Tag Archives: implement strategy

Maybe the Plan is the Problem

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business

I have been doing a lot of thinking of late about strategy and innovation, and how to use these tools to extend our organizations’s mission reach. Both concepts have been widely explored, and yet in some experts’ attempts to create step by step guides for how “do” strategy and innovation, the intuitive/explorative part of the journey gets lost in the quest to quantify.

I am a big believer in detailed plans … at the right place and time. I just don’t happen to believe strategy or innovation are the right place or time. As I mentioned in a previous post , our strategic framework (not plan, framework) fits on one page, and our most innovative efforts have taken us down paths we didn’t expect at the outset. If we had over planned in either of these areas, we would have set targets far short of what we actually accomplished.

You don’t have to take my word for it. In “The Big Lie of Strategic Planning” (Harvard Business Review, Jan/Feb 2014) author Roger L. Martin outlines why over planning is terrible for strategy. He contends that plans are how organizations cope with fear, but fear and discomfort are an essential part of strategy (whew, that’s good to know!). If fact, he says, if you are totally comfortable with your strategy, it probably isn’t very good.

Likewise, in terms of innovation, the authors in the newly released book Collective Genius note that innovative groups act their way forward rather than plan their way forward. You can’t move systematically toward a new concept, it is a journey of trial and error, gut instincts and new discoveries. How can you definitively plan for that?

While detailed plans for strategy and innovation may be counterproductive, you still need goals and parameters to keep everyone moving in the same direction. For example at the time we identified a strategic goal of extending our mission reach internationally, the intent — the what — was clear. However, if we had made a specific plan for “how”, we probably would have identified a single country to target, and called the plan a success if we met that target. Rather, by leaving the goal open-ended, and intuitively pursuing a variety of paths that presented themselves, we have trained professionals from five continents.

Our philosophy around innovation is that the specifics are going to change along the way anyway, so we start with concepts and prototypes rather than a comprehensive plan, and tweak it all along the way as we learn what works and what doesn’t. Patient persistence, rather than a perfect plan, is what has led to our most impactful innovations.

Strategy and innovation are never sure bets, there is always risk involved. A detailed plan, in effect, means you are choosing a single path and ruling out other variables and options — in many regards actually increasing your risk of missing the mark. As Martin notes, the goal of strategy (and I would add, innovation) is not to eliminate risk, but to increase the odds of success.

Not getting the success you hoped for in your strategy or innovation efforts? Maybe the problem is in your plan.

Culture Eats Strategy

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PacMac

“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” — Peter Drucker

Amen! When it comes to organizational success, culture can make the difference between reaching your goals and falling short . . . as Mr. Drucker pointed out, more so than strategy, and I believe more than hard work or innovation. Yes, it takes a clear vision, dedication, and creative ideas to succeed, but culture provides either the gas to move those things forward or the steady leak that will cause them to sputter to a stop.

The trouble is, culture is a hard thing to wrap your arms around. It can be incredibly powerful but hard to define . . . it’s about attitudes, beliefs, behaviors, and norms that are reinforced over time . . . it’s the “urban legends” and unwritten rules that informally get passed on to individuals throughout the organization. Simply describing your intended culture doesn’t make it so. Rather it is philosophy and actions, repeated over time, that shape culture.

My agency is situated on a large campus, similar to many college campuses. When I first joined the organization, part of the culture was that you did not walk on the grass — you walked on the sidewalk to get to where ever you needed to go, even if that was not the most direct path. I don’t think I ever saw that rule written any where, it was just the way we did it here at Chaddock. To this day, twenty years later, and even though I had a hand in trying to change that aspect of our culture, I still occasionally twinge when I see someone cut across the grassy parade ground to get to another building. That is the power of culture.

So how do you change a culture if you can’t really define it or measure it, and you can’t dictate it from “on high”? First and foremost, I believe you have to identify a few key behaviors that you and your team consistently model. If you want to build a culture of transparency, for example, you need to repeatedly demonstrate an openness to sharing the good, the bad, and the ugly with your staff and board, rather than simply cherry-picking the information that paints the picture you desire. Pick one or two behaviors for your team to start with, and when they gain traction you can add a couple more.

Secondly, you need ask questions and listen. Why are staff carrying out a process in a way that makes no sense to you, or resisting a change that will make their lives easier? If you approach the question with the assumption that they are intelligent, well-meaning people who want the best for the organization (thereby modeling a culture you would like to foster), you are more likely to have the patience to peel back the layers to identify the reasoning behind their behaviors. “We’re required to do it that way,” is one we’ve had to battle. It seems like a plausible response given the vast number of external regulations that govern our work, but once you dig down a bit . . . Who requires it? . . . Could we look at the current rules and see if that is still the case? . . . we have sometimes found that the parameters we thought we had to work within no longer (and maybe never did) exist. As a result, a simplified process can be put into place without the resistance that comes when staff feel like you simply don’t understand the impact of a decision on a rule that “they know” they are required to follow.

Trying to shift a culture is a case of needing to go slow to go fast. Changing “the way we do things” takes time and patience but, given the momentum that you can gain as you go, it actually takes far less time and energy than battling well-intentioned resistance or fixing issues that have arisen because of attitudes or behaviors that are not aligned with who you want your organization to be.

While a leader can’t “make” a culture happen, if we want to effectively implement strategy then being aware of, and taking steps to positively impact, organizational culture should be at the top of your priority list.

It’s time for breakfast.