone and the notebook computer, it is also trying to establish a new paradigm for personal productivity computing devices - that of being appliances, not multi-purpose computers. This distinction was aptly articulated by Fraser Speirs in his recent blog entry titled “The iPad’s Future Shock”

What Apple is counting on with the iPad, is not only that many people will want a platform in that space, but also that most people don’t want to worry about figuring out how all this should work together - the dark cloud to the silver lining of openness and multi-functionality. It was precisely this unmet & unexpressed need (a.k.a. “Heart of the Customer” that Apple tapped into with the iPhone - eschewing the feature/function computer-based paradigm of the smartphone for a value-proposition of “it simply works, and is fun to use”.

“Voice of the Customer” approaches - that of listening to the expressed needs of the customer can sometimes be a trap - incrementally leading companies to create new & better products to meet those needs - but leading everyone down a path that turns out to be non-optimal over the long-term. I maintain that most criticisms of the iPad are based on this paradigm - that what customers are asking for is ever more flexible & powerful technologies, and open technical/business models, that maximize the options a user has in configuring and using the machine to their own specific needs.

Apple believes they’re tapping into the “Heart of the Customer” -  the unmet & unexpressed needs that people want in their mobile computing and communications - they just want it to work, and don’t want or need to figure all this out for themselves.

I used to be in the former camp - over time, I’ve become less and less enthralled by spending the time & effort to figure out how all this stuff works….and Apple appears to be counting on there being a lot of folks out there just like me. As or me - I am selling my MacBook notebook and buying an iPad 3G in April.but then again, I’m just an Apple fanboy…

What is not a waste of time is executing strategy and that is why the mission of our company – in fact, our very tagline – is all about “Executing Strategy”. 

But don’t you need a strategy to execute on it?  Of course you do.  But do you need to do strategic planning to have a strategy? Not necessarily. 

In fact all organizations have a strategy already.  How do I know? Organizations make decisions everyday. They must have a context, a framework for making those decisions.  That context is their strategy.  It may not be well articulated, it may not take into account all possible scenarios, but a strategy exists. 

Strategic planning, in the traditional sense, is an Activity field process that involves a lot of analysis and establishment of goals and objectives (Learn more about the Activity field of energy in The Living Organization model here).  It includes the company’s Strengths and Weaknesses and considers the external Opportunities and Threats. 

Integrating this information with market forces and trends the company determines its competitive position; a position that will hopefully place it in a blue ocean of success rather than the red ocean of bloody competition. 

All of this is wrapped into a document that maps out a 3-5 year execution plan. Success is now assured.  Or is it?

The problem I have with traditional strategic planning is that it ignores a critical factor of today’s reality.  The rate of change and degree of complexity has increased significantly!

I think you will all agree that to effectively plan one must know the key variables that define success.  But how can you plan when the actions that will create the desired results today will not create the same results in the future.

If we look at the frequency of change back in the early 1900, a person might experience 2 – 3 significant changes within one’s lifetime.  Mostly the rules of how life worked were the same over any given 10 – 20 year time span.  During the middle of the 20^th century, the change frequency may have increased from 3 to maybe 5 or six, but the environmental factors that determined success still had at least a 5 to 10 year life span.

As we look back to the first decade of the 21^st century, we find a significantly different story.  We find an environment that is constantly changing at ever increasing rates. The needs of the marketplace and our customers are changing with it.  The complexity of the challenges we face is rising along with this increased rate of change. Predicting future environments is close to impossible.

Ten years ago we did not have such things as Google, Facebook or Twitter.  Today they are defining how we live, how we interact (both socially and professionally) and what our customers expect from us.  It is unlikely that any strategic plan took these changes into account for how their organization would communicate with their customers, test out new products, and expand their markets.

So what’s the solution? Stop planning and just react to whatever happens?  Accept that everything is out of our control and we should just run as fast as we can to keep up?  NO!

The challenge of executing strategy requires a different lens for how we view the role of strategy and a different framework for how we prepare our organization to execute.

The old model puts the emphasis on the planning. With a well thought out plan, execution follows.  And if you didn’t get the desired results, you must have created a poorly developed plan.  The solution, hold another management offsite and do a better plan.  This is what you would expect from a dominantly Activity field orientation.  This is now obsolete. 

The new model, which we call The Living Organization®, puts the emphasis on execution over planning and takes into account the Relationship field and the Context field. The Living Organization® provides a means to monitor the execution progress and be flexible to change as it occurs. Download a free white paper on the The Living Organization® to learn more.

I think a really good metaphor for what life is like today is to take a look at how some video games work (interestingly they call this segment of video games strategy gaming).  Games like Zork, Myst and the ever-popular World of Warcraft are perfect examples.

You understand in a broad sense what you must do to win the game, and have access to key tools, such as a treasure map or a compass.  These tools guide you along the way, even though you may not yet understand how to interpret or use everything in your arsenal.

The video screen provides a limited set of information about your surroundings. You can only take action on what is in the foreground, the field of play.  You may have some visibility to what lies ahead; but the further down the path you look, the less information you have. 

You must make all your decisions and take quick, decisive actions with only the immediate information available in the field of play in order to progress. Then more information is revealed.  Each small action unveils a new, altered playing field with more of the background, the future, moving into the field of play.   If you stay true to the game’s rules, use the guiding maps and compass, and follow your deeper guiding principles to make quick decisive decisions, you will invariably succeed in your quest. 

This is how one of our clients is successfully navigating a major strategic transition to take the company in a whole new direction.  They set the direction to offer a new set of services that is an expansion into new markets and even new relationships with existing clients.  There are many elements to the execution of this strategic direction but to go through them all would take to long to enumerate here. 

One specific example that highlights this approach is how they defined their new offerings.  In the traditional approach, they would have collected data from their customer base (market research) and then defined a set of offerings with a plan to bring them to market.  When I spoke with the CEO about why he wasn’t doing this, his comment was “we aren’t that smart”. 

What did he mean by this?  Simply, the marketplace dynamics fluctuate too much to follow this traditional approach.  Instead, they went to their customers and said this is our new direction, how do you feel the company might best serve your needs?  In essence, they are working with their customers in real time to define and configure the offerings. 

The CEO, and his team, with a clear compass of where they want to go, is using that compass to make critical decisions in real time, in the active field of play, which provides the only the information available.  And with every decision the field of play unfolds revealing new information and the process repeats.

At Quantum Leaders, we call this approach to strategy execution Real-Time Execution™. 

Strategic planning as a process has become less and less relevant and reliable.  Such plans run the risk of instant obsolescence before they can even begin to be executed.

By establishing a clear sense of “who” your organization is (its Soulful Purpose), where it wants to go (its Vision), and what it stands for (its Core Principles), a company develops a strong moral compass that guides strategic decision-making and responsible action at every level of the organization. Using the Compass to guide its decisions in real time allows the company to remain flexible, adaptive and responsive to their changing environment and market needs.  These companies will ultimately have the most success in today’s business world.

And with new models of the 21^st century business, like The Living Organization® they have access to a more robust set of information about the field of play, increasing their ability to execute effectively.

The first four from Part One are:

1) Verbal Praise

2) Achievement Awards

3) Learning and Development

4) Fun and Recreation Events

Each of these can be done at the department or company level. Each demonstrates a culture that rewards people for outstanding effort, provides a positive culture, and a culture that signals respect for the employee.

The last three are:

5) Company Wide Attention This is a step up from department rewards and recognition. This is at the company level. It is great to be honored or recognized by one’s boss, however, when it is by the CEO or at a company level it is a completely different experience. Examples include, recognition in the company newsletter or on its Website, the up front parking space, a picture on the Wall of Fame, recognition at the annual staff meeting, a medal of distinction, any seemingly small thing for exceptional performance, for performing beyond the call of duty or an event that demonstrates extra effort.

It is often these small things that have the biggest and lasting impact.

6) Impactful and Meaningful Work This is one of the biggest reasons top talent contact executive recruiters. Top talent must be constantly challenged. They want to know what is expected of them. When clear direction is consistently lacking, they become frustrated and disengage. However, when top talent have a target to hit they will not only engage but strive to hit the bull’s eye.

Giving your best people additional challenges doesn’t mean you have to constantly be expanding their responsibilities. There is a lot of ground between saying, “That is your job and that is all there is.” to time-to-time challenging them with a special project, taking something off of your desk and giving it to them, allowing them to serve on an ad hoc project, stretching them with some strategic thinking, or involving them in an inter-department project. We find that all it takes is as little as 5% of top talent’s time to be focused on impactful and meaningful work to make a difference.

7) Feedback This seems so obvious but many managers fail to do it. This is not the “good job” feedback discussed earlier. This feedback is at a much higher level. This is feedback that all top talent want and few get. This is what we call, 1-2-1 time. These sessions can be as short as 20 minutes a month. These 1-2-1 sessions focus on their growth, on improvement, build rapport, show genuine interest by the manager, and give time to demonstrate a personal interest in that individual. In our experience, when a manager takes the opportunity to conduct a 1-2-1 on a regular basis, the employee feels a part of the organization. They have the opportunity to be involved in the department, they can give and get feedback, participate, and be heard by their supervisor.

The 1-2-1 can be one of the most powerful experiences for an employee and their supervisor and it can be done in just 20 minutes a month.

Doing one or all of these seven things can dramatically impact your department or organization. In these difficult times any one of these will cement the loyalty of those top performers to you and your company. They will stand by you in difficult times and excel in great times.

Do you have a culture of performance and feedback? To evaluate your culture, download our free Culture Assessment Worksheet. See if everyone in your company would describe your company culture the same. CLICK HERE to download.

Is your hiring process effective at attracting, hiring and retaining top talent? You can do a self assessment of your hiring methodology by downloading our 8 Point Hiring Methodology Self Assessment Scorecard. CLICK HERE to download.

If you have an idea that we missed I welcome your input and comments.

Brad Remillard