As we know, improving organizational performance and creating a truly enduring organization is influenced by many external factors including the global economy and individual country fiscal policies.
In a recent presentation at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, Harvard Professor Niall Ferguson presents a rather sobering view of the sustainability of Western country debt levels and the not so distant future implications.
The challenge for organizations is to understand the potential futures facing the Western economies and develop sustainable business strategies that will increase the odds of success in the coming decades.
While many of Ferguson's futures seem dire, he does hold out some hope for the possibility that the culture of innovation and entrepreneurship in the United States may help resolve what he describes as the inevitable debt crisis on both sides of the Atlantic.
While it is a lengthy presentation, I highly recommend that you find the time to watch both the presentation and the Q&A videos.
Friday, May 28, 2010
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Building a Solid Foundation: Four Not So "Easy" Pieces
Organization alignment is often considered a characteristic of a highly developed organization. However, it is possible and even desirable to align key aspects of the organization early in the transformation to sustainable excellence.
The presentation available for download (below) highlights four key dimensions to align now!
Four Not So "Easy" Pieces:
1. Stakeholder Needs and Relationships;
2. Organization Structure and Systems to address those needs;
3. Performance Measures to track performance and progress; and
4. Strategic Goals and Objectives.
These four components are not presented in a specific sequence. The first step is to identify the details for all four components and then identify the gaps and misalignments and the work on filling the gaps and aligning the components.
Organizations find that a conceptual diagram of the organization and main value chain provides a common visual to help align the components and facilitate a systems thinking approach to improving organizational performance. The diagram in the example presentation is based on the Monfort College of Business at the University of Northern Colorado but the concepts are applicable to any organization.
Download presentation slides.
The presentation available for download (below) highlights four key dimensions to align now!
Four Not So "Easy" Pieces:
1. Stakeholder Needs and Relationships;
2. Organization Structure and Systems to address those needs;
3. Performance Measures to track performance and progress; and
4. Strategic Goals and Objectives.
These four components are not presented in a specific sequence. The first step is to identify the details for all four components and then identify the gaps and misalignments and the work on filling the gaps and aligning the components.
Organizations find that a conceptual diagram of the organization and main value chain provides a common visual to help align the components and facilitate a systems thinking approach to improving organizational performance. The diagram in the example presentation is based on the Monfort College of Business at the University of Northern Colorado but the concepts are applicable to any organization.
Download presentation slides.
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Design for Organizational Sustainability
Leadership is about effectiveness! What is the right thing to do? Management is about efficiency. Management is essential but insufficient to "create" a sustainable enterprise. Strategic leadership skills are required to redesign how we run our enterprises to create sustainable high performance and value for the multiple stakeholders: customers, employees, investors, partners, society and the natural environment.
In his BAWB 2009 keynote Bill McDonough proposes that “design is the first signal of human intention.” Which begs his next question, “what is our intention as a species?” The corollary might be, what is our intention as leaders of organizations? And, what are the purposes of our organizations?
Bill uses a Sierpinski Triangle to illustrate the connections between ecology, economic, and societal aspects of design. The question then is how can this concept be used to enhance leadership system design? One way might be to incorporate it in the design framework for leadership and management systems. It appears to be useful during several dimensions of systems design including: the purpose and requirements of the system, understanding the context, and developing a systems perspective of the organization both internally and externally.
I encourage you to watch the keynote video. Unfortunately, the first five minutes are administrative conference announcements and introductions. However, if you can multi-task and get through this part, Bill’s keynote starts at about the five minute mark and it is packed with great questions, concepts, and tangible examples.
For more on the Business as an Agent of World Benefit: Manage by Designing in an Era of Massive Innovation conference visit the conference website.
For more on Bill McDonough visit his website.
Enjoy!
john
In his BAWB 2009 keynote Bill McDonough proposes that “design is the first signal of human intention.” Which begs his next question, “what is our intention as a species?” The corollary might be, what is our intention as leaders of organizations? And, what are the purposes of our organizations?
Bill uses a Sierpinski Triangle to illustrate the connections between ecology, economic, and societal aspects of design. The question then is how can this concept be used to enhance leadership system design? One way might be to incorporate it in the design framework for leadership and management systems. It appears to be useful during several dimensions of systems design including: the purpose and requirements of the system, understanding the context, and developing a systems perspective of the organization both internally and externally.
I encourage you to watch the keynote video. Unfortunately, the first five minutes are administrative conference announcements and introductions. However, if you can multi-task and get through this part, Bill’s keynote starts at about the five minute mark and it is packed with great questions, concepts, and tangible examples.
For more on the Business as an Agent of World Benefit: Manage by Designing in an Era of Massive Innovation conference visit the conference website.
For more on Bill McDonough visit his website.
Enjoy!
john
Monday, March 29, 2010
Building Bridges Between Theory and Practice
I often wonder why "airport books" on leadership are often more popular with practitioners than empirical evidence from solid research studies. To many people, the answer may be obvious but I find it amazing that leaders often fail to do things we know work and often do things we know do not work - a point made by Pfeffer and Sutton in their 2006 book: Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-truths, and Total Nonsense: Profiting from Evidence-based Management. It is hard to imagine an engineer ignoring the empirical knowledge of metallurgy when designing a new bridge. So why do leaders ignore the empirical evidence when designing high performing organizations? With respect to the incorporation of empirical evidence, why is leadership system design any different than designing a bridge?
Part of the reason may be that some of the research produced is not presented in a way that is easy for practitioners to consume. A quote from the practitioners at our 2006 Summit meeting between practitioners and researchers, success is “not academic arcane language in some obscure journal” (Latham, 2008, p. 20). Improving organizational performance is a complex task and most attempts fail. Yet, we continue to try again and again - often without changing our approach or changing the approach without knowing why. One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. On the other end of the spectrum is what we often call the "book of the month club" approach to leadership and management. One antidote for both of these diseases is empirical evidence and organizational learning.
At the Institute we use 10 criteria to design and evaluate our research projects and outputs. These 10 criteria are described in our research lab on our website. The criteria help guide the design and execution of our research projects. Ultimately, research is judged by the impact it makes on our organizations. Do the insights from research help leaders create sustainable organizational change? Creating excellence that is truly sustainable will require more bridges between those that produce new knowledge and insights and those that use that knowledge to create high performing organizations.
References:
Latham, J. R. (2008). Building Bridges Between Researchers and Practitioners: A Collaborative Approach to Research in Performance Excellence. Quality Management Journal, 15(1), 19.
Pfeffer, J., and R. I. Sutton. (2006). Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-truths, and Total Nonsense: Profiting from Evidence-based Management. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.
Part of the reason may be that some of the research produced is not presented in a way that is easy for practitioners to consume. A quote from the practitioners at our 2006 Summit meeting between practitioners and researchers, success is “not academic arcane language in some obscure journal” (Latham, 2008, p. 20). Improving organizational performance is a complex task and most attempts fail. Yet, we continue to try again and again - often without changing our approach or changing the approach without knowing why. One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. On the other end of the spectrum is what we often call the "book of the month club" approach to leadership and management. One antidote for both of these diseases is empirical evidence and organizational learning.
At the Institute we use 10 criteria to design and evaluate our research projects and outputs. These 10 criteria are described in our research lab on our website. The criteria help guide the design and execution of our research projects. Ultimately, research is judged by the impact it makes on our organizations. Do the insights from research help leaders create sustainable organizational change? Creating excellence that is truly sustainable will require more bridges between those that produce new knowledge and insights and those that use that knowledge to create high performing organizations.
References:
Latham, J. R. (2008). Building Bridges Between Researchers and Practitioners: A Collaborative Approach to Research in Performance Excellence. Quality Management Journal, 15(1), 19.
Pfeffer, J., and R. I. Sutton. (2006). Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-truths, and Total Nonsense: Profiting from Evidence-based Management. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Transformational CEOs Create an Environment for Excellence
While they are often popular icons of industry, narcissistic leaders are the opposite of the transformational CEOs in our study. Michael Maccoby notes "narcissistic leaders can be poor listeners, sensitive to criticism, lacking in empathy and 'relentless and ruthless in their pursuit of victory.'" The transformational CEOs in our study were excellent listeners, collaborative - exploring many perspectives, were empathetic and were not motivated by personal recognition for their achievements.
Transformational CEOs are humble and less motivated by a desire to be recognized for their personal achievements than other effective senior leaders. They are motivated to make the overall organization successful. When asked what was most satisfying aspect of leading organizational change to create a high performing organization all 14 participants in a recent study told stories of how the people in the organization had accomplished something extraordinary. They were motivated to help enable the accomplishments of their team to better serve the customers, patients, students, etc.
The low need for personal recognition combined with other leader motivations and approaches such as low desire for sole responsibility, a collaborative leadership model and a systems thinking approach, create an environment for synergistic problem solving and creative solutions and strategies for sustaining high performance. These approaches to leadership eventually resulted in organizational culture change and the embedding of teamwork throughout the organization culture. Teamwork was the most common organizational culture value identified by most of the participating CEOs.
This post is the last in a series of the seven differentiating factors that make CEOs who have led Baldrige-based organization transformation different from other effective leaders.
Read the report and white paper.
Transformational CEOs are humble and less motivated by a desire to be recognized for their personal achievements than other effective senior leaders. They are motivated to make the overall organization successful. When asked what was most satisfying aspect of leading organizational change to create a high performing organization all 14 participants in a recent study told stories of how the people in the organization had accomplished something extraordinary. They were motivated to help enable the accomplishments of their team to better serve the customers, patients, students, etc.
The low need for personal recognition combined with other leader motivations and approaches such as low desire for sole responsibility, a collaborative leadership model and a systems thinking approach, create an environment for synergistic problem solving and creative solutions and strategies for sustaining high performance. These approaches to leadership eventually resulted in organizational culture change and the embedding of teamwork throughout the organization culture. Teamwork was the most common organizational culture value identified by most of the participating CEOs.
This post is the last in a series of the seven differentiating factors that make CEOs who have led Baldrige-based organization transformation different from other effective leaders.
Read the report and white paper.
Monday, February 1, 2010
Just Give Me the Bottom Line!
"Just give me the bottom line." Experience suggests that many executives do not want a lot of information; instead they want the “bottom line” or a few options to choose from. Staff are trained to do the analysis and develop a few options for the busy executive to choose from. Unfortunately, all too often this process allows the executive to avoid their own detailed analysis and limits the depth of their own systems thinking and understanding.
Transformational leaders use detailed information to understand the internal and external systems and environments and develop proactive strategies to succeed in today's complex and dynamic global environment. A systems thinking approach requires a comprehensive scorecard to analyze the complex and dynamic relationships in the modern organization and operating environment. In-depth analysis of the system enables the identification of key leverage points that create sustainable organization change.
The transformational CEOs in a recent study were strongly motivated to work with facts and knowledge and seemed to always want to know more. In fact, when compared to other effective leaders, the participating transformational CEOs had more in common with employees with respect to the information they were motivated to work with than the other leaders. As one Transformational CEO noted, “Baldrige organizations are very fact based. They also know that running tests and trials are critical to successful product or service changes that will impact customers and clients. These companies tend to be more measurement based (objective) vs. subjective. There is an old saying about ‘In God We Trust...all others must bring the facts’....”
Art and science of designing, managing and improving the organization system requires many types of information to help illuminate the system as well as systematic methods for improvement. All of the Transformational CEOs in the study used four very fact-based continuous improvement processes including: (a) strategic management system; (b) continuous improvement process (PDSA, Six Sigma, Lean, etc.); (c) benchmarking; and (d) Baldrige-based assessment and improvement. In addition, they used a leadership system with a comprehensive scorecard and results that included the current performance levels, trends over time, and comparisons to other high performing organizations to understand their performance and develop plans for improvement.
Read the research report on CEO Attitudes and Motivations.
Transformational leaders use detailed information to understand the internal and external systems and environments and develop proactive strategies to succeed in today's complex and dynamic global environment. A systems thinking approach requires a comprehensive scorecard to analyze the complex and dynamic relationships in the modern organization and operating environment. In-depth analysis of the system enables the identification of key leverage points that create sustainable organization change.
The transformational CEOs in a recent study were strongly motivated to work with facts and knowledge and seemed to always want to know more. In fact, when compared to other effective leaders, the participating transformational CEOs had more in common with employees with respect to the information they were motivated to work with than the other leaders. As one Transformational CEO noted, “Baldrige organizations are very fact based. They also know that running tests and trials are critical to successful product or service changes that will impact customers and clients. These companies tend to be more measurement based (objective) vs. subjective. There is an old saying about ‘In God We Trust...all others must bring the facts’....”
Art and science of designing, managing and improving the organization system requires many types of information to help illuminate the system as well as systematic methods for improvement. All of the Transformational CEOs in the study used four very fact-based continuous improvement processes including: (a) strategic management system; (b) continuous improvement process (PDSA, Six Sigma, Lean, etc.); (c) benchmarking; and (d) Baldrige-based assessment and improvement. In addition, they used a leadership system with a comprehensive scorecard and results that included the current performance levels, trends over time, and comparisons to other high performing organizations to understand their performance and develop plans for improvement.
Read the research report on CEO Attitudes and Motivations.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Transformational CEOs Focus on Systems!
In a resource constrained environment, achieving and sustaining high performance requires systems thinking to identify the "leverage points" that will have the greatest impact on overall enterprise performance for the least amount of effort and expense. Successful leaders are "architects" of enduring organizations by designing systems that create sustainable high performance for multiple stakeholders. Not only are successful leaders skilled at systems thinking, they are strongly motivated to work with systems and processes.
According to Bill McDonough, design is the first signal of human intent. The corollary - management and leadership system design is the first sign of leadership intent. Many of the transformational CEOs in a recent study demonstrated the ability to understand the organization as a system. The CEOs in the study understood the causal chain of engaged employees, quality products and services, customer satisfaction and financial success. This systems thinking approach enabled them to improve individual components in ways that improved the performance of the overall system.
While the design of the leadership and management systems are the first signal of leadership intent, the ultimate goal is overall organizational culture change. Sustainable organizational change requires the new behaviors and methods eventually become embedded in the culture of the organization. Our research suggests that the longer the new system is in place, the greater the chance the new behaviors and methods will become "habits" and result in an enduring organization.
Read the research report on CEO Attitudes and Motivations
According to Bill McDonough, design is the first signal of human intent. The corollary - management and leadership system design is the first sign of leadership intent. Many of the transformational CEOs in a recent study demonstrated the ability to understand the organization as a system. The CEOs in the study understood the causal chain of engaged employees, quality products and services, customer satisfaction and financial success. This systems thinking approach enabled them to improve individual components in ways that improved the performance of the overall system.
While the design of the leadership and management systems are the first signal of leadership intent, the ultimate goal is overall organizational culture change. Sustainable organizational change requires the new behaviors and methods eventually become embedded in the culture of the organization. Our research suggests that the longer the new system is in place, the greater the chance the new behaviors and methods will become "habits" and result in an enduring organization.
Read the research report on CEO Attitudes and Motivations
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