The ’90 day trick’ for success

The ’90 day trick’ for success

Jan 18, 2019 | Leadership, Operations, Small business

 

We tend to overestimate what we can do in a day, but underestimate what we can do in a year. 

This is a well understood cognitive bias first articulated by Roy Amara, as it applied to tech development, but I have found it holds everywhere else.

90 days appears to be the intersection of the two.

It is short enough to create a bias to action, a sense of urgency, but long enough to make meaningful progress while accommodating the adaptations that appear along the road.

In my consulting, I encourage, indeed demand planning followed by execution of the plan. However, it is always challenging to have a 3 or 5 year plan aligned with the day to day activities, so I encourage what I call ‘nested’ plans.

A nested plan is one that has a longer term outcome agreed, then progressively broken down into annual, three month planning and performance assessment cycles, broken further into monthly and even weekly and daily plans, depending on the situation.

For example, a factory should be working on rolling daily plans, sales working on weekly plans. Performance measurement should follow the planning cycles, and be made absolutely transparent. For example, I encourage weekly rolling 13 week cash flow forecasts, which deliver the combination of urgency and perspective over the more usual financial reporting of monthly profit and loss.

It all comes down to determining what you are going to do today that will contribute to the outcome required, today, this week this month, this quarter and so on. 

Without a nested plan to which you commit, you will always tend to do the seemingly urgent but unimportant things rather than the important longer term things. These longer term activities are always more emotionally and intellectually challenging, which is why we put them off, find excuses, and generally procrastinate.

It is a fine circus act, this short term/longer term balance, one that is hard to maintain, requiring concentration, situational awareness, and finesse, but essential for success.

A note of caution to finish.

As essential as the planning being a part of normal activity, so should be the ongoing incorporation of feedback into the plans. A robust review and incorporation process is as important as the planning itself. No good ensuring you stick to the plan when it runs you off a cliff. 

 

 

To focus, ask the ‘Framing Question”

To focus, ask the ‘Framing Question”

Jan 16, 2019 | Management, Operations, Small business

 

One of my acquaintances is in a real muddle, and stressing out beyond the point of sensible.

His business is circling the drain hole, and he is drowning in things that he thinks he needs to do, and things that his various service providers, suppliers and customers have told him he must do, now, or sink.

Problem is, they are all different, and all come from the perspective of the person offering the advice.

Over a beer, during the Christmas break he observed I had been the only person he knew who played in this space, and had not offered a ‘perfect solution’ to his problems, so he asked my opinion.

I do not have all the details of his situation, so have no solid base from which to offer a view, but suggested he ask himself what I call ‘The Framing Question’

‘What is the one thing I can do, such that by doing it, everything else will be easier or unnecessary’

Answering this question will lead logically to several others, such as ‘How’,  which leads onto a set of steps, which begins to sound like a plan!

You can have a plan that is really long term, which often resembles a dream until you put specific milestones and performance measures in place, and work towards it progressively. Exactly the same thing can be said about the tasks that confront you on a daily basis.

Making sure that the daily tasks build towards the longer term one is simply a cascade of the daily answers building over time. The daily answers will vary, the longer term answer should not.

In my acquaintances case, the answer was ‘Cash’

He is now working on executing a plan we developed on the back of a coaster that manages his cash better, and will generate more of it.

The plan was for 90 days, which was all he had left if nothing changed, with targets and tasks, and he now has a cascade of monthly, weekly  and daily priorities that he and his staff will work on before anything else. 

What is the one thing I can do…..?

A simple question, but clear and with no room for wriggling.

 

 

Modern Marketing’s dark underbelly.

Modern Marketing’s dark underbelly.

Jan 14, 2019 | Change, Marketing

 

On hearing the term ‘Modern Marketing,’ most would immediately imagine something digital.

That was my intention.

Marketing used to be about delivering meaningful information to potential and current customers in order that they become or remain customers, despite the flirtatious approaches of competitors.

The more appealing the information,  the greater the chance of some sort of engagement that might lead at some point to a consummation.

Bit like the University bar in 1970, when I was young(er).

Advertising used to be, and still is a crucial component, however, this is where it has changed.

Advertising in my day used to be the means by which the information was communicated.

In todays marketing, advertising is often the way people are identified, tracked, stalked, and targeted for  offers, sometimes genuine, sometimes outrageous, increasingly fraudulent, and usually unwanted.

This is the dark side of the digital advertising component  of modern marketing.

I have yet to hear anyone complaining that they do not receive sufficient numbers of unsolicited digital offers.  

No wonder we do  not trust anyone or anything anymore.

While it is counter intuitive, limiting your ‘digital reach’ to those who have actively demonstrated they welcome your approach, will become a valuable tactic. By ‘actively demonstrated’, I do  not mean just filled in one landing page email address to access a lead bait, I mean meaningful interaction.

Back to the Uni bar.

There was one rather unprepossessing bloke we all made some fun of, as he would sometimes turn up with a bunch of flowers. His ‘transaction’ rate was impressive indeed, and few of us ever figured out how that was the case until much later.

Perhaps being truly generous with our knowledge rather than demanding an email address in return for some valueless rubbish is the new digital bunch of flowers.

 

How can a bureaucracy be intelligent?

How can a bureaucracy be intelligent?

Jan 11, 2019 | Governance, Management

 

Bureaucracies evolved as a means to assemble and deploy the resources necessary to do a job.

As organizations grew, so did the bureaucracies that supported them grow in sympathy. Somewhere along the way, size gets in the way of efficiency.

An organisation of 20 people requires an organising template, a bureaucracy of a sort. However, the people all know each other, so the ‘rules’ do not inhibit communication, everyone knows what they need to know and do via the personal networks.

Go to an organisation of 100 people, particularly when they are not co-located, and the social system starts breaking  down, being substituted by communication within the walls of every persons place in the functional hierarchy. We tend to see up and down the silo, rather than between people who need a piece of information.

Once you get to a large organisation, the bureaucratic silos have become impenetrable barriers.

Technology has given us the answer, as used well, it empowers the  personal networks in a highly leveraged manner. However, to be cross functionally successful, the culture within the organisation has to change, as the personal networks cannot break down the silos by themselves. To do that, leadership is required, making it explicit that functional responsibility is no longer the only relevant factor, in fact it is the lesser of  two responsibilities.

The first is to the success of the organisation, measured by the delivery of outcomes, followed  by the functional responsibility.

It is every persons individual responsibility to ensure that those who need the information others  have are in a positon to get it and use it without the bureaucratic silos getting in the way.

Achieve this, and you will have combined the scale that is enabled by functional silos, with the agility of small groups.

An Intelligent bureaucracy!

Wouldn’t that be nice to see?

The 11 point program for scaling your business.

The 11 point program for scaling your business.

Jan 8, 2019 | Change, Leadership, Strategy

 

Successful scaling of a business is not luck, nor is it just good management, it is way more than both.

It is having the leadership capacity that enable all those in the business to consistently and willingly take action that collectively, over time, compounds into growth greater than that available from just doing what you are doing now a bit better every day.

It takes leadership, because this stuff is hard.

Good managers manage, leaders define what it is that needs to be managed, when, and how.

Over 40 years of working with this challenge, it seems to me there are some common traits amongst those businesses that successfully scale, all originating with the leadership.

None of the following can be taken in isolation. as they all contribute to each other. There is a synergy you need to find that is necessary for scaling, as distinct to improvement.

To scale, you need to change what is done, and how it gets done, rather than just improve the way in which things get done. There is a quantum leap in this seemingly minor semantic difference.

 

Have a genuinely stretch goal

Scaling a business requires change, which is uncomfortable, so there must be a very good, well communicated reason for the discomfort to be imposed, with a specific outcome. Often this is now called a ‘BEHAG’ a term coined by Jim Collins in his book ‘Built to Last”. In it absence, nothing will change. The most obvious example is President Kennedy’s 1962 commitment to land a man on the moon by the end of 1969. You have to find, communicate and commit to your metaphorical ‘man on the moon’ goal.

Underneath the BEHAG there must be a strategic plan, broken down progressively into its tactical components in order to deliver the goal.

 

Alignment.

A much used and abused word, but absolutely necessary.  Every person, and every persons activity has to contribute meaningfully to the strategies in place to deliver the objectives, irrespective of the time frame of those objectives.  Without some sort of overriding objective towards which every person and activity can be looking, the outcomes will be suboptimal.

The metaphor I always use to describe alignment is that of a rowing eight, training towards a major championship, for example the Olympics. Every training session, every activity of each of the eight who will be in the shell, as well as their support staff, needs to be looking towards that goal of winning that medal. Everything that is done needs to be judged by the simple criteria of ‘will this add to winning that medal’?

 

Strategic Ambidexterity.

Let me explain this idea of strategic ambidexterity.  Every small action taken has to be a part of a larger action that builds into the scaled outcome. Any individual is easily distracted in their daily lives by the urgent but not important things that arise. Allowing those distractions to consume time takes away from the objective of scaling. Therefore, the focus of every person has to be on the one thing today, tomorrow, this week, month, quarter, and so on that has to be achieved in order to achieve the scaled target.

If you were to set out to run a marathon under 4 hours, you would  not just start trying to run the 42km from day one, you would fail. You would break your training down into pieces, each one building on the last towards the objective. You would have a range of daily sessions, building into weekly and monthly targets that would eventually result in the successful completion of the marathon. It takes time, dedication, and a dual focus in getting every small step completed sequentially, while recognising that each one builds progressively towards the objective.

Engaging your supply chain partners and customers in the process adds to the power of the process. It is like having specialised trainers and suppliers of equipment contributing to your overall program. As success builds, you will find that they want to come on board, as everyone wants to be part of a winning team, which further builds momentum.

 

Operational rhythm.

Every activity and set of activities can be managed to have some sort of operating rhythm. In most cases it is unrecognised and unmanaged, so is not optimised. The most obvious example is the annual budget setting process most businesses go through. This normally happens in some sort of regular order and manner, to some sort of timetable. It is also in most cases I have observed, an addition to the routine set of activities, and is therefore an imposition rather than being a key part of the business management and development process. Similarly, the process to turn an order into product will follow some sort of routine that follows roughly the same set of steps every time. However, in every case, without an explicit and transparent process that has performance measures and associated management in place, the process will inevitably ‘wander’ being subject to change for many reasons. Process stability, noted below is essential for a predictable and consistent operational rhythm.

 

Accountability.

Ensuring clarity of accountability  for an activity, item, and process is essential to performance that can be measured and improved. Without accountability, a problem will always be someone else’s problem. Accountability, responsibility and authority often become entangled in ways that leave the improvement and scaling of any set of activities challenging.

Accountability means that someone is specifically held accountable for the activity or set of activities. That person is accountable to track the progress of the activity, process, function, whatever it may be, and give it a ‘voice’. If you cannot nominate one person who is specifically accountable, it will fall through the cracks. Responsibility falls on anyone who has the ability and opportunity to respond to proactively support an activity or process. Anyone who ‘touches’ a process has some responsibility. Authority belongs to the person with the final veto power.

For example, in a previous life as GM of a large organisation, I had authority over the expenditure of marketing budgets, product managers had accountability for  the specific activities that took place in their brand portfolios, and we all had responsibility to ensure that the customers who bought our products were serviced in a manner that had them coming back for more. 

The question ‘how can I be held responsible without the authority’ is often asked. The answer is that ‘it depends’. Everyone has the responsibility to manage their own activities on a daily basis, and be held accountable for the outcomes, but as you move up a corporate ladder, it becomes increasingly challenging to maintain the link. The more senior you are the more you will be held accountable for things over which you have less and less direct control. That direct control is held at lower levels in the organisation.

The key to making this all work is to thoughtfully and consistently delegate. This requires that you pinpoint the job to be done, have a system of interlinking KPI’s, and that there is explicit and transparent performance feedback and management of both the process and those held accountable for the components of the process.  

 

Stakeholder engagement.

All stakeholders, and most critically, employees need to be ‘engaged’ in the objective of scaling a business. To go back to the metaphor of the rowing eight, if one oarsman is not concentrating, and is therefore slightly out of rhythm, the performance of the eight will be critically compromised. That out of rhythm may be created by the training regime of the individual, the maintenance of the oar, and many other specific sources that together add up to the sub optimum performance of the eight when engaged in the race.

 

Clear, unambiguous and valuable personal purpose.

Again to refer to the rowing eight. Every member of  the crew and support staff know the purpose is to compete in the Olympics, and to do everything possible to win. To every person, the goal of winning is a personal one, as well as one that motivates and directs the team, and to every person, the goal provides a deeply personal objective upon which they can focus all their efforts and emotion.

It is no different setting out to scale a business. If the employees see the objective of scaling as being one that will enrich the proprietors  and shareholders without  anything in it for them, why bother. The purpose has to be one with a ‘higher calling’ that delivers something very personal for everyone.

 

Performance transparency.

No improvement project, let alone one that requires scaling can be successful without a roadmap provided by performance measures to show progress, identify weak spots, and offer alternative perspectives.  The greater the level of transparency the better able will the whole team be able to buy into the program.

Performance transparency  has a number of faces. It covers individual, team, and corporate performance measures, from the perspective of both the internal KPI’s and the external ones that will impact on the manner in which the enterprise competes. These external KPI’s are those factors that impact performance, but over which the enterprise has no control other than being aware and able to accommodate and when possible leverage them.

 

Process Scalability.

It is a fact that as enterprises become bigger, the degree of complexity increases as the number of people, teams, functions that require co-ordination and alignment grows. With size comes complexity. The essence of a scalable management infrastructure is simplicity and conquering complexity is a challenge of leadership as well as the management of the processes themselves.

The tool that works best in my experience is to document all processes. This enables the process to be applied consistently irrespective of the person working it, and is the basis for  improvement, without a starting point that is stable, no process can be improved.

 

Marketing.

Everyone is in marketing. From the CEO to the lowest level support staff, everyone has a responsibility to be an apostle for the business. Word of mouth, personal recommendation, whether it be by clients referring you to prospects, or your employees telling their friends what a great place it is to work, remains the most effective form of marketing. All that comes after is in one way or another a scaled version of that first person marketing.

Scaling marketing is not a matter of posting some cat photos on Facebook. It is a disciplined process of communicating your value proposition progressively to those most likely to be future customers, and retaining those you already have. It is very easy to blow huge resources under the banner of ‘marketing,’ but like all things worth doing, it is not as easy as it sometimes seems, requiring clarity of the value proposition, an ideal customer persona to be served, and a product and service mix that is both differentiated and valuable to customers.

As marketing is exercised externally,  the potential for misdirection and complication is significant, so focussing attention on the productivity of marketing expenditures is a key to being able to successfully scale.

 

Cash.

Growth, let alone scaled growth, are voracious consumers of cash. Proactively managing your cash resources is essential. From time to time borrowing may be necessary, but when it becomes necessary to keep the day to day activities going, you have over-reached, and quick remedial action s necessary.

 

Without wishing to belabour the point made in the intro, the absolutely essential ingredient is leadership, without which scaling will not be possible.