Strategy – thoughtLEADERS, LLC: Leadership Training for the Real World

Give Your Teams the Resources They Need

May 31, 2023/0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Leadership, Project Management, Strategy /by Trevor Jones

The better you’re able to get your teams what they need to succeed and communicate clearly the incentives and the metrics that you’re measuring, the higher the likelihood that your team is going to be successful.

Leaders are accountable to a lot of people, including the members of their team. They need to make sure that they provide the team the resources they need to deliver on their own goals. Those resources include time, money, approval of initiatives, visibility with senior management, support for whatever the initiative is, and knocking down obstacles.

A leader’s job is to help the team be successful, and it’s unfair for that leader to ask for results without giving the team the resources they need to succeed. Leaders must also be held accountable for setting their teams up to succeed. Leaders need to face the same consequences if they fail to deliver. If the team fails, the leader has failed, and incentives should follow. Now, if the team succeeds, the leader has succeeded, and everybody should get the right bonus and reward that goes along with that performance. Ultimately, a leader is going to build trust between themselves and the members of the team by showing that everyone is in it together.

When I worked for a large financial services firm, we made sure that incentives were aligned at all levels. My boss, one year, was signed up for a $500 million goal. My part of that goal was $100 million. Then we broke that down on my team, and different teams had 30 million or 10 million or 20 million, and it all added up to my 100, which contributed to my boss’s 500. We were all very clear on what we had to deliver. We also understood what the consequences were if we failed and what the rewards were if we exceeded. Fortunately, we had a great year and everyone on the team got a great bonus because we hit our accountabilities.

So, for you as a leader, assess what your team is accountable for and ask them what resources they need to be successful. Then ensure that they have it. If they need budget, go get them budget. If they need you to knock down an obstacle, get to it, because the more you’re able to give them what they need, the higher the likelihood that they’re going to be successful. Next, review the goals and incentives, and make sure they roll up. Everybody’s goals should drive toward the same set of outcomes, and everyone should know, “If we hit our goals, here’s the reward, and if we miss, here are the consequences.”

Want to learn more about building accountability into your culture? How about taking an entire course on it? Check out the video below to learn more about the course and get started. Or you can go directly to the course and start learning how to build accountability into your culture. The entire course is available at LinkedIn Learning. Enjoy!

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How to Reinforce a Culture of Accountability

May 24, 2023/0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Leadership, Project Management, Strategy /by Trevor Jones

Your culture is an important asset, and you need to curate it every single day. Look for opportunities to reinforce the behaviors you want to see.

It’s not enough to just build a culture of accountability. You have to strengthen it and reinforce it every single day.

This is about the small behaviors adding up to that broader culture. The organization is going to behave in a manner based on what it sees punished or rewarded. If people see others covering things up or laying blame, and see those people getting ahead or even promoted, then people are going to behave in a manner consistent with that.

On the other hand, if they see that people are stepping up and accepting responsibility, and those behaviors get rewarded, people will behave that way. If people take responsibility for problems and say they’ve made mistakes, and that’s held up by management as, “This is great behavior,” people will behave that way as well.

You need to reinforce your culture every single day. Look for creative ways to do so. When I was a consultant, we had Firm Values Day. We would take all of our consultants off of client work for a full day, which was extremely expensive for the firm. And for that one day we would talk about our values. People would share examples of when they saw the values in action, or they would talk about when they violated the values and what they did to fix it.

Think about your organization. Are there opportunities to include conversations around the values and the culture in progress reviews? Can you use it as a lunch and learn topic? Or at your staff meetings? When people get promoted, hold up those opportunities to say, “This person did great work. They’re living up to our culture. This is what we believe in. This is what we want.” Others will look at that and say, “That person got promoted based on those behaviors. I want to behave the same way.”

Your culture is a very important asset, and you need to curate it every single day. So look for those opportunities to reinforce behaviors to drive a culture of accountability.

Strengthen Your Brand with a Culture of Accountability

May 17, 2023/0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Leadership, Project Management, Strategy /by Trevor Jones

Your brand is one of your most valuable assets, and a culture of accountability can help you protect it.

Your brand is one of your most valuable assets, and a culture of accountability is going to help you protect it. A brand is a promise, and you need to remember who you’re ultimately accountable to. Ignoring that bond of trust between you and that final accountable party, whether it’s a patient or a customer, is going to damage your brand. This comes out a lot during a crisis situation. How you handle crises or shortfalls can make or break your brand, and a culture of accountability is what’s going to drive the behaviors in those situations.

For example, Johnson & Johnson had an issue with Tylenol. Some of the pills had been tampered with. Rather than sitting there and figuring out are there specific markets or types of packaging that have been tampered with, they just said “We’re accountable to our customers.” They pulled all the product off the shelves despite the huge negative financial implication of doing so, but by taking that action decisively, they strengthened that brand and that bond of trust between them and consumers.

Contrast that with the auto industry. Many times in the auto industry, we’ve heard of safety issues with a vehicle being covered up or ignored because the manufacturers knew it would have a large financial cost to do a recall. Eventually, it always came to light. People found out, and that bond of trust was broken between the manufacturer and the driver, and ultimately, it damaged that brand.

Contrast that with another auto manufacturer, Tesla Motors. They had an issue that was a safety concern. They immediately looked at it and said, “This is a problem. Let’s recall the vehicles, spend the money, fix them, make them safe, and get them back in the hands of our drivers.” In doing so, they strengthened their reputation and their bond of trust between them and the driver, and that culture of accountability is what drove that decision.

As you think about your organization and strengthening your brand, clearly communicate who people are accountable to. Offer stories for them of expected behaviors. Let people know this is what great looks like. Make those values highly visible, and when people do it well, celebrate broadly. If they fall short, provide the feedback and make the change because it’s the sum of those daily behaviors that is going to build and strengthen your brand.

Creating a Culture of Accountability

May 10, 2023/0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Leadership, Project Management, Strategy /by Trevor Jones

Learn how to create a culture of accountability by establishing a set of principles for how you want your teams to behave.

Once you understand your accountabilities as a leader and you’ve clearly defined them for the members of your team, you need to start thinking about the broader organization, and how you can create a culture of accountability.

Culture is nothing more than the sum of our daily actions. And to change culture, you’re going to want to set in place a series of principles for how you want people to behave. And those principles are going to drive those daily behaviors. This will take time. Culture will not change overnight. But those small behaviors every single day, over time, are going to create that very strong culture of accountability. The values need to be articulated and clarified in a manner that everyone in the organization understands them. You also need to give them the latitude to behave in a manner where they’re not afraid of taking a risk and trying to live up to those values.

For example, I ran a large customer service organization at one point. We said we wanted to commit to the customer to give them great service. We also knew we had financial obligations to the broader organization. So what we did was we said we’re going to tell our associates who are on the phone with our customers to just ask themselves one question: is this right for the customer? Whatever they were thinking about doing at that moment in the interaction with the customer, they had to ask themselves: is this right for the customer? If the answer was yes, they should do it. If the answer was no, they needed to find some other solution.

Now, we got some great behaviors because of that. The associates felt empowered to help our customers. And our customers loved it. The service level scores were fantastic. Occasionally, we’d get an associate that would do something that was too right for the customer, and give away a little too much value, which then hampered us on our financial goals. So we were constantly trying to find that balance between delivering great service and meeting our financial goals. But by putting in place that one principle, we were able to shift those small, daily behaviors of our associates on the phone, and create that culture that we wanted.

I had another call center environment where we wanted to treat our customers well. And they were in collections, so it was already an adversarial relationship. We wanted to change that dynamic. So we told our associates to look for signs of willingness in our customers. Let’s believe that they want to pay us back. That they want to meet their obligations. When our associates looked at that principle and started treating our customers that way, we got very different behavior. Customers started finding new ways to pay us back. They actually put us higher in the payment hierarchy than other creditors who were beating them up on the phone, and telling them that they needed to pay now, and threatening them. We were willing to work with them. It was that small principle that we put in place that changed those small behaviors. Our associates knew they were accountable for living up to that set of principles.

As you think about your organization and creating this culture of accountability, first determine the key behaviors that you want, and make sure they’re aligned with the brand of your organization. Communicate those values, let people know who they’re accountable to, and then figure out those small desired daily actions that you want to see out of your people. Be patient. Reinforce those behaviors. And when you see somebody do it right, celebrate that success. Communicate it broadly across the organization, so people know what you’re looking for. And if you’re able to be patient, have that clarity of principle, over time you’ll have the culture of accountability you’re looking for.

Modeling the Right Behaviors for Your Team

May 3, 2023/0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Leadership, Project Management, Strategy /by Trevor Jones

Learn why modeling accountability is essential for leaders, and how it can strengthen team culture by creating a transparent and supportive environment.

As a leader, you need to model the behaviors that you want from your team members. People watch a leader’s every move. Setting that example is a critical element of modeling accountability and creating the right culture on your team. The words you use. When you say I versus we. Do you say I when something goes wrong? Or do you only say it when things go right? Do you say we when something goes wrong? Or when something goes right? It sets a tone for who’s accountable for those actions.

As you think about whether you’re modeling the right behaviors or not, some questions you should ask yourself are as follows:

Do I say I or we more frequently? And in what situations do I use those words?

Do I proactively let the team know, “Hey, I’ve made a mistake, and here’s what I’m doing to resolve it?”

Do my team members say I or we? And again, in which situations? And do I reward or praise people for owning up to a mistake and fixing it? Or do I punish them when they bring that mistake forward?

A to-do for you as a leader, as you look to model these accountability behaviors, is to pick a recent mistake you’ve made. And we’ve all made them. Then sit down and discuss it with your team. Let them know, “I made a mistake. Here’s why I made the mistake. And here’s what I’m doing to fix it.” Then go that next step and let them know, “Here’s why we’re having this conversation. I want to model the right set of behaviors for you.”

If you’re able to do this on a regular basis, and praise people for owning up to mistakes, calling things out when you make mistakes, and then driving that accountability where it belongs, you’re going to go a long way to strengthen the culture of accountability on your team.

From Accountable to Responsible

April 26, 2023/0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Leadership, Project Management, Strategy /by Trevor Jones

Learn why it’s important for your team to understand the difference between accountability and responsibility.

It’s important to understand the difference between accountability and responsibility. Accountability is an external force. It’s where a leader imposes consequences for failing to meet obligations or offers rewards if you do meet them. Responsibility is internal. It’s being able to be trusted to do what’s right when you’re not being watched. This is where you hold yourself accountable and reward or punish yourself as appropriate.

Moving from accountable, which is that external force telling you what to do, to being responsible, where you’re internally driven for doing the right thing, will set a tone for your team. People will see they need to hold themselves accountable as well. They’re going to make that shift where they’re not waiting for you to tell them what to do, but instead they’re going to do the right thing because they know it’s the right thing.

You’re going to spend less time monitoring people and more time actually getting stuff done. People will do what they need to do without being told, and you’re going to improve the moral/ethical environment of your team. People are going to do the right thing because it’s right, not because they fear getting caught.

If you’re able to help your people see the difference between accountability and responsibility, and encourage them to make that shift, you’re going to free up time for yourself and improve the overall climate of accountability on your team.

What and Who Are You Accountable To?

April 19, 2023/0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Leadership, Project Management, Strategy /by Trevor Jones

When you clearly define your accountabilities, the likelihood of you delivering the results that are expected goes up dramatically.

It’s important to understand your own accountabilities, both what you’re accountable for and who you’re accountable to. You’re obviously your own work but also your team’s work. Now be careful—this doesn’t mean do their work for them. It means you have to hold them accountable for delivering those results. And if they don’t deliver, not only are they accountable, so are you. So ask yourself the question, “What do others expect me to do? What results are they expecting of me personally, as well as from my team?”

In terms of understanding who you’re accountable to, there’s the obvious ones. There’s your team. You’re accountable to them to get them the resources they need and give them the coaching and guidance and leadership that they deserve. You’re accountable to your boss. But think more broadly about your accountabilities. You’re accountable to your colleagues and your peers and other members of the company who are relying on your results so they can do their jobs. Think even more broadly. You’re accountable to your customers, internal and external customers. You provide services to other members of your organization. Ultimately, your results drive company performance in terms of the products and services that you deliver to your ultimate customers who pay you. You’re accountable to your shareholders or the company’s owners. The financial results that you deliver on your team roll up to a broader picture, and you’re accountable for delivering your part so those people get the return on their investment they expect.

Allow me to offer an example. I work with a senior executive who is a hospital administrator. He has multiple accountabilities. He’s obviously accountable to his team. He’s accountable to his boss and the corporation as a whole. He’s also accountable to patients, even though his team doesn’t directly care for patients. The results they deliver do have an impact on the patient experience. He’s accountable to other members of the hospital staff. Because again, what his team does helps the staff do a better job. He’s accountable to physicians who work with the hospital, even though they’re external to the organization. He has to represent their perspectives and opinions to the corporation. So this one individual has multiple accountabilities to multiple people.

As you think about defining your accountabilities, ask yourself the following questions. Who’s going to be upset or disappointed if I don’t fulfill my obligations? Who’s going to be happy or excited if I do deliver those results? Who assigns me tasks or asks me to do things? Who do I offer to do things for? Once you have that clear definition of what you’re accountable for and who you’re accountable to, the likelihood of you delivering the results that are expected goes up dramatically.

11 Proven Ways to Build Rapport in Your Negotiations

April 17, 2023/0 Comments/in Books, Business Toolkit, Communications, Guest Blogger, Leadership, Strategy /by Trevor Jones

If you want better outcomes in your negotiations, you’ll want to master the skill of rapport-building. Here are 11 simple tips on how to do it.

Today’s guest post is by Cindy Watson, author of The Art of Feminine Negotiation: How to Get What You Want from the Boardroom to the Bedroom (CLICK HERE to get your copy).

If you want better outcomes in your negotiations, you’ll want to master the skill of rapport-building. Rapport is all about relationships: finding ways to make (rather than break) connections and build (rather than tear down) bridges. Building rapport diffuses potential tension as it creates a perceived shared frame of reference.

Rapport-building can be instantaneous, or it can take time to develop. It can grow naturally, or you can build it with intention. Some people seem to connect with others instantly. If you’re not one of those people, don’t panic. Contrary to popular belief, rapport-building isn’t an elusive gift you’re either born with or destined to do without.

There are many ways to build rapport in a negotiation. Here are 11 simple tips on how to do it.

Be Yourself.

Being authentic will always be more effective than trying to adopt a persona that’s unnatural for you. A lack of authenticity undermines rapport; the other party will sense it, and this will erode trust.

As you practice the skills that build rapport (including those set out here), err on the side of being yourself. Don’t get stuck in your head or overthink how you’re going about it. If you do, you’ll lose your natural charisma in the process.

Make a Good First Impression.

Study after study have shown that first impressions matter. We all have a visceral reaction to other people within seconds of meeting them. Invite a favorable reaction by getting yourself into a positive state of mind before you start the negotiation. Show up with an inviting posture, a genuine smile, and warmth in your eyes.

Find Common Ground.

While you don’t want to jump straight to business, I’m not a fan of the often-cited advice, “Use small talk to create rapport.” Instead, try to find a common interest or connection. Find your shared humanity. That’s a much better place to start.

Get Curious.

Most people like to talk about themselves. Researchers have found that people spend 60% of their conversations in “me mode.” When chatting on social media, this figure jumps to 80%.

Why not use these stats to your advantage? Show genuine interest in others. Discover what brings them joy. What are they passionate about? Get curious. Ask open questions. Stay genuinely engaged. Ask some variation of “tell me about yourself.” In doing so, you’ll build connection and rapport.

Give a Compliment.

Find something you appreciate about the other person, and then acknowledge it. A genuine compliment can go a long way to kick-start rapport.

Use the Person’s Name.

We all like to be seen. Make a point of calling the other person by name early in the conversation. It creates an immediate connection and familiarity.

A word to the wise: Be sure you have the person’s correct name. Nothing breaks rapport like mispronouncing someone’s name or, worse, calling them by the wrong name.

Be Candid.

If you want to build rapport and trust, always be the person who tells the truth. Admit when you don’t know the answer to something. Acknowledge mistakes.

We often mistakenly believe these types of admissions will undermine our credibility when, in fact, the opposite is true. It humanizes us and makes us more relatable and trustworthy. Being honest builds rapport.

Create Shared Experiences.

Spending time together and creating shared experiences outside the negotiation process can turbocharge the connection process. This doesn’t mean you have to set up a high ropes challenge or whitewater rafting adventure (both popular in today’s team-building culture). Simply pick an activity with the potential to create a meaningful connection.

Mirror and Match.

When it’s appropriate, try to mirror and match the other person’s posture and language. But be careful and discreet about it. Otherwise, your actions will be jarring and break rapport.

A good starting place is to note the other party’s speech patterns, tone, tempo, and volume. Try to match these elements to increase the opportunity for connection.

Gradually Increase Intimacy.

The more you create a personal connection, where the other party feels they know you and gets comfortable sharing with you, the more likely you’ll build the bond necessary for superior negotiated outcomes.

Gradually increasing intimacy by strategically sharing personal information can be powerful. Don’t, however, prematurely overshare and dump inappropriate private information.

Inject Humor.

Humor is the ultimate cure-all and connection-builder. Laughter releases feel-good chemicals (endorphins) in our body, which open the way for better bonding.

Practice Makes Perfect

Get comfortable with these approaches so they become natural, and you’ll slip into rapport-building mode authentically.

For women who worry about their negotiation prowess, it’s worth noting that building rapport is typically regarded as a “feminine” trait. This isn’t surprising, as women were required to develop this skill in a world where, for too long, they enjoyed so few rights. Survival depended on becoming adept at developing relationships.

If you lose rapport at any point in a negotiation, don’t ignore the elephant in the room. Be humble. Address why you lost it. Take ownership where appropriate. Apologize if necessary. Get curious and determine how to get back on track.

By building better relationships, you’ll enjoy better negotiated outcomes.

Cindy Watson is the founder of Women on Purpose, a TEDx international speaker, and the award-winning author of the Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestseller The Art of Feminine Negotiation: How to Get What You Want from the Boardroom to the Bedroom. Learn more at ArtOfFeminineNegotiation.com.

Is It Time to Revise Your Goals?

April 12, 2023/0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Leadership, Project Management, Strategy /by Trevor Jones

When your goals become irrelevant, it’s important to revise them and change your priorities accordingly.

Markets can change quickly. Those changes can alter priorities. They can render some of your goals irrelevant. When that happens, change the goal. Do so quickly so the team can change its focus to higher priority objectives. It’s foolish to continue pursuing an irrelevant goal. Be willing to change it and set new goals that are more appropriate for that new environment.

I know one startup that had an original goal of site traffic. They were concerned mostly with how many people are coming to their website. The initial funding they received was based on those initial goals. Follow on funding was based on them hitting those traffic numbers. Their business model changed. They learned more about the customer. They figured out it was much more important for them to focus on how much time a user was spending on their site instead of just overall traffic.

The company was about to have a big meeting with possible partners and a new funding source, but to have that meeting they needed money to fly the executive team out to California to meet with this new partner. When they went to the original investors and asked for money, they original investors said no. They refused to change the original goal. They said they wouldn’t provide any additional funding until the organization hit that metric, but the metric was no longer relevant. The company went under, and it was pretty sad that they did. Even though this is an example of a company versus a business unit, the lesson remains the same. When the environment changes, revisit your goals and see if they need to change.

Review your current goals. Ask, are any of them no longer relevant? Has the market changed? If they’re not relevant, revise the goal. Focus the team on something more meaningful. Change your priorities accordingly. If you’re inflexible and say, “Well, we set this goal at the beginning of the year, and, you know what, we’re going to stick with it even though the market has changed,” you’re going to get results that follow that metric. Be willing to shift. That’s a sign of maturity in your organization that you’re willing to assess the market environment and change your priorities accordingly.

Want to learn more about setting business unit goals? How about taking an entire course on it? Check out the video below to learn more about the course and get started. Or you can go directly to the course and start learning how to set business unit goals. The entire course is available at LinkedIn Learning. Enjoy!

Best Practices for Building a World Class Strategic Growth Plan

April 10, 2023/0 Comments/in Books, Business Toolkit, Entrepreneur, Guest Blogger, Innovation, Leadership, Strategy /by Trevor Jones

Learn ten best practices for creating a strategic growth plan for your organization.

Today’s guest post is by Mike Fata, author of Grow: 12 Unconventional Lessons for Becoming an Unstoppable Entrepreneur (CLICK HERE to get your copy).

A strategic growth plan is a crucial component of a company’s long-term success. It serves as a roadmap, guiding a business towards its goals by outlining objectives, strategies, and tactics. A well-constructed strategic growth plan enables businesses to navigate through market shifts, adapt to new trends, and capitalize on emerging opportunities.

This article will discuss the best practices for writing an effective business strategic growth plan, focusing on ten key points that will ensure your organization is set up for success.

Define your vision and mission

The first step in creating a strategic growth plan is to clearly define your company’s vision and mission. The vision statement should describe your long-term aspirations, while the mission statement should communicate the purpose of your business. These two elements will serve as the foundation for all subsequent decisions and actions.

Set SMART goals

Establish specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals to ensure your growth plan is realistic and effective. SMART goals are more likely to be reached and can be easily tracked and evaluated. Prioritize your goals based on their impact on the business and their alignment with your vision and mission.

Conduct a SWOT analysis

A SWOT analysis is an essential tool for identifying your company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. By examining these factors, you can better understand your competitive landscape and capitalize on your strengths, while addressing your weaknesses. This will enable you to uncover new growth opportunities and create strategies to mitigate potential risks.

Identify your target market and segmentation

Knowing your target market is crucial to creating a tailored growth strategy. Identify the specific customer segments you want to focus on and analyze their needs, preferences, and pain points. This will allow you to develop products, services, and marketing strategies that resonate with your target audience, ultimately driving growth.

Analyze your competition

Understanding your competition is essential to maintaining a competitive edge. Assess their strengths, weaknesses, market positioning, and target audience. This information will allow you to identify gaps in the market, opportunities for differentiation, and potential threats that you need to address.

Develop a unique value proposition

A unique value proposition (UVP) is a clear and concise statement that communicates the benefits of your products or services, setting you apart from your competitors. Your UVP should address your target audience’s needs and preferences and showcase your company’s competitive advantages. Developing a strong UVP is critical to attracting and retaining customers, ultimately driving growth.

Create a marketing and sales strategy

Your marketing and sales strategy should outline the tactics you will employ to attract and convert customers, focusing on channels and messages that resonate with your target audience. Consider a mix of online and offline channels, such as social media, email marketing, content marketing, and events, to reach a wider audience. Align your sales and marketing efforts to ensure a seamless customer experience, and set performance metrics to track your progress.

Establish a financial plan

A robust financial plan is a cornerstone of a successful growth strategy. Outline your expected revenue streams, expenses, and investment requirements, and create financial projections for the next 3-5 years. This will enable you to identify potential financial risks and ensure your growth strategy is financially viable.

Implement an operational plan

Your operational plan should outline the processes, systems, and resources required to execute your growth strategy. This includes hiring and training new employees, implementing new technologies, and streamlining processes to improve efficiency. Regularly review and adjust your operational plan to ensure it remains aligned with your strategic objectives.

Monitor progress and make adjustments

Finally, it’s essential to continuously monitor your progress against your SMART goals and KPIs, adapting your strategies and tactics as needed. A properly scheduled cadence of formal review meetings (weekly, monthly and quarterly), along with standardized meeting agendas and reporting structure, will set you up for success.

Mike Fata is the Chief Executive Officer of Fata & Associates and the author of Grow: 12 Unconventional Lessons for Becoming an Unstoppable Entrepreneur. He is the co-Founder of Manitoba Harvest Hemp Foods and hosts the Founder to Mentor podcast. As a 9-figure entrepreneur, certified holistic health coach, and growth coach, he motivates and inspires people to discover their authentic business passions and live their best life every day.

Measuring Goal Performance

April 5, 2023/0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Leadership, Project Management, Strategy /by Trevor Jones

Regular measurement of goal achievement helps you make adjustments to your plans.

Regular measurement of goal achievement helps you make adjustments to your plans. Clearly define the metrics you’ll measure, the data sources you’ll use, the measurement methods, and measurement frequency.

One retailer I worked with had an online, a store, and a catalog channel. Each of those was considered a separate business unit. They all had goals and they all had measures. For the online business unit, they had goals around traffic, orders, revenue, and items returned. The stores had same-store sales growth, revenue, and store budgets. The catalog business had a mailing list growth goal, revenue, orders, and returns. Every metric had well-defined data sources and methods for measuring. The organization built standard reports that were generated on a regular basis. Those reports were delivered via dashboards to the executive team.

When you’re building your measurement method, build contingency plans during the goal-setting phases. This isn’t just about keeping score. You should measure for a reason. When you’re measuring, think about what could go wrong, what could go right, and what are you going to do about it? To the extent you can, put in place triggers for executing those contingency plans.

This retailer had a plan that if same-store sales growth wasn’t where they wanted it to be, they would take action. They would cut back on staffing, delaying new store openings, and launch extra marketing to hit their numbers. There were clear break points for taking action which enabled them to decide and act quickly when business performance wasn’t what they expected.

When you’re laying out your measurement plan, make sure you go through this contingency planning so when things aren’t going well, you can turn your business around quickly.

The Inescapable Conundrums of Managing

April 3, 2023/2 Comments/in Books, Business Toolkit, Guest Blogger, Leadership, Project Management, Strategy /by Trevor Jones

Management is a practice, not a profession or a science. To appreciate the true complexities of managing, we have to understand its intrinsic conundrums.

Today’s guest post is by Henry Mintzberg, author of Understanding Organizations…Finally! – Structuring in Sevens (CLICK HERE to get your copy).

Management is a practice, not a profession or a science. It is learned largely through experience, which means that it’s primarily a craft, although some of the best managers make considerable use of art. They also use some science, in the form of analysis, but nowhere near as much as in the professions of, say, medicine and engineering. And that’s a good thing: the overuse of analysis, especially an obsessive reliance on measurement, gets in the way of effective managing.

Watch a manager at work, or step back from practicing management yourself, and you can begin to appreciate the wide variety of things that managers do. They champion change, join projects, handle disturbances, do deals. Managing is collaborating and controlling, doing and dealing, thinking and leading, and more — not added up, but blended together.

All this can be seen to happen on three planes — information, people, and action. On the information plane, managers gather and disseminate information to help their people take action. On the people plane, they lead insiders to function more effectively and link to outsiders for the benefit of the organization. And on the action plane, managers do and deal: internally, doing means engaging in projects and handling disturbances; externally, it means doing deals with outsiders — such as suppliers, funders, and partners.

All this creates enough complexity in and of itself, but to appreciate the true complexities of managing, we have to understand its intrinsic conundrums. A conundrum is some problem that cannot be resolved, although it can be alleviated. Here are eight of them that managers face:

The predicament of planning. This is perhaps the most basic of  all the conundrums, the plague of every manager. How to plan, strategize, just plain think, let alone think ahead, in such a hectic job? Put differently, how to get in deep when there is so much pressure to get it done?
The quandary of connecting. How to keep informed—in contact, “in touch”—when managing by its very nature is removed from the very thing being managed? Yesterday you were transplanting kidneys, today you are managing others who are transplanting kidneys.
The labyrinth of decomposition. The world of organizations is chopped into pieces — departments and divisions, products and services, programs and budgets, vertical silos and horizontal slabs. Managers are supposed to oversee and integrate this whole confusing affair. So, where are they to find synthesis in this world so decomposed by analysis?
The mysteries of measuring. How often have you heard that “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” The trouble is that many of the most important things to be managed, such as culture and innovation, even management itself, don’t lend themselves to easy measurement. Hence, how to manage what you can’t rely on measuring?
The dilemma of delegating. Managers who are well connected receive a great deal of information, much of it informal — opinion, hearsay, even gossip — all of which can be very useful. (What would you prefer: to find out in a sales report that you have lost your biggest customer, or to hear a rumor that this customer is thinking of taking its business elsewhere?) Thus, how is the manager to delegate when so much of their information is personal, oral, and often privileged?
The ambiguity of acting. When a manager delays making a decision to better understand a situation, everyone else can be held back from acting. But leaping to action without adequate consideration can be even more dangerous. How, then, to act decisively in a complicated, nuanced world, somewhere between paralysis by analysis and extinction by instinct?
The riddle of change. Constant change can be as dysfunctional as no change. How to manage change when there is the need to maintain continuity?
The clutch of confidence. Managing requires confidence: who wants to be managed by someone afraid of the future? But is this any better than a manager who always acts fearlessly? Accordingly, how to maintain a sufficient level of confidence without crossing over into arrogance?

How can any manager possibly deal with all these conundrums concurrently? The answer: by facing them, to alleviate their worst effects. If each can be seen as a tightrope, then to manage is to walk through a multidimensional space on all kinds of tightropes: managers have to get the balance right. These conundrums are not distractions; they are managing!

Henry Mintzberg is a Cleghorn Professor of Management Studies at McGill University in Montreal, the winner of awards from the most prestigious academic and practitioner institutions in management (Harvard Business Review, Academy of Management, Association of Management Consulting Firms, and others), and the recipient of 21 honorary degrees from around the world. He is the author or coauthor of 21 books. His latest book is Understanding Organizations…Finally! – Structuring in Sevens (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Feb. 7, 2023). Learn more at mintzberg.org.

Excerpted from the book, Simply Managing, and applied in the book Understanding Organizations…Finally! – Structuring in Sevens.

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Structured Thought: Problem Solving

Structured Thought: Problem Solving

Clearly define a problem, scope all issues related to the problem, generate potential solutions, then analyze and select the best solution by using time-tested critical thinking methods and tools.

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Structured Thought and Communication

Craft clear and compelling recommendations that resonate with stakeholders. Get your ideas approved by using a proven method for delivering executive-level communications.

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Principles of Chart Design

Principles of Chart Design

Create well-designed presentation charts that get your message across quickly and clearly to drive your audience to action. From data charts to concept charts, these methods help make your point.

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Engagement Management

Engagement Management

Whether you’re an internal or external consultant or a project leader, learn proven methods, techniques, and processes to effectively lead consulting engagements that drive your client’s success.

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Strategic Business Planning

Strategic Business Planning

Use a straightforward and effective strategic planning process that shows how to craft a clear, compelling plan for your organization - not just one time, but on an ongoing basis year after year.

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Deliberate Decision Making

Make better, faster, and more effective decisions. Apply simple yet powerful decision making tools to define decision authority, manage risk, increase accountability, and drive execution.

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Everything is Negotiable

Everything is Negotiable

Become a better negotiator in all situations – from day to day interactions to hammering out large deals. Build the skills required to get what you want and strengthen relationships while you do.

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Breakthrough Innovation

Generate and select unique strategies that separate you from the competition. Construct bold and disruptive solutions then build and execute a plan for taking those strategies to market.

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Storytelling for Leaders

Storytelling for Leaders

Create business stories that inspire people, build connections with your audience, and ultimately advance your organization's goals by using a repeatable, straightforward method.

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Storytelling for Salespeople

Create and deliver stories that will take your sales efforts to the next level. Connect with and convince buyers in all situations using memorable stories. These stronger relationships drive more sales.

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Leading through Change

Lead your organization through the most challenging times using a proven change management process. Get people through the change and back to driving performance quickly and effectively.

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Building Leadership Resilience

Building Leadership Resilience

Prepare your body and brain to be ready for and recover from your biggest challenges. Build approaches for overcoming stress, managing reactions to difficult events, and leading more effectively.

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Compelling Executive Presence

Build your ability to connect with your audience and convey your ideas in a clear and resonant way. Create meaningful connections between you and your audience to build buy-in.

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Coaching for Impact

Coaching for Impact: Foundation Course

Coach employees for performance and development more effectively by helping them identify and pursue their own solutions. Create the right environment and conditions to help them grow.

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Building Personal Resilience

Building Personal Resilience

Build the habits and learn the behaviors required to manage stress, deal with adversity, and maintain your physical and mental wellbeing. Personal resilience is a key to your ongoing success.

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Time Management Mastery

Time Management Mastery

Learn techniques to manage your time, delegate, say “no,” and be more efficient. Balance your limited supply of time with the overwhelming demands that are placed on you every day.

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