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Culture Series

Culture – Involvement: Empowerment vs Delegation

by Ron Potter October 31, 2019

Empowerment vs. Delegation

Last week my blog post spoke of Empowerment in great cultures. I need to take a short side trip here to talk about the differences between the words empowerment and delegation. I’m not going to suggest that the words need to be used differently than they are today, that would be too large of a task. But I believe it’s crucial that we understand the difference and also understand why one is required before you can accomplish the other.

These two words have become confused and misused in today’s language. We currently view empowerment as a good thing and delegation as a bad thing. I believe you need to empower before you delegate, and delegation is the higher form of the two words.

Let’s go back to the original definition of the two words and understand what they mean.

Empowerment

The dictionary says “To promote the self-actualization or influence of – make more confident – give someone a greater sense of confidence or self-esteem (Italics are mine)

Empowerment helps a person increase confidence, self-actualization, and self-esteem. Empower is facilitated by allowing you to influence me on decisions and directions. In other words, if I’ve Empowered you to run a portion of an organization, I will allow you to:

make all of your plans
run them by me to influence decisions to be made.

However, it’s still clear that the decisions are mine.

Advantages of Empowerment

There are a few advantages of using empowerment over a period of time:

The individual grows and gets better as you question and learn the reasons for their planning and decision making
You, the one granting empowerment, begin to learn how this particular person thinks and approaches issues. It may be very different than you, but that doesn’t make it wrong.
You may learn something along the way (see comments below about hiring experts)
You gain a comfort level that the person is capable of tackling projects

Hiring the Expert

We often hire a person who is an expert in a particular area. But, you must be very careful about how you grow and nurture that person. If you start asking questions about how or why they reach a certain decision, their reaction might be:

Why am I being questioned? I’m the expert.
Does this person trust me?
I can’t stand the “micromanagement” much more. I may have made a mistake in taking this job.

When you hire an expert or someone with considerably more experience in an area than you possess, make sure you explain the reason for empowerment and when you expect to move up to Delegation.

Empowerment needs to take place in this situation for a couple of reasons:

You need to learn and grow in this area. This is the reason you hired an experienced expert.
You need to know the key indicators of the job or project. Is it going well? Are we in trouble? How will I know as soon as possible? When do I need to explain a bigger picture or other influences where this person may not have an awareness?

If you let your “expert” know all of this ahead of time, they’ll be better equipped and more willing to answer your questions.

Delegate

The dictionary says, “Give a responsibility or task to somebody else – Assign responsibility or authority – Commit or entrust another.”

Delegation carries a much higher level of responsibility than empowerment.

In U.S. Embassies, the Ambassador is our official representative. The Ambassador is our delegate.

I believe delegation is the higher state of the empowerment-delegation pair. Delegation means you have been entrusted with a piece of the business to run as you see fit. However, like a US Ambassador, regular check-ins are expected. That is why we empower first so that key indicators can be understood and approved before the assignment is delegated.

Do they know the difference?

I’ve often asked leaders if they can tell me which direct reports are empowered and which they’ve delegated. After understanding the definitions, they will tell me who they’ve delegated and who is still empowered.

My next question is, “Do your direct reports know if they’re empowered or delegated?” The answer is usually no. This causes confusion. Each person is wondering why they are treated differently from another person. One of the positive things I’ve seen happen when an explanation is made, the empowered quickly ask, “What do I need to do to have that delegated to me?” This is the perfect question.

Misunderstood and timing

Because the original meaning of these words has been lost, I’ve seen managers and leaders assume that if they are going to empower someone, they should look the other way and let them do their thing. That’s an abdication of leadership. Leadership is still required in both empowerment and delegation. Don’t sacrifice your role at the alter of empowerment.

The other issue is timing. If you like having your direct reports continually in an empowered state, that is an indication that you’re letting your ego get in the way. Delegation can be scary but is required for a healthy organization. On the other hand, if you’re pretty good at getting people delegated (they’ll think of you as one of the best bosses they’ll ever have) and you still have someone in an empowered state even after a year of attempting delegation, you probably need to help that employee move elsewhere. If they’re not willing or capable of accepting delegation, they may not be the right person for your organization.

Be Aware

Again, I’m not trying to change how language is used, but I do believe it’s important that you understand the differences to be effective.

The Denison Culture Survey (and almost everyone else) is using the word empowering. The concept is correct. Having people engaged, empowered, and taking responsibility for their work will have a positive impact on your organization. Make it happen.

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Blog Culture Culture Series

Culture – Involvement: Empowerment

by Ron Potter October 24, 2019

Organizations with highly empowered employees have a couple of things in common:

Processes Pushed Downward

The first common point is that processes are pushed down the hierarchy to the lowest possible level. When I say processes, the survey measures explicitly Information, planning, and decisions.

This point starts with the genuine belief that the information needed for good planning and decision making resides with the people closest to the action. I used the words “genuine belief” because I’ve seen too many leaders and leadership teams proclaim that the needed information resides and is better understood at levels below them but their ego and position keep them from letting go of their own beliefs and assumptions. They also believe they are the leaders of the organization because they are smarter and know better what to do then those who have not yet reached their level in the company. If you’re a member of a high-level team, be very, very careful that you don’t let that ego prevent you from hearing and understanding the information from the people who are closer to the action.

During my blog series on being a Leader, I talked about the Sweet Rewards of Humility. You can follow the link below if you have more interest.

My point is, you must be a humble leader in order to empower your people and organization.

Positive Impact and Involved

The second thing that organizations with highly empowered people have in common: Employees believe they can have a positive impact and are therefore highly involved in their individual work and the work of their team. They are good at integrating their work with that of their team.

Integrating Work with Others

The key to positive impact and involvement? Integrating with others. It takes good teamwork. We’ll look at the elements of a Team Orientation in a future blog. But for now, let’s remind ourselves of the aspects of building a good team:

Truth: Being able to speak the reality of a situation. This ability must reside both in peer-to-peer relationships as well as a top-down, bottom-up relationship.
Respect: We must respect the opinions and observations of everyone. When people feel respected, they are willing to share and integrate their work with others.
Elegance: Good integration of work means reducing the friction caused naturally between different parts of an organization.
Commitment: Integration means that sometimes, other parts of the organization must benefit. It is possible to improve each part of the organization but not to maximize each part of the organization. A good team requires a commitment to the best for the overall company, not just a particular part of the organization.

Empowerment is required for good involvement.

Good involvement is a requirement of a great culture.

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Blog Culture Culture Series

Culture – Involvement

by Ron Potter October 17, 2019

We’ve looked at Mission and Adaptability. Individually they’re each required to create a great culture. But, we also looked at them as a pair. The top of the chart says “External Focus” meaning that these two quadrants look to the outside world. They are not focused on things internal to the organization but are focused on the future with Mission and on the customer and industry needs and changes with Adaptability.

Today we’ll begin focusing on the third quadrant, Involvement. As a preview of things to come, you’ll notice that the left side of the chart is labeled “Flexible”. This means that the two quadrants on the left side of the chart, Adaptability and Involvement help create very flexible organizations. We’ll talk more about that when we look at Involvement in summary.

Like all of the other quadrants, Involvement has three subsections:

Empowerment
Team Orientation
Capability Development

There seems to be an abundance of “Engagement” surveys in the market place today. I believe the root of these was based on the research of the Gallop Organization. Their premise is that the more employees are “engaged” the more productive they are; leading to a more successful organization. I agree with their premise.

I also agree that the Denison organization’s focus on empowerment, team orientation, and capability development direct the company and it’s employees to specific areas of engagement that have the greatest impact. It’s not just engagement for engagement’s sake but focused engagement by empowering people, equipping them with the right capabilities and helping them work as united teams.

There is a lot to learn in this quadrant and as with the others, it’s easy to declare but difficult to implement. Doing so will help you create a great corporate culture.

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Blog Culture Culture Series

Culture – People Quit Organizational Cultures!

by Ron Potter October 10, 2019

I read a recent blog by Christie Lindor. The title of that post was

“People do not quit companies, managers, or leaders – they quit organizational cultures. Here’s why.”

In her post, Christie wrote, “I had always believed that people quit leaders, not companies.”

I also believed that statement and observed it as well. Christie then goes on to say

But then I realized that there is probably another way to look at it. It is more than just leaders. Organizational culture, in its simplest form, is an ecosystemic mashup of values, beliefs, underlying assumptions, symbols, rituals, attitudes, and behaviors shared by a group of employees and driven by leadership.” (Italics are mine)

While I don’t disagree with Christie, I think there are important distinctions.

Beliefs and Assumptions

In the Denison Culture Survey chart, there is a center circle labeled “Beliefs and Assumptions”. While that little center circle is often overlooked, Dr. Denison is making it clear that it’s a set of corporate beliefs and assumptions that drives the culture.

In my Culture Introduction blog post I stated:

What is Culture?

A dictionary definition says, “the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an organization.”

We hear a lot about a corporate culture being toxic or exciting or silo-ed or productive. But in my mind, many of those conditions have more to do with Teams and Leadership than they do with Culture.

- If there is a toxic environment, that’s usually caused by poor leadership that is ego-driven rather than humbly driven.
- Exciting environments come from leaders and teams developing people to face difficulties and obstacles in innovative thoughtful ways that utilize the skills and experiences present.
- Silo-ed environments happen when teams are unable to work through their difference and reach a committed direction or approach.
- Productive environments exist when teams learn how to elegantly use the resources they have to get the most out of an organization in a simple way.

Focusing on “culture” doesn’t cure any of the identified difficulties. Building better teams and leadership improves those issues.

I believe Christie and I are saying the same thing. However, I believe it’s important to distinguish between Team, Leadership, and Culture. It’s difficult to correct issues of “Culture” without acknowledging that its Leadership and Teams that cause the Culture issues.

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Blog Culture Culture Series

Culture – Adaptability: Summary

by Ron Potter October 3, 2019

It’s easy to see but often challenging to implement an adaptable organization.

It takes

Learning
Listening
Changing
Humility
Respect

Humility is required because it forces you to suspend your belief about what is the right direction to learn, listen, and change.

It also requires respect. I’ve talked about Jordan Peterson and his 12 Rules for Life. One of my favorite rules is number nine, which states “Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don’t.” Live by that rule alone, and you’ll experience change and growth.

But, now that we’ve looked at the first two quadrants, Mission and Adaptability, I would like to think about them as a pair.

Mission and Adaptability are at the top of the Denison Culture Survey. If you look at the very top of the circle, you’ll see

the words “External Focus.” External Focus means that the quadrants of Mission and Adaptability look “outside.” They are not focused on what goes on internal to the organization, but what is going on beyond the walls of the organization.

Organizations who have high scores in these quadrants at the top of the chart tend to be focused on and achieve growth and market share.

What I find interesting is the research behind these two quadrants.

Research indicates that during down times when market share and growth shrink, companies who have high scores in these two quadrants seem to be less impacted by the negative situation.

If growth and market share is your goal, make sure the people of your company score you highly in these two quadrants.

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Blog Culture Culture Series

Culture – Adaptability: Creating Change

by Ron Potter September 26, 2019

One of the more impactful aspects of this Creating Change sections is summed up in the statement:

“We respond well to competitors and other changes in the business environment.”

One of my first experiences with the Denison Culture Survey was with a company that had been the undisputed leader of their industry for over 100 years. However, over the last few years, they had been losing market share to new start-ups in their industry. By the time they needed outside help, things had fallen to critical points, and their profitability had all but disappeared.

First Culture Survey

When we saw the results of their first survey, it was immediately obvious from a consulting point of view. They scored highest in the Consistency quadrant. Meaning they had been doing things in a very consistent way for over 100 years (we’ll look at the Consistency quadrant in more detail in future posts).

They scored lowest in the Creating Change section of Adaptability.

And on the statement “We respond well to competitors and other changes in the business environment,” they scored in the bottom 10% of all companies. They did NOT respond well to competitors and other changes in the business environment.

Why had they not responded?

After gathering the results of the survey, we displayed the overall graph of their results. The leadership team went silent after reviewing the results. It was not because they were in shock. It was because the results revealed what they suspected was the problem all along. They had continued to function just as they had done for over a century in spite of knowing that the market place was rapidly changing around them.

But, this visual representation of their situation allowed them to open up and be honest with each other for the first time.

We’ve always done it this way

Their first response was to admit they knew they were in trouble over three years ago when they first experienced a loss of market share and a drop in their profits. At their annual leadership retreat, they decided that the drop would be overcome if they just buckled down and did a better job. After all, they had been successful for over 100 years. If they just did a better job of doing what they did well, they would pull out of this tailspin.

We don’t have a better solution

At their leadership retreat two years ago the results had continued to drop but they decided it must be a temporary issue and if they just continued to stay focused and work harder, this would be overcome like many dips throughout their history. They didn’t have a better answer.

Now we see the problem

While they were stunned with the results of their culture survey, you could almost detect a sense of relief on many of their faces. They were all exhausted from working hard and long. They had sacrificed their personal lives including family and health just because they didn’t have a better answer. Now they could see the issue more clearly which allowed them to talk about and work toward a more feasible solution.

Coherent Change

Other areas of the Creating Change section referred to issues such as:

Flexibility
Improved processes
New ways of doing things
Lower the resistance to change
Get the entire organization pulling together in the new direction

These things they could begin to plan around. The Culture Survey had added a new vitality to the leadership team. You could feel the energy rising in the room as they began to talk about and plan for change and a new way of doing things.

Improvement

While they never fully recovered the overwhelming market share they once held, they did become a much more competitive force in the market place. They were suddenly fighting for and scrapping for every inch of growth in the market place, and the “new” competitors were fighting a new approach from an old competitor. They were now forcing changes in the industry, and the “new” competitors had to respond.

Blockbuster

If I tried to list all of the companies that were once a force in the industry but no longer existed, there would be too many to include in a blog.

I read the other day that Blockbuster (the DVD company with thousands of retail stores) had a chance to purchase Netflix for a very reasonable amount. They passed. It would have eaten into their retail store, walk-in business.

Today, Netflix is one of the hottest companies in the market place. Blockbuster doesn’t exist.

Change or Die

We’ve used this adage many times in the last several blog posts. But it’s true. If you’re not changing and adapting, you will soon be nothing more than an empty store in a strip mall with a faded outline of your logo and former glory.

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Blog Culture Culture Series

Culture – Adaptability: Customer Focus

by Ron Potter September 19, 2019

Customer focus is an interesting topic to me. Henry Ford is quoted as saying “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” He was inventing the car. People didn’t know they needed a car.

Entirely new Product or Service

“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.” Thomas Watson, president of IBM. This was the quote from Tom Watson Sr. It was Tom Watson Jr. that turned the punch card company toward computers of the future.

I believe Customer Focus must be driven by the Mission quadrant. If our mission is to create something the world has never see or doesn’t know they need yet, then Customer Focus must be very selective.

I’m involved with a wonderful team attempting to create something that doesn’t exist yet. We’re trying to take years of consulting experience from myself and a couple of other consultants and boil down the essence of building teams, being great leaders and developing great cultures into an app. We’ve titled it GPS4Leaders. Even though we have a great concept on how the app will work, our goal right now is to put the app in the hands of customers and let them tell us how it should look, feel and react to their use. We’re trying to listen to the customer.

Existing Product or Service

But,

once the car has deeply penetrated society
everyone is working with computers daily (sometimes it even resides on your wrist)
giving you access to your Team, Leadership, and Culture progress instantly on whatever device is available at the moment

how should you then listen to your customer?

Listen to the customer from the companies position, not just your job

I recently received notice from my insurance company that my policy would be discontinued if I didn’t submit a payment immediately. However, that particular policy is set up for automatic withdrawal, and it is the insurance company that initiates payment. I called the company, brought the payments up to date and then asked, “Why didn’t you (the insurance company) make the automatic withdrawal?” The answer was “I don’t know, but I’ll have someone contact you.” I was never contacted! The person I was talking with did their job of receiving payment and didn’t care if it happened again or not.

Listen before the customer asks

In another example, I received a regular shipment, but the shipment was short two critical pieces. After waiting a week I called the company. The person I talked with immediately corrected the problem and sent me the missing parts. Did that person listen to the customer? Sort of!

In correcting the improper shipment, the person said: “Yes, we had several shipments with this same issue, I’ll correct that for you.”

Wait a minute! You knew you had this problem. If fact you have several examples of it, and yet you didn’t correct my issue until I called you to see why there was a problem!

Companies that are good at listening to their customers make corrections before the customer calls them.

Listening may be unique, but it requires focus

Each company may have unique issues around listening to its customers. An emergency room will have very different issues from a vitamin company. A parts supply company will have different issues than a new car dealership. You will likely need to customize your listening skills to your particular situation. Just make sure this is a leadership issue, it’s everybody’s job; it is not the domain of a customer service department!

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Blog Culture Culture Series

Culture – Adaptability: Organizational Learning

by Ron Potter September 12, 2019

Organizational learning requires much more than a procedure, a checklist, or even a department. Organizational learning needs to be deeply embedded in the organization. It must be a deeply held belief, part of everyday processes, and highly rewarded.

Reward Failure

Does your boss (or you as a boss) look for and reward those moments when learning takes place? People learn more from failures then they do from success. Let those two concepts sink in for a minute. We reward learning. Learning is the greatest from failure. Therefore (if I still remember my algebra) we reward failure!

How many organizations will survive is they reward failure? Not many, you might say. But if you remember our last blog, if we don’t change we die. You must figure out how to fail successfully to change and grow.

I remember one CEO in particular that seemed to have a good knack for successful failure. At his leadership meetings, his direct reports began to understand that if they brought an idea forward on how to do something differently, he would “reward” them with great attention and questions. For a moment they would get the center ring. When someone proposed a new idea, he would ask all of the “mission” questions from the first quadrant of the Culture Survey to make sure they were headed in the right direction. If so, he would grant permission to go ahead but with frequent updates, progress reports, and budget projections.

Noticed that he didn’t just turn them loose with no guide rails. The idea needed to further the mission, and he also set parameters in place that would assure quick small failures before things got too out of hand if the idea didn’t work.

But the ideas were rewarded, and the person who brought the idea forward was rewarded with a “job well done” and went on to the next topic with a nice grin on their face.

Innovation and Creativity are not the same

I hear many top executives proclaim that they want more creativity from their people. However, when people propose true, pie-in-the-sky, out-of-the-blue creative ideas are brought forward, they are often shot down for all the standard reasons.

Innovations are usually small, easily executable, quick ideas that help the organization change and adapt rapidly to a changing marketplace. Innovation often falls in the category of rewarding failure. Top executives love innovation (or at least they should). It doesn’t have the risk of creativity, and it’s easier to make sure it fits with the guard rails described above. Even if they call for creativity, corporate leaders are asking for innovation. Respond accordingly.

Generational Differences

One final note is probably worth mentioning. I grew up in the older generation. Our generation that would ask “Why am I taking calculus? Will I ever need it?” The only answer I ever received was “You’ll better understand how things work.”

The younger generation grew up with electronics and access to more information than we’ll ever use or need. They don’t need calculus; they Google it. (Interesting how Google has now become a verb.) Learning to them is very different from the learning process we went through.

How do we develop a culture of organizational learning in today’s environment? My answer to that question is to ask.

Ask your employees about what they need to learn.
Ask them what they want to learn.
Ask them how they learn.
Ask what you can do to help them learn.

How do we learn? Ask, don’t tell!

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Blog Culture Culture Series

Culture – Mission: Summary

by Ron Potter August 29, 2019

We just finished the three segments of the Mission portion of the Denison Culture Survey. As a quick recap of each section:

Vision

Is the direction and future image of the company clear to everyone? Everyone from the leadership team down through the entire organization? Is there unity about what that vision is and how it will be executed within every part of the organization?

Goals and Objectives

Is it clear how everyone’s daily work, goals, and objectives contribute and lead toward that unified vision? If people are simply accomplishing the “task of the day” without thought of how it contributes to the vision, the mission has not penetrated the organization enough to make a difference.

Strategic Direction

Every organization is vulnerable to changes and disruptions in the market place. Is there a clear strategic direction to help guide people through those potential impacts?

Why Mission?

But, I started with Mission because Dr. Denison and his organization are great researchers first! They have continued to dig deep into the impact of culture on the performance of organizations.

One of the studies looked at six different performance issues. Those six included:

Profitability/Return On Assets
Growth Sales/Revenue
Market Share
Product Development/Innovation
Quality
Employee Satisfaction

As the researchers discovered, Mission was impactful in five of the six measurements. In other words, if your Mission:

Vision
Goals and Objectives
Strategic Direction and Intent

are not on solid footing, you don’t have much of a chance at achieving

profitability
growth
market share
quality (product or service)
employee satisfaction.

When it comes to building a great corporate culture, get your mission unified and deeply penetrated first or don’t waste your time.

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Blog Culture Culture Series

Culture – Mission: Strategic Direction and Intent

by Ron Potter August 15, 2019

Strategic Direction and Intent is the last element of the Mission quadrant of great cultures.

The Strategy is different than the Vision.

Strategy is a plan
Tactics are how the plan will be executed
Vision is the end-result

We talked about the Vision and the Goals and Objectives (Tactics) in the last two blog posts. This section is focused on the strategy to accomplish the goals to reach the vision.

A culture survey doesn’t focus on what the strategy is. The strategy is different for every company, every division in the company and every team depending on the skills available.

What makes up a good strategy?

Therefore, a strategy in a corporate culture must focus on

Purpose
Meaning
Impact
Game-Changing
Clarity

Impact and Game-Changing

One question on the Denison Culture Survey seems to hit many of these points directly.

Our strategy leads other organizations to change the way they compete in the industry.”

Now that gets at the heart of a great strategy. Is it forcing other people in the industry to change their approach?

Strategy should never be about making money. As we stated earlier, money is a result.

Strategy isn’t about being the best at something. This goals usually leads to better, cheaper, or faster. There’s an old joke about a sign hanging in a shop window proclaiming “Better, Cheaper, Faster.” But the second line on the sign went straight to the heart of the matter. “Chose any two!” Someone will always be better, cheaper, or faster. Being the best at any one or two is not a strategy. It’s merely your value proposition.

But a strategy that gets the competition thinking about how they’re going to compete has a real impact. It’s a game-changer. It shakes up the industry because no one ever thought about doing it that way.

The list of game-changing innovations in my lifetime is incredible. There are two that I closely relate with because they corresponded to significant moments in my life.

The Transistor. It was invented the year I was born.
The programable Microprocessor. It was invented when I graduated from college.

Those two in particular lead to other game-changing innovations such as Mobile phones (massive computers that happen to make phone calls), DNA, LED, GPS, Digital Photos, FAANG (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google) almost everything in our daily lives.

I get it that you may be thinking at the moment, “What do the FAANG companies have to do with us?” We make glass jars. We make cereal. We make rubber tires.

But there is a constant revolution going on in each of these industries as well as others. Every industry and company is vulnerable to innovation and change. Is your strategy leading you to be the disrupter or the disrupted?

Purpose and Meaning

In the first year of my consulting career, I was in real trouble. I was coming to the end of my initial resources with no clients or even clear prospects. When my wife asked if I was supposed to be doing something else, my answer was “No. I believed I’d been called to this work.”

For me, helping leaders build great Teams, Leadership, and Culture was very meaningful and had a purpose. That doesn’t mean I was immune to failure, but that strong sense of being called to this work helped me persevere through the difficult times.

Does your strategy have that kind of purpose and meaning? Does it drive people to work through those difficult times when it might be easier to give up? Are people excited about getting to work, so see if they can accomplish the strategy and see how that might change the world? Does your strategy have meaning and purpose?

Clarity

Just like the other two elements of Mission, Strategic Direction and Intent must be clear, crisp, and concise. With large organizations, each division must be clear about how they may need to sub-optimize their portion at the moment to achieve the overall mission of the company. Is there enough clarity of the overall goal that people understand why they can’t have the resources they need at the moment to reach the ultimate corporate vision?

Hitting on All Cylinders

Impactful and Game-Changing
Purpose and Meaning
Clarity

Powerful strategies have all three.

Two out of three? You might tread water.
One of the three? You’ll lose ground.
Three out of three? This is going to be fun!

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Blog Culture Culture Series

Culture – Mission: Vision

by Ron Potter August 15, 2019

As we continue our look at great cultures, we’ve seen the four quadrants of Mission, Adaptability, Involvement, and Consistency.

We’re now looking at each quadrant in more detail. In our last blog post we identified the three elements in the Mission quadrant as

Vision
Goals and Objectives
Strategic Direction and Intent.

In today’s post and the next two to follow, I’m going to look at each of those elements in more detail.

Today we’ll look at Vision. As the Denison Culture Survey digs deeper into Vision, it tends to focus on two key aspects of Vision

The depth and motivating elements of the Vision
How the Leaders respond and react to the Vision

Depth

One of the questions in this arena is a two-part question of how deeply the vision has been shared and is it clear what the organization will look like in the future.

We’ve touched on the depth of sharing earlier but it’s worth going over again here.

I was working with a Fortune 50 company. I had spent most of my time with the ranks just below the C Suite level. At that level, they were very focused on the elements that would help them continue to flourish as one of the top companies in the world. They were developing stories, creating videos and building the elements into their software. They seemed to have a vision of their future.

Then I was introduced to one of the C Suite members and listened to him tell of the great vision that the CEO and other C Suite leaders were working on. When I asked about all of the vision pieces I had recently been working on with others down in his organization he looked at me curiously and said: “I haven’t heard any of those stories but I’m excited about our vision.”

The leaders were talking about different things than the rest of the organization. The did not have a shared vision! The vision must be the same vision no matter where in the organization it is being expressed.

Motivation

Is the vision motivating? This is the second part of the vision question. There may be a vision that is unified and deep in the organization but if it doesn’t inspire people to put forth the effort to reach the vision, it’s not worth the ink it took to print it.

“Our vision is to be one of the top recognized companies in our slice of the market place!” Not really inspiring. I’ve occasionally tried a trick with some of my clients. I’ll take their vision word-for-word but put one of their competitor’s names in instead. When it’s obvious that it could apply to either company equally, it’s not inspiring. What makes you unique? What makes you different? What is something only you can accomplish? That’s inspiring.

Leaders Response and Reaction

The other questions in this section relate to the leaders’ ability to execute the vision. Leaders often talk in terms of the long-term but make decisions that obviously have short term (read quarterly) impact. They may be trying to satisfy the investors and market by hitting these quarterly goals but it hampers the companies to reach their vision.

I know that some companies have elected not to report quarterly. I wish more companies would do the same. It helps build a better vision and long-term health for the company.

Vision

Vision must penetrate deep into the organization and it needs to be motivating and inspiring as well.

Leaders must walk-the-talk. It does no good to talk a good vision then make decisions to hit quarterly goals that will hamper the companies ability to reach that vision.

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Blog Culture Culture Series

Culture – Mission: Goals and Objectives

by Ron Potter August 8, 2019

Looking at the Mission quadrant of great cultures in more detail brings us to the Goals and Objectives element.

Tied to the Vision

Before anything else, goals and objectives must be aligned with the vision. People must see how accomplishing these specific goals and objectives will move the company towards that long-term vision.

Ambitious but Realistic

Many studies of high achieving individuals, teams, and companies reveal some interesting facts. High Achievers set goals that they believe they have a 75% probability of achieving. Once these “public” goals have been stated, they will internally work hard to reach goals they think they have about a 50% probability of achieving.

This formula says there is at least a 25% chance of failure (realistic) and then when they hit a higher goal with a lower chance of probability, they achieve an ambitious goal.

But one of the more interesting parts of these studies is that if publicly stated goals have less than a 50% probability, that becomes demotivating. Corporate leaders must be careful not to set goals that are demotivating but are ambitious. It’s a fine line that great cultures achieve.

Widespread Agreement

Gaining agreement is often more difficult than it seems on the surface. Different functions within an organization attract people with varying patterns of thought. Some of the easiest ones to see are the designers vs. the manufactures. Designers are artistic. They use different parts of their brain and think about style and form. Manufactures are often hands-on engineers. Things are matter-of-fact and practical. Making the most beautiful, cost-effective product often create opposing views. Leaders must help the organization balance these conflicting goals to reach the ultimate vision.

Track Progress

Goals and Objectives don’t carry much value if we don’t know where we are on our journey.

This is a personal story that I’ve shared before, but I have used many times with great success to help teams move forward along their journey.

When my children were very young, we lived in Utah, but much of our family resided in Michigan. Every summer we would make that 1,600-mile trek, often in a small car. It seemed to me that we hadn’t even reached the border between Utah and Wyoming when I would hear the question from the back seat, “are we there yet?” I soon banned that question from our family vocabulary. But I did give each child a detailed map and told them they could ask, “Where are we?” as many times as they wanted. They quickly figured out that when they plotted the first point on the map that we had a long way to go, and the frequency of questions diminished rapidly.

People want to know where they are on the Trek.

Measuring progress:

Identifies accomplishments on a regular basis
Identifies goals to be accomplished next
Motivates them to work harder on the next goal
Helps accomplish the overall journey sooner.

Goals and Objectives

Tied to the Vision
Ambitious but Realistic
Widespread Agreement
Progress Tracked

These elements of Goals and Objectives are another aspect of great cultures.

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