Listening: A Strategy and Change Blog | Hosfeld & Associates

“A path without heart is never enjoyable. You have to work hard even to take it. On the other hand, a path with heart is easy; it does not make you work at liking it.”
-    Carlos Castaneda, The Teachings of Don Juan

Employee loyalty and enthusiasm are two of the greatest strategic assets of any organization. Strategy design that reflects the path of the heart can build loyalty, engagement and commitment.

The following elements can help organizations bring out the best in their people as they go about strategy design.

• Collaborative Engagement – Creating opportunities for engagement, dialogue and input from all levels of the organization is essential to creating understanding of and support for strategic plans. It is also the primary way to tap the genius within the organization to find its own solutions.  While a consensus model is an unrealistic way to make decisions in most organizations, gathering broad input efficiently makes participants feel heard and valued and strengthens the outcome. Co-constructing strategy with those who must implement it builds the most powerful commitment.

• Build On What’s Already Working – Focusing the organization on what’s working creates hope and a foundation upon which to build new strengths. What do clients or customers already really appreciate about and want from the organization? What’s the opportunity to leverage existing strengths and capacities for further growth? What are the nascent initiatives that are working that can be amplified?

• Integrate Social and Environmental Values — Strategy processes that reflect higher values create companies that attract top talent. “Recruitment and retention consultancies like Kenexa, Hewitt Associates, Robert Half, and Towers Perrin have published figures demonstrating a link between environmentally friendly workplaces and engaged employees,” writes Andree Iffrig, author of Find Your Voice at Work: The Power of Storytelling in the Workplace (Limegrass 2007). Environmental and social values pave the path with heart that employees want to walk.

What are the best practices that make strategy work in an organization?

When the strategy is clear to everyone. The strategy needs to be simple enough for anyone in the company to understand. Fostering clarity involves the following:

• Avoid top-down approaches. Many organizations suffer from planning that goes on at the most senior level of the organization and doesn’t integrate wisdom from “the front lines.” Top-down planning also suffers as a result of a lack of understanding and buy-in. The most effective approach is one that combines top-down and bottom up approaches.

• Numbers aren’t the whole story. Strategies that are about hitting particular financial targets alone aren’t really strategies. Financial targets are goals that we want the strategies to deliver.  A strategy is the mobilization of company-wide efforts needed to create the desired outcomes. Financial targets are the “what.” Strategies are the “how.”

• Create shared language. The language of the executive office is often financial, but that doesn’t “translate” very well in other parts of the organization. Using planning tools that create shared language in all departments and levels of the organization helps make the strategy clear.

When the strategy is resilient. One common critique of strategy processes is that they create plans that are quickly obsolete. Resilient strategies are based on organizational strengths and assets that have long-term strategic potential. This involves the following:

• Avoid strategies that are “borrowed” from other companies. Some companies try to copy what they see working for their competitors or peers in their industry.  While great ideas can often be picked up from others, successful strategy is based on the unique assets and strengths of each organization.

• Base strategic plans on long-term opportunities, not short-term trends. A very common practice in organizations is to mistake tactical strategies for strategic planning. A short-term market opportunity then replaces organizational mission and strategy. Without balancing short-term and long-term, the organization short-changes itself on profitability and risks creating a culture driven from one crisis to another.

When the strategy is fully implemented. Many organizations create reasonable strategies that are not fully implemented. When this happens, one of the following may be occurring:

• Invite people into agreement with the strategy. If the strategy process has not sufficiently included the perspectives of those who will execute the strategy, the outcome will likely have opponents. Strategy processes that integrate differing views ultimately create stronger outcomes.

• Translate the strategy to day to day work. For many, the intuitive process of figuring out what strategy means for their work is fun and challenging. For others, it’s impossible.  Creating measurable action steps, and in some cases, metrics and financial targets is a critical step in strategy implementation.

• Role model at the executive level and follow through. In order to give the strategy a chance, there has to be managerial commitment and follow-through. If the strategy was developed without their buy-in or if the strategy is not robust enough, managers will become fearful that it doesn’t address the reality of today’s challenges.  If no one seems to get the strategy, they may become frustrated and conclude the strategy “doesn’t work.”

Bring up the terms “technical change” and “adaptive change” and many leaders will nod in recognition. Most can recognize when they are in technical or adaptive territory.  More often than not, however, leaders fail to match their leadership approach to the type of change that is needed.

As defined by Ron Haifitz in “The Practice of Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics for Changing Your Organization and the World,” technical change is the type that can be solved within the current expertise and capability of the organization.  Adaptive change calls for solutions that are not within the current capability of the organization (or leaders). As Haifitz describes it an adaptive situation is “a gap between aspirations and operational capacity that cannot be closed by the expertise and procedures currently in place.”

My recent work with both for-profit and non-profit leaders show them reacting to the perceived urgency of an adaptive challenge by rushing to formulate an answer to the challenge by themselves and then seeking to enroll others in their solution.  This misses two very important aspects of responding to adaptive situations: the opportunity for an innovative solution based on the collective wisdom of the organization, and fostering broad engagement in the selected approach among those who will execute it. It also ends up isolating the leader and making him or her the focus of conflict and resistance.  For such leaders the resistance can start to feel personal.

Leading in adaptive situations challenges leaders to invite others into decision-making at the very time they may be least willing to trust the outcome to others.  “I’m surrounded by people who only know how to do what I tell them to do,” complains one executive.  Yet, failure to open solution development to others may mean falling short of the demands of the adaptive challenge itself.  Following are a few suggestions for leaders facing an adaptive situation:

Qualify the Urgency – The need for a solution may indeed be urgent, but realize that the conditions that create the adaptive situation have been forming over a long period of time. Resist the urge to panic. Create the space for others to be creative. Consider breaking the adaptive challenge down into smaller parts, and take them on one at a time.

Lead by Framing the Challenge – Leaders play an extremely powerful role in providing the insight to accurately name or frame the adaptive challenge.  Focus on diagnosing and articulating the challenge rather than jumping to solutions.

Explore Multiple Solutions – Panic and lack of trust in the wisdom of the collective can cause leaders to lock down on one solution before exploring other alternatives. Set a goal to explore at least two if not three alternatives.

Don’t Go Alone — Don’t try to facilitate the engagement process by yourself. The temptation to try to control the outcome may be too great, or – because of your own power in the organization — participants may feel they need to give you the answer you want instead of fully exploring all options. Use internal or external facilitators to design group processes to define and explore alternatives.