The power of evolution & a picture that tells a story

We are firm believers that there are two ways of achieving anything – by evolution, or by revolution. The notion of evolution is of particular interest to the Therefore Team. In short, we believe that small tweaks can add up to a huge impact, if the tweaks are oriented towards a clear strategic vision. The trick is the strategic vision. Without it, the small tweaks are pretty much guaranteed to take you nowhere in particular. They will, however, keep you busy!

Before we started developing the Therefore Business Process Management Suite (BPMS) we spent a lot of time defining a clear strategic vision for the product. The initial release was undoubtedly revolutionary … but the real magic has been what we achieved after the initial release, through the power of evolution.

We have been taking market feedback for a period of some 14 years and using it to drive a continual cycle of refinement. Every week we make between 10 and 20 small refinements to the Therefore BPM Suite. In a year that amounts to about 780 refinements. The Therefore BPMS has been under continual refinement for the last 14 years, which translates into some 10,920 refinements. What would you expect if you refined something 10,920 times? Trust me, the impact is huge … but it requires commitment and a clear strategic vision.

The bottom line … when it comes to bringing life to your strategic vision, don’t forget to bring well oriented tweaks into the mix. Make the principle of “a well oriented tweak” a part of your strategic conversation and corporate culture. Not easy I know, but perhaps it starts with you!

Now for something slightly different, but stick with me … it will make sense.

Over the years there have been a myriad of questions regarding the Therefore logo and, true to form, we have been very cagey on giving away too much detail. Perhaps it’s time for a clue.

If you look at the Therefore logo, it implies a process of invention and refinement – a journey of discovery. You can almost see it come to life. The logo talks to our commitment to the belief that small refinements made within the context of a clear strategic vision unlock significant value.

We would like to accompany you on your journey of discovery. 

Updated: 6 December 2020
 

What’s in a name? Good, Cheap & Fast. Pick two.

Some time ago, I wrote a blog article that gave a small clue to why we called our business Therefore Strategic Technology Services (What's in a name?). At the time, the question was answered in the most cryptic of terms … and we are still not going to give the full secret away. None the less, provided below is the second clue to how the name Therefore was settled upon.

The Holy Triangle

Consider a triangle with three corners. Draw a dot on each corner … and you have the Therefore symbol, assuming that you have one dot at the top and two dots below it. Interestingly enough … turn the Therefore symbol on its head … and you get the symbol for Because.

Now, let’s give the dots names … Good, Cheap and Fast.

The rules of the game are simple. You can only ever touch two of the three points. So, if you select “Good” and “Cheap” … you can’t have “Fast”. Similarly, if you select “Cheap” and “Fast” … you have to give up on “Good”. Finally, “Good” and “Fast” are certainly not going to add up to “Cheap”.

This principle is referred to as the “Holy Triangle”. When creating a project charter, you need to consciously select two out of the three options, as dictated by the strategic position that the project plays in your environment. Sadly, you can't have it all.

The image below is often used to portray the “Holy Triangle”. Interestingly enough, you may be able to draw it … but it would be impossible to model it in the real world.

If you look at it carefully, there are three possible outcomes when you make your “Good”, “Cheap” and “Fast” selection.

You choose ... Good + Fast = Expensive

Your Team says ... Choose “Good” and “Fast” and we will postpone every other job, cancel all appointments and stay up 25 hours a day to get the job done. But, don't expect it to be cheap.

You choose ... Good + Cheap = Slow

Your Team says ... Choose “Good” and “Cheap” and we will do a great job for a great price, but you may need to find a bit of patience.

You choose ... Fast + Cheap = Inferior

Your Team says ... Choose “Fast” and “Cheap” and expect an inferior job delivered on time. The “Inferior” option is not a recommended position, and the Therefore Team are unfortunately not available to assist.

Now back to Therefore …

By now you would have guessed that the Therefore Team feel strongly about optimising your use of resource, both from the perspective of your financial and time resource … and we are aware that the world in which you operate has a scarcity of both. Quality can never be compromised.

The three points contained in the Therefore logo encapsulate this philosophy.

Communicating strategy … pulling in the same direction

Strategy ... keep talking 

So, you have drafted your strategy. You have broken your strategic themes into a set of tactics. Your tactical layer has in turn been broken down into a series of projects and tasks, all of which have been allocated to those that are accountable for their execution. Now your focus needs to shift to making sure that everyone is on the same page.

This article is intended to provide some pointers to assist you in the development of a plan that will clearly communicate your strategy to your most valuable stakeholder, your employees.

The Importance of Communicating Business Strategy

One of the most common weaknesses plaguing businesses is a lack of a solid understanding by employees of their company’s strategy. Communicating your strategy to employees is vital to ensuring that each member of your staff is involved and understands the company goals, where your long-term plans will lead and how you intend to get there.

All employees, irrespective of their level within the organization need to be aware that their contribution matters. They need to know that they play a key role in your business’ plans for the future, and they need a clear understanding of what the future will look like so that they can contribute to making the shift. The benefits from a motivational standpoint are self-evident. Perhaps more subtle are the benefits that flow from everyone pulling in the same direction.

Irrespective of how carefully you have documented your strategies, tactics, projects and tasks … it is inevitable that your planning will have gaps in it. It is therefore critical that your strategy execution team has a clear understanding of your strategy to ensure they are able to plug any gaps that they come across in a manner that remains true to your strategic vision.

Building your strategy communication plan

What follows is a broad framework that you can use as a starting point when drafting your strategy communication plan. Please feel free to feed back to me if you have any ideas that you believe would add value.

By whom

In most organisations, the CEO is the owner of the strategy plan and keeps a keen eye on its execution. For this reason, it is advised that the CEO personally communicates the ins and outs of your strategy to the employees. If the CEO personally delivers the strategy feedback, it will be apparent to your employees that the issue of strategy is of key importance to the business, given that it is being led from the top.

Interest groups

There are in essence three interest groups when it comes to communicating strategy, those that will be directly involved its execution, general staff and new recruits.

Session types

For new staff, you should ensure that your new staff induction material carries content that details your long term strategy.

For existing staff, you should schedule three types of sessions … a kick off session, progress update sessions and a close out session. Given the differing content needs of the two interest groups, it is proposed that the three session types be run separately for each interest group.

Kick off session

The kick off session should provide detail of the strategic themes, the thinking that sits behind the strategy as well as your target dates for delivery. You may want to acknowledge the team that will be directly responsible for the execution of your strategy.

Progress update sessions

Leadership needs to set aside time to honestly evaluate strategy execution performance. The findings of these reviews need to form the basis for feedback given to the organization.

Progress updates should occur as frequently as practical, ideally monthly, and should detail progress made, team members whose performance has been exemplary, areas where difficulties are being experienced, refinements made to the strategy and performance relative to deadlines.

Close out session

The close out session is there to wrap up and provide detail of your successes, failures, to acknowledge exemplary performance and to detail “lessons learned” during the course of the strategy execution cycle. It is also important to provide detail of your plans for the next strategic cycle at the close out session.

Induction

Including detail of your strategy in your new staff induction process will ensure that your staff are immersed into your strategy from the onset. As previously stated, this will allow new employees to understand that their contribution is of value, irrespective of where they sit in your hierarchy.

The contents

The strategy execution team needs a thorough understanding of the strategy, given that they will need to execute against it. They will need sufficient depth of understanding to allow them to “fill any gaps” that come to light during the course of the execution cycle.

General staff will require a less detailed reading of your strategy. The general staff curriculum should emphasise the fact that each employee plays a key role in your business’ plans for the future, what the future looks like and should provide detail of any “change management” issues that are implicit in your strategy. For general staff communication, keep it real, succinct and understandable.

It is advisable to acknowledge your strategy execution stars as a component of your progress updates. There may even be some merit in establishing a reward structure to reinforce exemplary performance. It stands to reason that performance against the strategy plan should constitute a KPI for the staff that are in your strategy execution team. More detail regarding the strategic alignment of KPIs to follow in a subsequent article.

An item that warrants communication to the strategy execution team is that the CEO is available to the team should they wish to engage in discussion regarding the execution of the strategy. This will make the process of “filling in gaps” far easier for the team and will improve the quality of the finished product. There may well be merit in establishing a Steering Committee to provide a forum for the discussion of all things strategic.

It’s often advisable to give strategies or strategic initiatives names as they concretize the abstract, facilitate strategic conversation and give your team something that they can “hook into”.

The venue

Take the feedback to where your employees are. This will minimise disruption and lend the interaction a sense of honesty and sincerity.

Collateral

The collateral that you use is up to you, whether it be hand-outs, a PowerPoint presentation, or both, the key is that it needs to be appropriate to your audience.

The execution team should ideally have access to a detailed reference document that they can refer to for context as they execute against the strategy.

My thinking is that collateral on its own is insufficient. You can’t get away from the power of face to face interaction when it comes to putting a message across.

Walk the talk

It is critical that your leadership Team actively leads by example and is seen to be committed to the strategy by way of their actions. “Walking the talk” makes a very powerful statement about your commitment to the message that you have communicated.

The strategy execution burn points

The strategy execution tool

Let’s face it, failure to implement business strategy is common, and unimplemented strategy adds no value. Breakdowns in planning and execution mean that only 50 to 60% of the value in a strategy plan is ever realised.

The Therefore Team have been doing a little bit of digging around to identify the burn points that folks experience when trying to deliver against strategy plans. The Therefore StratIQ™ product has been fine-tuned accordingly. 

Below are the big ticket items that we have identified. Please drop me a note if there are any burn points that you think that we may have missed. 

The strategy never got out of the boardroom

The focus required to drive a strategy is often eroded by the day to day demands of running the business. The result … strategy plans are often destined to see out their days in a filing cabinet and ground covered is frequently coincidental.

A plan is not enough … it requires a framework for delivery

Success requires planning … and strategy is no exception. Strategy plans tend to be complex and, without an execution management tool, executive teams tend to lose focus, often leading to delivery failure.

If you can’t measure, you can’t manage

If strategy execution can’t be measured with ease, managing delivery becomes cumbersome and time consuming. The management of strategy execution requires a dashboard and easy access to purpose built reporting.

If everyone is accountable, no one is accountable

Clear lines of accountability are critical to the execution of strategy. Given the complex nature of a strategic plan and the sheer size of the team that is required for its execution, accountability often falls into a grey area, which stands against delivery.

Critical to the management of accountability is the management of deadlines for delivery, and the ability to track performance relative to these deadlines.

Delivering across functional silos

Silo mentality is often put forward as a key break point for strategy execution. In the absence of an execution tool that is capable of coordinating effort across functional areas, strategy delivery becomes failure-prone.

The ability to support cross functional delivery improves the effectiveness of strategy delivery, makes silos more porous by encouraging strategic conversation and consequently improves company morale.

Aligning strategic delivery to KPIs

Aligning the delivery of strategic initiatives to your team’s KPIs is often easier said than done. In the absence of a mechanism capable of tracking your staff’s performance relative to their strategic accountabilities, KPI alignment becomes near impossible.

Everyone needs to be on the same page

Communication is one of management’s perennial challenges, and nowhere is clean communication more critical than in the execution of strategy.

A strategy execution tool needs to provide a single source of strategy performance data, thereby allowing your team to work with “on the same page” clarity.

Execution only counts if its quality execution

When one compares the strategy execution performance of staff, relative to their colleagues, one typically finds that the quality of output is uneven, given differing levels of performance and strategic maturity.

To guard against substandard delivery it is imperative that a workable review mechanism is in place.

Spreadsheet trackers aren’t up to the task

Spreadsheet based strategy execution trackers may be cheap, but they have too many shortcomings to allow them to be and appropriate tool for measuring, managing and executing strategy.

Peter Lever
peter@therefore.co.za
+27 83 447 4883

Originally published: 09/10/2013
Updated: 01/08/2014

If everyone is accountable … no one is accountable

Disclaimer: - I am in no way responsible for the content of this article. Any errors, exaggerations or omissions are someone else’s fault. In fact … I deny having written it.

Now that I have your attention, let’s talk about accountability.

Since the early 90’s, the concept of taking responsibility for mistakes made at work has become somewhat out of vogue. Who remembers Enron, JPMorgan, Lehman Brothers and Goldman Sachs? There are plenty of examples that are closer to home - Health and Racquet, Fidentia Group, Regal Bank, Aurora Empowerment Systems and Wendy Machanik.

Politicians too seem to have an absolute allergy to assuming accountability. For the sake of neutrality and political expedience I will refrain from mentioning any names … but I am sure that an example or two springs to mind. The bottom line, give me an answer as to who is really accountable for the Nkandla and Gupta International debacles and I am buying the next round of beers. I suspect that it would be easier to distribute school textbooks in Limpopo than it would be to get an honest admission of guilt.

This aversion to accountability has literally trickled down from heads of state to the chap that runs the local fruit and veg shop. This fruit and veg may be a bit past it … but hey, that’s how I got it from the market. It’s always the next guy’s problem … and no one is ever accountable.

We teach our kids to own up when they've done something wrong, in part so we can trust them. So, it makes sense that the lack of accountability in the workplace has led to a breakdown in trust. I have been doing a bit of digging around regarding the issue of workplace trust and accountability, which I am not going to reference, because … after all, I am not accountable for anything. The long and short of it is that less than a third of employees believe that they can trust management and about a half of employees believe that their companies encourage them to openly admit to their mistakes.

If you think this is an issue not to be taken seriously, you're wrong. A lack of trust poisons a workplace, and any boss with a modicum of common sense will want employees to feel comfortable to admit to and take accountability for their mistakes.

For a workforce to develop a strong sense of accountability, it has to come from the top. Leaders need to speak openly about the importance of accountability and, above all else, hold themselves accountable for their own actions. The message that it’s “OK to make mistakes” must also be put out there.

Making mistakes is an important part of growth. For companies that are playing in the innovation space … each mistake is a step towards victory, because they typically arrive with lessons learned. I very much doubt that Thomas Edison’s first light bulb worked. Thankfully, he did not throw in the towel when the first attempt went up in flames. The bottom line … encourage responsible mistake making. After all, it’s easy not to make mistakes, simply don’t do anything. Now that’s an attitude that you don’t want taking root in your organisation. I have an inherent suspicion of anyone that doesn’t make mistakes, because it generally indicates that they are not trying hard enough to make a difference.

Why the tirade about accountability you may ask? Well, simply put, to ensure that delivery happens on a reliable basis, the folks that are responsible for that delivery need to be aware that they are accountable for making it happen. There needs to be clear consequences for non-delivery or, for that matter, poor delivery.

My special interest is in the space of strategy delivery. Strategy delivery tends to fall apart in environments where the prevailing culture sees staff not being held accountable for delivery. The trick with delivering on strategy, in any environment, is to break the strategy down into a series of tactics, projects and tasks and to allocate each of them to the party accountable for their delivery. Throw some appropriate measurement mechanisms into the mix, align strategy delivery performance to KPIs and you are more than half way home. The Therefore StratIQ™ tool has been designed to provide exactly this support to your strategy delivery drive.

The really good news is there’s a lot you can do about the accountability problem, it doesn't cost money and it feels good. It starts by making a commitment to the fact that ethics are in fact important … and that accountability is a core ethic. It then moves onto acknowledging that it’s OK to make mistakes, as long as they are not perverse or illegal, you learned from them and you were quick to raise your hand when things started going pear shaped. Oh … and don’t forget to share what you have learned from your mistakes.

Breaking Silo Mentality

Ask CEOs what the number one innovation killer is and the odds are more than even that the answer will be “silo mentality”. Again, ask them what the biggest reason is for the failure to deliver on strategy and the phrase “silo mentality” is likely to turn up again.

Silo mentality is in essence an attitude problem. It emerges when companies corporatize. As companies grow it becomes necessary for them to introduce distinct functional areas to make control possible. In the absence of silo breaking leadership, departments are inclined to cease sharing and cooperating with each other. Enter silo mentality.

The long and the short of it … silo mentality reduces efficiency and can be a contributing factor to a failing corporate culture. Silos result in the duplication of cost and effort, cause functional areas within your business to work at cross purposes, destroy cross functional synergy, stem the flow of knowledge and work against economies of scale. The largest problem, however, is a lack of alignment with the overall company strategy.

Customer focus

Successful companies are Customer centric. They continually focus their efforts on optimising the value that they offer their Customers and thereby prosper. The Customer becomes the single point of focus around which all functional areas unite.

Unfortunately, silo mentality forces a shift in focus. The Customer is no longer centre stage. Customer centricity is, to a degree, replaced by a low key “turf war” between functional areas. If left unchecked, the lack of Customer centricity will erode the ability of the company to add value to the Customer, which will place it in a weaker position relative to its more Customer centric competitors.

Impact on Strategy execution

At its core … Strategy needs to be Customer centric for it to be of any value. Further, any material strategic initiative will require an effort that straddles more than one functional area. Silo mentality stands in the way of multiple functional areas cooperating to deliver on a strategic imperative.

Silo mentality catalysts

Silos originate as a result of many factors. Catalysts such as the following play a role in allowing a silo mentality to take root:

1. Introduction of departments 
2. Mergers and acquisitions 
3. Emergence of pockets of knowledge that are not freely shared. 
4. Job insecurity, resulting in staff competing with each other. 
5. Divide and rule management cultures. 
6. Development of inner circles within management structures. 
7. Absence of a strong Marketing function capable of maintaining Customer centricity. 
8. The introduction of ambitious and divisive managers.

Often a series of silo catalysts, such as those listed above, play together to make the organisation increasingly insular.

An “us and them” mentality can sometimes appear, particularly in organizations that are under performing. It’s common in the turnaround space to find departments pinning the root cause of their under performance on other functional areas.

It’s a cultural issue

At its root … silo mentality is a cultural problem.

Like most undesirable aspects of a corporate culture, silo mentality is typically fed from the top. It’s generally fair to say that it is senior management that allows silo mentality to take root and prosper. As a complicating factor, silo mentality creeps into the organization slowly, and it is more than probable that it taking root was something that was not initially apparent.

Lead from the top

The reality stands that silo mentality is typically introduced from the top. When staff stop sharing with colleagues in other functional areas, they are typically taking their lead from the departmental heads. As a consequence, an initiative to break down silo mentality requires senior management to make a conscious decision to cease acting in silos and to start cooperating and sharing information freely.

We have already had a look at silo catalysts. Let’s shift our focus to potential silo breakers. The silo breakers that you implement in your environment will be dependent on the peculiarities of your environment, so what follows are merely examples to stimulate thinking.

1. Make a public, management led, pact to the organization to start breaking down silo mentality. 
2. Add interdepartmental cooperation and knowledge sharing as a KPI. 
3. Revisit and re-launch your corporate values. 
4. Recognise staff that act as silo breakers publicly. 
5. Promote only those that have the ability and willingness to cooperate and share, and make your position in this regard public. 
6. Break barriers that divide your Executive Team. 
7. Manage staff that are building or perpetuating silos out of the business. 
8. Undertake projects that require cross functional cooperation. 
9. Ensure that your annual bonus is in part broad based and does not actively encourage department performance at the expense of company performance. 
10. Eliminate formality in the company and the need to go through endless chains of command before engaging leaders. 
11. Establish common platforms and systems across the company and give people access to the same data and information. This discourages information hoarding. 
12. Design comfortable space in each building or on each floor where cross functional teams can meet in a relaxed setting to brainstorm products / services, processes and work cross-functionally to create solutions. 
13. Review your business process to make the flow of activity between functional areas cleaner and more information rich. 

In closing ...

The key to understanding silo mentality is to remember it is a human behaviour. There are only two ways of changing human behaviour. Punish adherence to the old behaviours … reward adherence to the new behaviours … in short, the carrot and the stick.

Silos are great if you're storing corn or grain … but not so great for organizations. In an organisation they stop innovation, stand in the way of strategic execution and quite simply make the workplace an unhappy one. Engage in honest conversation with your Team … get to the root of what your silo catalysts are … implement your silo breakers … and move forward.

Putting the focus back on the Customer

Staying connected with how your Customers view your company, products and services is crucial to maintaining high levels of customer retention and growth. After all, the end point of the products and services that your business markets is the Customer. The most logical way of finding out how your Customer feels about your Company’s performance, is simply to ask them.

Surprisingly, companies are often reluctant to reach out to Customers and take honest feedback. I believe that the root of this phenomenon is twofold. Firstly, folks don’t want bad news … and human beings are inclined to avoid it like the plague. Years ago an outfit with which I was involved (details not provided for obvious reasons) held a Customer conference of sorts, with a view to taking Customer feedback. The take out from the event was that “Customers were ganging up on us … and we are providing them with a beating stick to do so!” All the great feedback that was received was simply brushed under the carpet. Nothing achieved. Rather bizarrely, the primary learning was never to have a repeat of the event. This introduces the second reason why companies may be disinclined to take feedback from Customers … very often, they simply are not confident that they have the capacity, staying power or political will to act on the input provided. If you ask your Customers what you could do better … and they give you the answer, they expect you to follow through. If you don’t, you lose face.

The long and the short of it … if you intend to canvas your Customer’s opinion … you need to be brave and you need to be committed to act on the feedback provided. If your organization has the maturity to want to work with Customer feedback, it is advisable to make “touching sides with your Customer” a component of your annual strategic planning cycle.

A great way for companies to make sure their whole organization stays informed about what is happening in their Customer’s world is to make use of Focus Groups. It is generally advised that Focus Groups are run by an independent professional, someone that has the necessary skill to steer the conversation such that you get the required feedback. You will need to brief the Focus Group Convener that you hire. The briefing that you put forward will be a key determinant of the quality of the feedback that you acquire. Some thoughts regarding the types of questions that you may want to put forward to the Convenor during the briefing session are presented below:

1. How do you feel about our products and services?
2. How do you feel about our company?
3. What’s your typical buying process for this type of product or service?
4. What criteria do you use to evaluate potential suppliers?
5. What’s the decision making process and who’s involved?
6. If you were looking for this type of product again, what would you do?
7. What would you type into Google to find a business like ours?
8. Is our website a helpful resource for you? What would improve it?
9. Is it easy doing business with us? How can we make it easier?
10. Where do you experience frustration when doing business with us?
11. Who do you consider to be our competitors?
12. What can we learn from our competitors?
13. Where are we better than our competitors?
14. What trends do you see in your market right now?
15. How is the market in which you operate changing? What do we need to do to make sure that we remain relevant to your needs?
16. If there was one thing we could do better, what would it be?
17. How could we improve our products / services?
18. What line extensions should we be looking into?
19. What are our strongest selling points?

When selecting a Focus Group Convenor, it is suggested that you ask the following questions of the prospects:

1. Is the session held in camera? Will we be given a copy of the footage?
2. Is an audio recording taken of the session? Will we be given a copy?
3. Will a written transcript of the proceedings be made available?
4. Will the Convenor provide a report that details their independent assessment of the outcome?
5. Will the Convenor present the above report to your Executive?
6. What experience does the Convenor have that is relevant to your line of business?

The ideal candidate will respond to questions 1 to 5 in the affirmative and his or her response to question 6 will give you a sense of comfort.

Choosing a venue for the Focus Group is also important. It’s generally better that you don’t use your offices. Neutral ground is better … and it puts the participants at ease. There are some really great facilities available, so have a look around. The professional facilities typically have a one way mirror in place that will allow your Team to monitor proceedings without getting in the way. The Convenor will periodically interact with your Team and take guidance with respect to areas where you would like him or her to probe.

Typically, the Convenor would also play a role in selecting the Focus Group participants. Generally, you would provide the Convenor with your Customer database and he or she would randomly select prospects. A set of prospects that are willing to participate would be identified, a date set … and there you go! There is some degree of science to determining the appropriate sample size and selecting participants. You can rely on your Convenor to guide this process. A well constituted focus group should be representative of the dynamics of your Customer base. As a heads up, you can expect to have to compensate the participants for their time in some way or another. Your Convenor will guide you accordingly.

When you run a Focus Group, you may want the session to be company anonymous … i.e. you don’t tell the participants which company has initiated the session. Anonymous sessions generally provide better competitive context, whereas company specified sessions often give feedback that is better suited for deriving a Customer Service strategy. It’s a complex question. The route that you take will need to be informed by your objectives. I would suggest that you take guidance from the Convenor that you engage.

Once you have held your Focus Group, it is imperative that you develop an action plan to align your company to the observations made. The hard work then becomes prioritizing and taking actions on the feedback. It’s generally advisable to close the loop with the Customer. They have taken the time to give you feedback. You owe it to them to communicate back what you have done with it!

Over a period of time, businesses tend to become inwardly focused … and it’s often easy to forget that there is a Customer out there. Why not allow your staff to review the video footage of the proceedings … and ask them for their thinking? It’s an ideal opportunity to put your Customers back where they belong … centre stage.