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Breakaway Success: Truth Exploring for Breakaway Success

By on March 23, 2012 in Breakaway Success, Culture, Executive Excellence, Synergy, Truth, Values

There’s seeking for the truth, then there’s finding the truth, there’s facing the truth, there’s communicating the truth.   It takes an extraordinary commitment to the truth to seek it and frankly not everyone is interested.  Some people like their own version of reality just fine, thank you.  It’s hard to make a difference with these people.

 

Serious truth seekers don’t fit well in organizations that stifle the flow of information, or place significant value in the pecking order/hierarchical management structure.  They don’t take kindly to gossip or the blame game, either. Then again, truth can be a slippery slope.

 

Mark Twain said, “Get the facts first, then you can distort them as much as you please.” Twain was speaking of human nature.  Is there really THE truth? Facing the truth may be admitting that you don’t have the answer.  Or you can’t make the deadline, in which case the sooner you communicate that truth, the sooner others can adjust to a new reality.

 

Once you have identified what you think is the truth, what do you do with it? Is it YOUR truth, or do you hold it as universally true for others and assume they are on the same page as you? Do you hold it up for scrutiny?

 

In businesses that are working hard to move toward a common goal, most of the breakdowns stem from the damaging impact of believing others have access to, or share your version of the truth.

 

I conduct a team-building exercise with senior executive teams, first assessing participants’ behavioral preferences using the Harrison Assessment then identifying their version of the company’s challenges.  So the inquiry is made in the context of individual impressions of how the company is held back from the goals.  Once everyone is debriefed and feedback is gathered, then together we examine their “filters” on the truth. This four-hour team exercise sucks the judgment right out of the room and makes way for a whole new version of truth exploring, putting it where it will best serve, i.e. exploring the boundaries of one’s own version of the truth.

 

If the leadership of the company is focused on measuring people against the right indicators — actions that produce desired results — and everyone is questioning their own truth, the resulting cultural synergy is a perfect backdrop for stunning breakaway success.

 

Is your organization poised for success by exploring “truth” in healthy ways?

 

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Measuring Performance for Breakaway Success: ‘A’ Players Rise to the Occasion

By on March 16, 2012 in Business, Employee Engagement, Executive Excellence, Perspectives, Trust, Values

If you’ve been following this blog since the beginning of this series, you already know I believe that accountability pays dividends in increased vitality that includes vitalizing what is known as the Triple Bottom Line.  Google it and you’ll find the triple bottom line means working as an organization toward profits, people, and the planet.

Look further and you will find many companies distinguishing themselves by pursuing the triple bottom line; Nordstrom, Southwest Airlines, Panera Bread, The Container Store, Whole Foods — being purposeful in a larger sense while pursuing self-interest.  The proof of effectiveness is in the financial, social, and environmental effects and is often associated with the monikers “sustainable” organization, or corporate citizenship, or conscious capitalism.  For more examples,  http://www.forbes.com/impact-30/lander.html.

Besides being the conscious thing to do, the triple bottom line has appeal for ‘A’ players — people who want to work for a purpose greater than themselves, who will work harder for the privilege of making a difference.

Breakaway Success is accomplishment beyond measure.  And yes, to get there, measure, measure, measure!  But only measure what is meaningful.

What is meaningful?  Most accountants measure what has already passed, and that has to be measured — sales, profits, ROI, G&A, etc.  Nothing new here and not necessarily meaningful to top performers, particularly younger workers who decide where to work based on the green/social capital of the organization.

And yes, financials are important. The Harvard Business Review, January 2010 issue’s presentation of The Best-Performing CEOs in the World said their objective was to present a long-term measure to assess CEOs and to inform CEO searches and succession planning, looking at stock returns, the fundamental scorecard for CEOs of public companies.  They looked at three measures:  country-adjusted return, industry-adjusted return and change in market capitalization during their tenure.

The following are words and phrases emanating from the 2011 CEO Summit on Conscious Capitalism. http://vimeo.com/33738729. Well-being of the people, the world.  Value for stakeholders.  I win, you win, the world wins.  Businesses operating from higher ideals that animate business. Profit is the byproduct, and purpose underlies that.  If you make a difference, often the money will take care of itself.

Paradoxically, NOT focusing wholly on profit will provide more profitability because the focus is on win-win.

How is your organization measuring its success?  I am eager to hear your stories.

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Employee Engagement — Structures that Inspire ‘A’ Teams

By on March 9, 2012 in Business, Employee Engagement, Perspectives, strategy, Trust, Uncategorized, Values

I have said previously that ‘A’ Players like to be measured because they want to know when they have met or exceeded expectations, their own and yours.

Different teams require different structures, so for example sales teams require CRM.  That should be obvious, but for some organization it isn’t.  They probably aren’t reading this blog, because they have fallen behind in their technology savvy.

Today there is no excuse for not capturing sales data.  If you experience resistance from your sales management or a sales team member, you may be getting feedback from someone who doesn’t want to be measured, which suggests that person isn’t an ‘A’ player.  Look more deeply.

Senior executive teams need meetings with one another on a regular basis, and I do not mean meetings that get put off when there’s an emergency.  Consider that there are emergencies because you aren’t strategically thinking together regularly.

‘A’ teams need a leader who challenges them to think their best thoughts, be on their best behavior as a leader.  Challenging conversations are a structure.  They need report cards, theirs from you and theirs to you the CEO/President/Founder/Grand Poo-Bah of any title.  They need off-sites for strategic thinking and planning.  Those are structures.

What else do they need as a structure?  Executives need to be able to count on having conversations that matter deeply, whether they ask for them or not, in part because they need to learn how to hold those conversations with those who report to them.  I recently was asked to help a CEO hire a senior executive.  We used the Harrison Assessment to profile the candidate against the expectations of the position.  His results scared the potential employee off.  The CEO’s executive coach said to me, “Probably a good thing.  If the candidate doesn’t want to delve more transparently into himself then he won’t be a good fit for this team.”

If you need support for generating conversations that matter, on this website you can order senior executive team conversation starters.   And if you want to keep and inspire ‘A’ teams with structures, you will look beyond the obvious ones, which you know with your eyes closed.

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