Some thoughts on strategy, leadership, and corporate culture.

Entries tagged as ‘CEO’

BIV Boardroom Strategy: A selection of the best books on strategic planning

November 5, 2009 · 2 Comments

Mike

[Total read time: 4 mins]

There is no “right” strategic planning methodology that works for every company or organization. In fact, using a blended approach to create a customized methodology will likely yield the best planning framework for you and your company. The question becomes, “Where do I start?”

There have been five key books on strategy written in the past 10 years that provide perspectives on how to approach strategic planning. Here is a brief synopsis of each book, and why it’s worth reading.

Good to Great (Jim Collins): Collins refers to this book as the book he should have written first. Good to Great describes in detail the steps that good companies have taken to become great. From leadership to confronting the brutal facts, simplifying strategy, adding in discipline, understanding the role of technology and discovering what builds momentum with your business, Good to Great covers the complete strategy canvas at a high level, simplified in a way that will allow you to share your company’s strategic priorities with everyone in the business.

Built to Last (Jim Collins and Jerry Porras): Before Good to Great, Jim Collins collaborated with Jerry Porras to write Built to Last. This book is a study of 18 visionary companies and how they differ from their key competitors. The core philosophies are:
•stop reinventing the wheel and instead develop and document the core procedures that can withstand changes in personnel;
•stay focused on your core values while trying new things; and
•focus on the long-term goal – the BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) – a 10- to 30-year goal of the organization that is so large and so far in the future that it bears that moniker.

Blue Ocean Strategy (W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne): Written by two professors from INSEAD, Blue Ocean Strategy seeks to understand how companies like Cirque du Soleil, Apple and Blockbuster have changed the foundations of their business models and how they approach the market to move from the Red Ocean, bloody from the fight for market share, to the Blue Ocean, where the companies stand alone to compete for clients who don’t fit the traditional mould of their “old industry.” Their strategy canvas approach is designed to narrow down the key factors that you and your competitors use as the defining points of service in your industry. Then, by eliminating, creating or changing these key factors, a new industry is formed that appeals to a customer segment not being served by the existing industry. The short version of this would be to say that this is the story of the game-changers in their industries and how they did it.

Mastering the Rockefeller Habits (Verne Harnish): Harnish’s first book is based on the one-page strategic plan that John D. Rockefeller had each of his key executives complete at United Steel. The book details how to create a plan that summarizes your 30-year, three- to five-year, one-year and quarterly goals, along with supporting SWOT analysis, financial information (budget and actual) and accountabilities. The real magic is that all of this can fit onto one 8 1/2 x 11 page.

Execution (Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan): Execution speaks to one of the core reasons that most strategic plans fail – a lack of accountability and execution.
Many people think execution is the tactical side of business, best left to those people below the senior team in the organizational hierarchy. Bossidy and Charan argue that execution should be part of an organization’s cultural fabric, starting in the CEO’s office. The book describes a series of behaviours and techniques common within businesses that demonstrate a high level of execution of their plans.

Each of these books has a summary online that does a great job of breaking down the key points and practical applications. What the summaries won’t provide are the examples of real companies whose products and services you recognize and can relate to. Reading some or all of these books will help you relate the decisions made by other successful companies to the strategic challenges your organization is facing today.

PDF of Column BIV Boardroom Strategy – Nov 3-9, 2009

Categories: Business in Vancouver: Boardroom Strategy · strategy
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Business in Vancouver: Why your strategic plan failed and what you can do about it.

September 15, 2009 · 2 Comments

PDF of actual column in Business in Vancouver: Sept 15th-21st, 2009

Mike[total read time: 4 mins]

The conversation normally begins like this, “We’ve tried strategic planning in the past but somehow it allows seems to fall by the way side. No matter what method we try, the same result occurs. What are we missing?”

From it’s military genesis to strategic planning as we know it today, the reason for it is always the same: we need to know where we want to end up, how we’re going to get there, what resources we need, and who can help us make it happen. From small entrepreneurial businesses to large public entities, strategic planning is critical in shaping the future of your business. As I say to new clients who haven’t put a planning methodology in place, “you wouldn’t go on a road trip without a destination and a map or GPS, so why are you running your business without a plan for where it will end up and how you’re going to get there?”

There are five key reasons that most strategic plans fail. The good news is that each and every one of them is avoidable.

1. Lack of accountability. Without direct accountability, more specifically the name of a person who has agreed to complete a series of actions around an initiative, strategic planning leads to great ideas for the future with no one to see them through.

2. Lack of follow-up. In as short as three months changes in the economy, industry, market, or company can render a strategic plan full of holes that no longer link to reality. The result of this is a lot of three-ringed binders being hidden on shelves. The trick to keeping a strategic plan dynamic is to schedule quarterly sessions to review, evaluate, and revise the plan.

3. Lack of execution. Once everyone leaves the strategic planning retreat the day-to-day realities of running the business start flooding into their Blackberries and iPhones. Without agreed upon actions that link each initiative to reasonable timelines, you’re left with a framework with no method to execute on it. It’s tantamount to wishing something would occur but not ever taking any steps towards making it happen. Enter into strategic planning with the following mindset – planning is not about the plan, it is about the execution.  A 10% plan executed with authority is far more valuable than a 100% plan left on the shelf.

4. Lack of buy-in. Without the buy-in of the people who can actually make the strategic plan a reality, the exercise is moot. Create buy-in through involvement in the planning process, and with clear communication about how each person on the team can contribute to the successful execution of the plan.

5. Lack of connection to operations. Without connecting how the strategic plan naturally extends from the existing operations and responsibilities internally, it’s doomed to always be just out of reach of the organization. Most people wake up each day wanting to do a good job at work and looking forward to contributing to the long term sustainability of the business – help them see how key initiatives fit into their day-to-day.

There’s a great quote from General David Petraeus, commander of the Multi-National Security Transition Command Iraq, from the book The Gamble by Thomas Rick which sums up many of these points: “there are three enormous tasks that strategic leaders have to get right” Petraeus said one night in Baghdad, “the first is to get the big ideas right. The second is to communicate the big ideas throughout the organization. The third is to ensure proper execution of the big ideas.”

So if planning is about the alignment and execution, start by asking yourself, “What is our system for planning?  How does our system drive behaviour and measurement that tells us early on about execution effectiveness? Is our strategic planning system heavy on communication, reporting, metrics, review and revision so we can’t ignore it, forget about it, or avoid accountability around it?”

Next month we’ll introduce a planning process that will allow you to match personal goals with divisional and organizational goals – all on one page. Stay tuned.

Mike Desjardins is the Driver (CEO) at ViRTUS, an organizational development consulting firm with expertise in strategic planning and implementation, leadership development, change management and succession planning for medium to large organizations.

Jeffrey Kearney is a Mentor at ViRTUS, specializing in strategic planning, leadership development, and CEO Mentoring and Coaching.

Categories: Business in Vancouver: Boardroom Strategy · strategy
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The CEOs Top 5: Leading Through Turbulent Times

April 27, 2009 · 1 Comment

hurricane_500It’s during turbulent times, whether it be the current global economic situation or in times of industry or organization crisis, that CEOs have a tremendous opportunity to pull the people in their organization together towards a common goal.  As Francois De La Rochefoucauld said, “there is no stronger bond of friendship than a mutual enemy.”

Here is a list of the top five things CEOs must keep in mind while leading through turbulent times:

  1. Simplify the strategic message. The easier the strategy is to understand and communicate the more likely it is to be understood and passed on through the entire organization.  The Top 3-5 goals for the year is really what people will remember.  Stephen Covey takes it one step further in his book, The Eighth Habit, when he describes the concept of a Wildly Important Goal (WIG) – the most important goal for the company for the year, as the single overarching objective that everyone in the company must be able to understand, feel compelled by, and be able to repeat and pass-on.  A simple catch phrase that rallies support, the WIG is something that politicians have used to their advantage for years.  Side note: Premier Gordon Campbell knows this well.  At the BC Leadership Lunch last week he summed up the importance of forestry to British Columbia by saying, “wood is good.”  Now I’m sure the double-entendre was intentional and I guarantee that his message was passed on.
  2. As Jim Collins said, Good to Great, confront the brutal facts but move forward with healthy optimism anyway.  Be clear about what the situation is today, what that means for the organization, what the strategy is to move us is the right direction, and what each person can do to contribute to the success of the plan.
  3. Be candid and speak authentically about the reality of the situtation.  Jack Welch, in chapter 2 of his book Winning, speaks about candor,  or as he calls it, “the biggest little dirty secret in business.”  Jack says that he felt the biggest turning point in success at GE happened when they brought all the executives together and agreed to put true candor into place in the organization.  That chapter is one of the best pieces I’ve read on the value of candor in organizations.
  4. Keep your strategic plan dynamic. The most successful companies we work with at ViRTUS, are the ones that review, evaluate, and revise their strategic plans on a quarterly basis.  Adapting the plan to changes in the market, economy, industry, company, or direct competition creates a document which decision can be made by instead of another binder on the shelf (I swear a shelf manufacturer came up with the concept of putting binders on shelves to sell more shelves.).
  5. Be consistent in your communications to all stakeholders. In board meetings, executive meetings, press releases, articles, newsletters, speeches, blog postings, hallway/cafeteria adhoc conversations, etc., the message must be the same.

Hear’s where the rant starts:  and STOP blaming everything on the “global economic situation.”  Not all of the risks you take as a CEO, even as calculated as they might seem at the time, are going to pan out.  Own up to the mistakes that were made and move on.  You’ll make more later so now’s the time to focus on the path forward.

Categories: leadership · strategy
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What is a Wildly Courageous Decision?

April 14, 2009 · 1 Comment

CourageAt ViRTUS our Wildly Courageous Decision (WCD) is to become the Apple of the consulting world.  I’ve been asked numerous times to go into more detail about the process of defining a WCD.

First off, the Wildly Courageous Decision is actually a blend of two different concepts:  the Wildly Important Goal (WIG) from Stephen Covey’s book the 8th Habit and the Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG) from Jim Collins’ book, Good to Great.

In crafting your WCD there are five different methods that work tend to best:

  1. compared to competition (Avis decided they wanted to be second to Hertz)
  2. compared to an absolute (The Seattle Pike Place Fish Market decided they wanted to be world famous)
  3. compared to an industry (We will become the leading/most admired/fastest/cheapest provider of X in the packaged goods industry)
  4. compared to a company you admire (ViRTUS is becoming the Apple of the consulting world)
  5. compared to a parent company (We will be the fastest growing/most profitable/more admired/leading brand of GE).

Here are the five criteria of a BHAG which also apply to a WCD:

  1. Are set with understanding, not bravado.
  2. Fit squarely in the three circles of your Hedgehog Concept.
  3. Have a long time frame—10 to 30 years.
  4. Are clear, compelling and easy to grasp.
  5. Directly reflect your core values and core purpose.

It took us a number of tries before we came up with a WCD that the entire team could rally around.  The first two just weren’t inspiring us to move in the long term direction we wanted.    As an entrepreneur I really had to ask myself this question as the final test of our WCD: “Am I willing to spend the next 10 to 30 years of my life to achieve this Wildly Courageous Decision?”

Categories: strategy
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I’m a CEO, should I use Twitter?

April 13, 2009 · 1 Comment

Categories: leadership · technology
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Empowerment framework for CEO’s

February 20, 2009 · Leave a Comment

CEO’s and Entrepreneurs who are interested in delegating decisions to their team need to setup a framework for that empowerment so that they feel comfortable with the way decisions are made.  

Here are the six questions that CEOs and Entrepreneurs ask themselves when they are making decisions:

  1. Is it good for our customers?
  2. Is it good for our company?
  3. Is it financially responsible?
  4. Is it consistent with our core values and ethical?
  5. Are we okay with the precedent that this decision sets?
  6. Are the key people who are affected by this decision in the loop?

Empowerment

Categories: leadership
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Results-focused CEOs outperform high EI CEOs

January 26, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Brad Smart, co-author of the book Topgrading, has written a fascinating blog post that references two new studies which seem to somewhat contradict what the HR community has been saying with respect to results-focused CEOs and high emotional intelligence CEOs and the connection to company performance: “University of Chicago researchers studied 225 CEOs assessed with Topgrading methods, and found that CEOs who were extremely results-oriented delivered much better financial results than CEOs high in Emotional Intelligence.”

Apparently the results point to a “disproportionate emphasis” on EI vs results orientation in the hiring process.

The CEOs we’ve worked with over the past 10 years at ViRTUS who have the highest performance and the lowest senior rank turnover consistently show a blend of results focus and strong emotional intelligence (which they are consciously developing).

What has your experience been with your CEO?

Categories: human resources · leadership
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Should CEOs blog?

November 16, 2008 · Leave a Comment

Since I started this blog a number of CEOs and Entrepreneurs have asked me questions about the “how” and the “why” of blogging. A friend of mine, Maria LoScerbo, owns a PR firm in town called EpicPR and she blogged about a Globe and Mail article that was written earlier this year on the pros and cons of CEO blogging that I think answers a lot of those questions: here it is. 

I decided to start blogging as a result of multiple conversations with Mike Jagger, a friend of mine who owns a security company (Provident Security), who has been a prolific blogger for years now.  One of the first things he told me about his blog is that 9/10 of his new customers mention it as one of the reasons they decided to choose Provident.  That’s all I needed to know to finally start blogging.

Categories: random
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